Play Mandy Brooks for Me, Then Trade Him

We are going to go back a bit further than normal for this post's subject.

Mandy Brooks was a half-season wonder for the Cubs in 1925. In 90 games, the outfielder had 46 XBH, 72 RBI and a .281 average as a rookie centerfielder. The Cubs acquired Hack Wilson for 1926 and Brooks was an afterthought. Aftger 57 PA and a sub-.200 BA he was gone from the majors, never to return.

Brooks' Baseball-Reference page lists NO transactions for Brooks, which is not surprising. Baseball worked in a different way back then, as teams frequently bought and sold and traded players from and to independent minor league teams. We were able to find a few for Brooks, though, including his entry and exit from the Cubs!

Brooks had joined the Cubs mid-season from the Columbus AA team, an independent squad. This deal was covered by the Courier-Journal from Louisville Kentucky of May 27, 1925:

 "John ("Mandy") Brooks, an outfielder with the Columbus American Association Club, has been sold to the Chicago Nationals for $33,009, an outfielder and a pitcher, it was announced here today. Brooks, who has been batting better than (??), will report to the Chicago team Friday. He came to Columbus from Peoria in the Three Eye League. Outfielder (??) will be one of the Chicago nlers who will come to Columbus."

The (??) mark indicates garbled text. We can certainly pull out from this that the Cubs sent cash and two players to Columbus for Brooks.

Brooks' Baseball-Reference page is not complete when it comes to his minor-league career. In 1926 the Cubs optioned him to Minneapolis, but that record is not represented. From Minneapolis, the Cubs sold him to Louisville for 1927. From the Courier-Journal from Louisville Nov. 18, 1926:

"Mandy Brooks will wear the uniform of a Louisville Colonel next season. He comes to the Louisville club from the Chicago Cubs in part payment for Earl Webb. Brooks finished the 1926 season with Minneapolis after starting the year with Joe McCarthy's team."

This transaction is not listed on Earl Webb's page, either.  

Brooks' Louisville career isn't covered on his page either, just a stop at Waterbury (perhaps on option from Louisville). He goes to Nashville early in 1927: from the July 12, 1927 Tennessean from Nashville:

"Mandy Brooks, who was bought a week ago today from Louisville, joined the club yesterday down in Memphis and It filled the Vol roster."

So that was a cash deal. We found one more Brooks transaction that involved a (then) future major league player. In 1928 Brooks goes to the PCL in a deal outlined in the San Bernardino Sun of June 13,1928:

"A mild housecleaning in the Oakland baseball club today swept one regular out, while a veteran and three youngsters swirled in on the back stroke of the broom. Al Bool, one of the catching mainstays of last year's pennant winning team, was the victim. , He and a chunk of cash (amount unknown) went to the Nashville club of the Southern association in a trade for John "Mandy" Brooks, husky outfielder. Brooks, a right-hander all around, was with the Chicago Nationals in 1925 and 1926. To date this season, he has hit nine home runs and batted .534 for Nashville. He will report at once."

So we were able to not only add some transactions to the Mandy Brooks file, but fill in a couple stops on his baseball resume!

Brooks from pinterest, Webb from comc.com and Bool from the great Trading Card Database site.

 

Pitcher Fernando...Rodriguez

Fernando (Freddy) Rodriguez pitched for a LONG time in the minors, from 1945 to 1962, and made a couple major league appearances with the Cubs and Phillies in 1958 and 1959.

His Baseball Reference page lists this transaction link:

• December 10, 1957: Traded by the San Francisco Giants to the Chicago Cubs for Tom Poholsky.
• Before 1959 Season: Sent from the Chicago Cubs to the Philadelphia Phillies in an unknown transaction.
• June 5, 1959: Purchased by the Los Angeles Dodgers from the Philadelphia Phillies. (Date given is approximate. Exact date is uncertain.)   

I was able to find how Freddy got from the Cubs to the Phillies...from the Roseburg, OR News Review of June 17, 1958...

"PORTLAND (AP) The Portland Beavers, currently resting in seventh place in the Pacific Coast League, Monday received outfielder Dave Melton from the Kansas City Athletics in return for pitcher Fernando Rodriguez. Melton was sent to Portland on option and Rodriguez was optioned to Kansas City's Intenational League farm club, Buffalo."

