The questions on everyone’s mind as the August 2 trade deadline approaches are where Juan Soto will end up, or if the Angels will part ways with Shohei Ohtani. But what if a GM decides to trade a player for the Phillie Phanatic or for two Dodger Dogs? It might not be as far-fetched as you think – here’s a look back at some of the weirdest trades ever made in baseball history.
One day, two games, two dugouts
A hundred years ago, the Cardinals and Cubs traded outfielders between games in a Memorial Day double-header. To see also : 10 Non-Horror Games That Are Really Scary | Screen Rat.
On the morning of May 30, 1922, Max Flack played on the Cubs’ right field at Wrigley Field, then called Cubs Park. Cliff Heathcote was the starting center outfielder for the visiting club, which had launched its iconic bird-on-bat logo two months earlier. In Chicago’s 4-1 victory, Flack went 0 for 4 and Heathcote went 0 for 3, but their general managers must have seen something they liked in the opposing outfield. At the end of the game, they announced a 1 for 1 exchange of the two players.
Both players started the afternoon game in the right field for their new clubs. Heathcote went 2 for 4. Flack was immediately placed at the top of St. Louis’ order for Game 2, going 1 for 4 and picking up an assist at home plate. But that wasn’t quite enough, as the Cubs also won Game 2, 3-1. Although the Cubs swept the Cardinals that day, Heathcote and Flack went home with a win apiece.
The trade between games seemed to work for both players. Flack ended his career in St. Louis, retiring as a Cardinal in 25, and Heathcote spent the next eight years with the Cubs.
Oyster Joe
Joe Martina spent 22 years in organized baseball as a pitcher and shortstop. He won the World Series in 1924 with the Washington Senators, his only major league season. Born and raised in New Orleans by an oyster merchant father, Martina’s family business earned him the nickname “Oyster Joe” from teammates and sportswriters.
So it was fitting that in ’29, Martina negotiated her own release from the Dallas Steers of the Texas League in exchange for two barrels of oysters. On the same subject : Laporta: “Frenkie de Jong will travel to the United States”. Martina reportedly offered a barrel, but the Steers held for two and gave Dallas sportswriters the extra.
This news clipping, from The Austin American, reported that minor league pitcher “Oyster Joe” Martina was traded for two barrels of oysters in 1929.
The Austin American via Newspapers.com
Although not technically a trade, the oyster deal secured Martina her own rights and allowed her to join the Cotton States League the following season. He adapted for the Lake Charles Newporters and later signed with the Monroe Drillers – it’s unclear if Molluscs were involved in the deal.
Fowl play
Johnny “Binky” Jones was the shortstop for minor league Chattanooga Lookouts in 1930 before owner Joe Engel traded him to the Charlotte Hornets of the Piedmont League. Read also : Season 2 of Firefly Lane is coming to Netflix in August 2022. The return? A 25 pound turkey.
“I think I outsmarted Joe on this one,” Charlotte club owner Felix Hayman said. “It’s off-season for turkeys and I have plenty here in my butcher shop.”
Jones was traded for a 25-pound turkey after the 1930 season, according to this Associated Press article, as it appeared in The Huntsville Times, Jan. 31, 1931.
The Huntsville Times via Newspapers.com
Engel used the bird to entertain the Southern Baseball Writers Association. He treated the writers to a banquet at Engel Stadium, where they received a turkey and a sign that read “courtesy of Johnny Jones”.
Jones would have been a holdout for Charlotte the following season and does not appear on any of Charlotte’s future rosters. The Hornets looked fine without him, going 100-37 in Season 31 and fielding a team considered one of the best minor league teams of all time. Jones never seemed to return to organized baseball – being traded for Poultry might have been hard to swallow.
And for the turkey? “I wonder what the turkey would feel like to be traded for Johnny Jones,” said Zipp Newman, president of the writers association. “Fortunately it wasn’t a parrot.”
Hall of Fame-worthy fence
Robert Moses “Lefty” Grove is a member of the 300-win club and has led the ERA majors nine times. But before his Hall of Fame major league career began, Grove was traded for a fence.
In 1920, Grove was 20 and pitching for the Martinsburg Mountaineers, a Class D minor league team from West Virginia. The Mountaineers field was missing an outfield fence, after it was knocked down by a storm and the club could not afford a substitution.
Grove’s 1.68 ERA caught the eye of scouts, including one Jack Dunn, who had already signed Babe Ruth to his first professional contract. The Mountaineers agreed to sell the rights to Grove to Dunn’s minor league Baltimore Orioles for between $3,000 and $3,500 (reports vary) – exactly the price of the outfield fence Martinsburg had need.
Before becoming Hall of Fame announcer and Detroit Tigers icon, Ernie Harwell was traded to the Dodgers for a minor league player.
Kirthmon F. Dozier/USA TODAY Sports Network
Broadcaster for ballplayer
Longtime Dodgers announcer Red Barber had to take time off from the team in 1948 due to a bleeding ulcer, and GM Branch Rickey found a replacement in Ernie Harwell, then calling games for the minor league Atlanta Crackers. Only one problem: the Crackers wanted a player in exchange for releasing their broadcaster from his contract.
That’s how Cliff Dapper, then a Class AAA catcher for the Montreal Royals, ended up being the only baseball player ever traded for a broadcaster. Dapper spent one season with the Crackers as a player-manager and had a .281 batting average.
Harwell called up the Dodgers for a year and spent most of his Hall of Fame baseball broadcast career with the Tigers. He and Dapper first met in 2002, the year Harwell retired.
Traded for themselves
There are very few occupations in baseball that everyone can agree are objectively equal. But there are four players in MLB history who have had exactly equal performance: themselves. Each of these four players was traded for a player to be named later, who would ultimately turn out to be…themselves.
Catcher Harry Chiti was the first player in baseball history to be traded for himself. Cleveland sent him to the Mets for a player nomination later on April 25, 1962, only to pick him up June 15 as a player. Similarly, in 1980, the Yankees traded wide receiver Brad Gulden to the Mariners, and Gulden was sent back to New York a year later. Pitcher Dickie Noles was sent from the Cubs to the Tigers for just 33 days in 1987 before being sent back to Chicago. The Tigers were involved in a similar trade again in 2005, when they received infielder John MacDonald from the Blue Jays in July, returning to Toronto in November.
Trading personal lives
It wasn’t exactly a league-sanctioned trade, but the trade between Yankees players Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich remains one of the weirdest ever. In 1972, the two Yankees pitchers switched lives, swapping homes, wives, children and even dogs.
They announced the trade during spring training in 1973, in separate press conferences. “Don’t say it was a wife swap, because it wasn’t. We didn’t swap women, we swapped lives,” Kekich said.
A story looking back at the Peterson-Kekich life swap from July 31, 2000, Sports Illustrated’s “Where Are They Now” issue.
MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn spoke out against the arrangement, saying, “I regret what happened and am appalled at its effect on young people.” Kekich was traded to Cleveland in June of that year, and he eventually separated from Peterson’s estranged wife. Peterson, a one-time All-Star in 1970, was also traded to Cleveland a season later. Peterson and former Susanne Kekich are still married to this day.
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