OPINION:
I wonder if someone in Seattle celebrated the Milwaukee Brewers World Series championship. Maybe Marvin Standifer did.
We’ll get back to him later.
Neither the Brewers nor the Tampa Bay Rays are traditional, long-time organizations like the New York Yankees or St. Louis Cardinals.
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The Rays were born out of lawsuit threats and a cavernous warehouse of a stadium that hosted monster car rallies, the NHL expansion Tampa Bay Lightning, briefly, and other events — anything except baseball — from when it opened as the Florida Suncoast Dome in 1990 until the Rays played their first home game at Tropicana Field in 1998.
The world champion Brewers? A much richer — often overlooked, but well documented — birth.
The Brewers began as the Seattle Pilots, a team that played in the Pacific Northwest for the 1969 season with a roster that included a former New York Yankees ace who, when he wasn’t on the mound, was jotting down notes for what would become perhaps the greatest baseball book ever written.
Jim Bouton, a former MLB pitcher and author who passed away at the age of 80 in 2019, chronicled most of the only season the Pilots played in Seattle in his classic, “Ball Four.”
The team began on shaky ground financially when owner Dewey Soriano, a former pitch for the minor league Seattle Rainiers, had to borrow money to pay off the Pacific Coast League for the loss of the Rainiers. He also faced a moved-up timetable to take the field from 1971 to 1969 because of political pressure to have the Kansas City Royals begin play in 1969 and the American League’s demand to have the two expansion franchises enter the league at the same time to keep a balanced schedule.
The Pilots had to secure a loan for them to take the field in 1969 (In the National League, another expansion team, the Montreal Expos, also needed a last-minute bailout to begin play that season).
Bouton, a former 20-game winner for the Yankees, developed arm troubles and tried to save his career as a knuckleball reliever. He was sold to the Pilots in 1968, before they took the field. His behind-the-scenes look at life in the clubhouse, written with New York sportswriter Leonard Schecter, was an uproarious, irreverent takedown of baseball’s buttoned-down image. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn called the book — full of no-holds-barred tales of drinking, foul language, obscene jokes and other misbehaviors by ballplayers — detrimental to baseball.
But for the generation of baseball fans who grew up in the 1960s, it became the Bible, as they embraced the stories about their previously unvarnished heroes. It also made the Pilots a one-season legendary team.
“There was a lot of grousing about the uniforms,” Bouton wrote. “It isn’t only that they don’t fit … It’s that they’re so gaudy. I guess because we’re the Pilots we have to have captain’s uniforms. They have stripes on the sleeves, scrambled eggs on the peak of the cap and blue socks with yellow stripes. Also, there are blue and yellow stripes down the side of the pants. We look like g——— clowns.”
“Home in Seattle at Sicks’ Stadium, graveyard for pitchers, home run heaven, the major leagues. The clubhouse is small and crowded, and there’s no rug, just rubber runners, and the lockers are small and close together, and there was a lot of grousing about it, and (manager) Joe Schultz said, ’It’s just like the old winter league. You’ve got to follow the crowd.’
“We talked about signing autographs for kids before the game. Apparently, there is a legal rule that supposedly prohibits players from signing autographs when they are in uniform on the field. The rule is ignored. Some players were upset by this. Said (Gene) Brabender: ’If you don’t feel like signing, and you say you’re not allowed to and some other guy comes up behind you and start signing, you look like an a—.’ So (manager) Joe Schultz said ’Make it a rule, no autographs once the gates open. No autographs at all.’ Great. If a kid comes to the ballpark and wants an autograph, when the hell is he going to get it if not before the game starts? Of course, he can stand around outside in the dark for an hour or so after the game and hope he can stop us when we’re rushing to get home. Who wants an autograph that bad? Especially from a Seattle Pilot?”
A Pilot autograph might have some value now.
The Pilots struggled on the field (64-98) and at the box office, drawing 677,944. Four major league teams drew worse — the Indians, White Sox, Phillies and the expansion San Diego Padres — but the Pilots had financial problems that forced them into bankruptcy. And that’s when a car dealer named Bud Selig led a group that bought the Pilots for $9.5 million and moved them to Milwaukee. The agreement was finalized just days before the 1970 season started.
That’s how the world champion Milwaukee Brewers were created.
Seattle would get an expansion franchise in 1977 — the Mariners, who remain the only team in baseball never to make it to the World Series, let alone win one. So there may not be any Pilots fans left in Seattle — except maybe Marvin Standifer.
“A 10-year-old lad named Marvin Standifer wandered out of the stands and into the bullpen tonight, and I grabbed him, put a warm-up jacket and a hat on him and sat him on the bench,” Bouton wrote. “All his friends lined the fence and said things like, ’Is Marvin going to get in the game?’ and ’Does Marvin get to keep the hat’ and ’How come you let Marvin into the bullpen?’ And all the time Marvin had this giant grin on his face. Of course, (coach) Eddie O’Brien said, “We have to get him out of here. We could be in trouble for that.’ I said, ’Eddie, go sit down. This kid got good stuff, and we may need him later in the inning.” Eddie sat down. At the end of the inning, I hoisted Marvin back into the stands. He had a big night.”
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
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