Melton evidently stayed under A's control, but Freddy was under BUFFALO control, albeit in the A's system. The next season, Buffalo became a Philadelphia affiliate, and Rodriguez went along with the ride. 

Melton returned to the A's in 1959.

Rodriguez and Melton pics stolen from www.ootpdevelopments.com

 

Cubs' Ott Not Brock: Swapped For O's Robby (Not That One)

Cubs fans in the mid sixties knew who Billy Ott was.

Ott was a young outfielder the Cubs brass thought would step into the role left by the trade of Lou Brock to the Cardinals. From the Lake Charles American of June 16, 1964...

"Brock, a speedy 24-year-old flychaser who bats left-handed, is in his fourth season in the majors. He hit .258 last season with nine homers and 37 runs batted in. He was hitting at a .257 clip for the Cubs with two homers and 14 runs driven in. The Cubs said one of the reasons they let the promising Brock go was the quick improvement shown by Billy Ott, called up from Salt Lake City."

Ott would only play in 32 major league games, hitting .164 with one homerun.

Earl Robinson was a pretty dang good major league player who somehow didn't get much chance to stick in the majors with the Dodgers and Orioles. In 147 major league games he hit .268, with an OPS+ of 109 and some power....not bad at all!

After their last shots in the majors in 1964, both Ott and Robinson found themselves in AAA for their respective ballclubs....then were traded for each other....the Valley Morning Star for April 5, 1965...

"(in an article about the Orioles trade of Mike McCormick) The Orioles also sent outfielder Earl Robinson, who is on their Rochester farm club roster, to Salt Lake City of the Pacific Coast League in exchange for outfielder Billy Ott, who they assigned to Rochester."

Ott and Robinson would each spend their last seasons at Rochester and Salt Lake City, respectively.

This trade is not on either Ott's  or Robinson's  Baseball-Reference major league pages.

It is unfair to place any of the blame for the bad Brock trade on Billy Ott, as the Cubs were plainly unhappy with Brock for some reason. They, according to a May 26, 1964 Chicago Tribune article,  were trying to get Ray Sadecki from the Cards, which would have been better in hindsight.

Ott shot from www.ootpdevelopments.com

Robinson in a Dodger spring training uni from

www.vintagecardprices.com

Don Taussig in 1959 - Not So Simple

Don Taussig was an outfielder in the Majors for the Giants, Cardinals and Colt .45s in the late 50's and early 60's.

How he got from the Giants to the Cardinals is described thusly on his Baseball Reference page...

• Before 1951 Season: Sent from the New York Yankees to the New York Giants in an unknown transaction.
• April, 1960: Purchased by Portland (PCL) from the San Francisco Giants.
• Before 1961 Season: Obtained by the St. Louis Cardinals from Portland (PCL) as part of a minor league working agreement. 

Which seems fine on the surface, but does not explain his run in 1959, which has him starting in Fort Worth, AAA for the Cubs, and finishing in Charleston for the Tigers' AAA.

We did some looking and found this from the Panama American of Apr. 28, 1959...

“The San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs exchanged farmhands Sunday with the Giants sending outfielder Don Taussig to Fort Worth in the American Association and the Cubs sending pitcher Marcelino Solis to Phoenix of the Pacific Coast League”

No mention of this deal on either Taussig or Solis' pages. So how did Taussig get to Charleston? Can't find that yet. I DID find this odd note in the July 5, 1959 Sunday Gazette-Mail (Charleston WV)... 

"Don Taussig had been traded to Corpus Christy (sp) for Outfielder Jim Miller and Miller hadn't reported.”

Talking about why Charleston had been short-handed. Taussig stayed with Charleston so that deal must have been voided, Miller never went to Charleston and stayed in the minors for awhile.

Corpus Christi WAS a Giants AA team at the time. Somehow, Taussig gets back to the Giants at the end of the season:  the Spokane Daily Chronicle of Oct 28, 1959 has him being outrighted to Tacoma by the Giants.

The Cardinals then purchase him from Tacoma as per the Eugene Register-Guard of April 12, 1960.

So there are a few tangles to unknot. I did see that Alex Cosmidis also played for both Charleston and Fort Worth in 1959, maybe they were dealt for each other....

Taussig from www.sportsmemorabilia.com

Solis (in Ft. Worth gear no less!) from the great blog 59toppsblog.blogspot.com

 

 

Bob Will, and Does Get Traded

Another trolling through random players resulted in landing on the Baseball Reference minor league page of Bob Will.

