Blog by Armour/Levitt on the changes affecting player movement

[charlieoscar]

Mark Armour and Daniel R. Levitt wrote a book called In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball and they followed that up with a couple of blogs: The 25 Best GMs in Baseball History and one currently running, Important Moments in Team Building. I would recommend this latter. It currently has 18 of the planned 25 discussions posted (the links to all may be found on the link provided above).

1. The Reserve Clause (1879)
2. NL-AL Peace Agreement (1903)
3. The Federal League War (1914)
4. The Sale of Babe Ruth (1920)
5. The Trade Deadline (1922)
6. The Anti-Trust Exemption (1922)
7. Branch Rickey’s Farm (1925)
8. The Farm System Goes Legit (1932)
9. Chasing Pennants in Boston (1935)
10. Jackie Robinson (1947)
11. Bonus Rule (1953)
12. Interleague Trading (1959)
13. Amateur Draft (1965)
14. Collective Bargaining Agreement (1968)
15. Free Trade (1971)
16. Binding Salary Arbitration (1973)
17. Catfish Hunter (1974)
18. Andy Messersmith (1975)

 

[E5 Yaz]

Separate entries on Hunter and Messersmith, and not one on Curt Flood?

 

[nolasoxfan]

Does Charlie Finley’s sale of Rollie Fingers & Joe Rudi to the Red Sox--and then reversal of the sale by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn--merit an entry?

Also, what E5 says ^^.

 

[charlieoscar]

They discuss Curt Flood under Messersmith (#18), probably because the arbiter ruled in favor of Messersmith (and Dave McNally, who had retired but joined the case anyway). Flood's case went to the Supreme Court but they ruled against him.

He mentions the Fingers/Rudi trade under Charlie Finley, who was not included in the 25 Best GMs blog because they left out any that had an ownership role (there is a search box under Visit the Book Website). "Bowie Kuhn voided the sales, claiming they were not 'in the best interests of baseball.' Finley unsuccessfully sued Kuhn for restraint of trade. Even with the passage of time, it is hard to find justification for Kuhn’s action, other than trying to destroy Finley."