Will played for the Cubs...except for a short time in his final year, 1964, where he went to the Cardinals and their Jacksonville AAA team. With no transaction listed, we went to searching.

I found that Will had been named a player-coach for Salt Lake City for the 1964 season after being sent down. That didn't really help with the transaction.

Finally, I found an article from the Salt Lake Tribune of June 6, 1964. 

The synopsis is a bit rough, but I ground out this translation:

" Bob Will, who led the Bees in hitting last season with a .371 mark and
has been the club's most consistent hitter this season, has been sold
by the Chicago Cubs to the St. Louis Cardinal organization. THE
CARDINALS said Ray Withrow, a right-handed hitting outfielder currently
with Jacksonville, would go to the Cubs in the transaction and be assigned
 to Chicago's Fort Worth club in the Texas League. Will has been
assigned to Jacksonville, the Cardinals said Withrow was with Denver in
the Pacific Coast League last year and finished the season with the
Cardinals and was sent to Jacksonville this spring. The Cardinals said
the Will for Withrow deal was the wrap-up on the transaction that sent
Glen Hobbie to the Cards in a pitching swap that brought Lou Burdette to
Chicago. WILL HAD been a member of he Cubs since 1960, when he came up
 from Fort Worth of the American Association and batted .255. His best
year in the majors was 1961....He was player-coach of the Bees this season.
Will, however, balked temporarily when assigned to
Salt Lake and his sale supposedly was brought about by his
dissatisfaction over being assigned to Triple A."

AHA! So naming him player-coach didn't mollify him evidently, and he was dealt to the Cardinals.

This deal evidently adds to the Hobbie-For-Burdette deal as well.

That is listed on Hobbie's Baseball Reference page as:

"June 2, 1964: Traded by the Chicago Cubs to the St. Louis Cardinals for Lew Burdette."

I think we can safely edit this to:

June 2, 1964: Traded by Chicago Cubs with a player to be named later to the St. Louis Cardinals for Lew Burdette and a player to be named later; on June 5, 1964 the Chicago Cubs sent Bob Will to the St. Louis Cardinals for Corky Withrow to complete the deal.

Will and Withrow pics ripped off from eBay.


 

Upon Further Review...Don Young for Roberto Rodriguez

In the last blog we looked at a strange deal where apparently Don Young was sent to the A's Iowa farm club by the Cubs in exchange for a purchase of Roberto Rodriguez from the Cubs' Tacoma club. Now we find this from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal of June 25, 1970.


"Outfielder Don Young was sold to Des Moines of the American Association, farm club of the Oakland A's. Pitcher Jim Dunegan, a converted outfielder, was optioned to Tacoma. Lefthanded pitcher Larry Gura was recalled from Tacoma where he had a 3-4 record. The Cubs also bought the contract of righthanded relief pitcher Roberto Rodriguez from Tacoma. Rodriguez was obtained by San Diego May 25 in a conditional deal from the A's. His contract was sold to Tacoma Tuesday and brought by the Cubs Wednesday."

" a conditional deal"

Still looking but possibly a condition of that deal was that Rodriguez would either have to be returned to the A's or compensation would have to be worked out. That would make the Young-to-Iowa quid pro quo make sense...

Interesting....

Jack Warner Says No, Heads Off to Buffalo

Looks like we have found another transaction, this involving the Cubs and Mets organizations in 1965.

Bill Wakefield had an 'okay' season for the Mets in 1964, but found himself in AAA at the start of 1965. Starting at Buffalo, he suddenly shows up at Salt Lake City, a Cubs AAA affiliate, with no reason listed why.

Checking The Salt Lake Tribune from July 11, 1965 we find the following:

"Soothing the sting somewhat and filling the void in their first starting assignments were ' Bill Connors, up from Dallas- Fort Worth, and Bill Wakefield, a product of the New York Mets - organization."

and...

" Wakefield pitched a six-hitter against Arkansas Thursday. The latter, here from Buffalo in exchange for Jack Warner who refused to come..."

AHA! Checking with Jack Warner finds him going to Buffalo in 1965! So we have a trade of Warner to the Mets for Wakefield.

Seems Warner was sent out in 1965 from the big club as the Cubs recalled Billy Hoeft: Chicago Tribune of June 30, 1965.

So his refusal to report resulted in a trade to the Mets.

Wakefield and Warner pictures from their Topps cards.