Celebrating the Past - 1976 Minutia
In honor of the Fourth of July and the hold it has as a holiday on our American consciousness I find myself dwelling on loyalty, not the concept, not the affect, just the presence of it in my life. Checking the calendar it’s July 4th 2006, and this summer celebrates many milestones for me and many of them seem to tug at the blanket of my existence that I wrap myself in.
Speaking of loyalty, today is the first day that the team I have rooted longest for in my life loses the player that best exemplified the organization that he played for, Steve Yzerman , “The Captain” is retiring from the Detroit Red Wings. Though now consider a “fringe sport” by many, I have to admit I’m a big hockey fan… real big. Growing up in Detroit you can’t help but be introduced to hockey, with that came the Red Wings. I first heard of them when Mr. Hockey was still in the house, so we have a long history. So goodbye Steve Y., you will be missed and the role you held for so many years in the organization will be never filled quite the same.
If the Red Wings are my longest held association with a sports franchise then Reds are my second, and this year celebrates my 30th anniversary as a Reds fan. It was 30 years ago that I found myself (a Tiger fan) in the Ohio River Valley, in the midst of the Reds best run in franchise history. My favorite player Al Kaline had retired after the 1974 season and the Tigers were drifting towards mediocrity, a state that was easy to ignore in the huge noise of the Reds success. In the end it was the Tigers who became the only victim of my newfound love and the strength of my 30 years as a Reds fan stands on the corpse of my first sports love the Tigers, so by default the red Wings became my longest held sports love, but still they stand in the shadow of the Reds.
On this fourth I find myself in Oakland, visiting a friend I’ve known for 30 years (there’s that loyalty thing again) also in town is my first love the Tigers, whom I’ll pay a visit to tomorrow down at the corporate dish where the A’s play. A match up like that harking me back 30 years to the mid 70’s to 1976, a year that was rich in events that still touch me and the game today. If you were lucky enough to be around during that era then the following might stir memories, if you weren’t then perhaps you’ll find some nuggets that you had never heard of.
1. The Great Eight - When the 1976 season started the Reds were the World Champions, their starting nine was a phenomenal group, a mixture of speed, and power vets and youngsters. At the season though they were just a good ball team, in retrospect some had to even make their mark in the game yet. This is evidenced by the Great Eights’ lifetime numbers up until the 1976 season.
Pete Rose - 8221 ab - .310/.379/.432/.810 Tony Perez - 5799 ab - .285/.348/.484/.831 Joe Morgan - 5406 ab - .278/.396/.430/.826 Johnny Bench - 5406 ab - .271/.342/.487/.829 Dave Concepcion - 2399 ab - .256/.309/.344/.653 Cesar Geronimo - 1681 ab - .255/.319/.365/.683 George Foster - 1420 ab - .263/.320/.435/.755 Ken Griffey - 776 ab - .298/.378/.409/.786
2. Free Agency era is ushered in. Marvin Miller wields a mighty bat and the players finally achieve the freedom they have pursued. Spring Training delayed as the owners lock the players out, On March 19th 1976, fans heave a collective sigh of relief as a settlement is reached. all 24 teams open camp, it would be the last year that baseball had an even division alignment, with 6 teams in each division.
3. 1976 is known as the year that Finely tried to sell off Vida Blue, Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers for a grand total of 3.5 million dollars. This deal was vetoed by Kuhn and caused a stir that is still debated to this day. But it was a move that Kuhn made in early April that shocked many people and eventually affected the AL East pennant race. On 4-2-76 Finely traded unsigned Ken Holzman and Reggie Jackson for Don Baylor (unsigned as well) Mike Torrez and Paul Mitchell. This was a major trade that jolted the fans of both teams. Obviously it jolted Reggie as well and he decided to hold out, upsetting his new team and teammates. Eventually Reggie relented and joined the team. But he also got a 60 K raise out of it and upset his teammates, including Jim Palmer who quipped, “When is the Messiah coming?.” Eventually he did show, a month later and the Orioles who only scored 36 runs in 15 games in April needed him more then they wanted to admit, as they finished the month in last place 5 games behind the 1st place Yankees, they would finish 10 games back and in second place, leaving fans to wonder what if Reggie had shown up on time?
4. Mark Fidrych and Ron LeFlore. You can’t think of 1976 without touching on The Bird. 21 year old Fidyrch took the league by the storm, talking to the ball and completing 24 games at the age 21. Meanwhile Ron LeFlore a former felon in his 3rd year in major league ball was the lead off hitter for the American League in the All Star Game. Both were great stories for a team that had lost 107 games in the first year of Al Kalines retirement and the city of Detroit rode the Bird craze hard and fast. If you blinked you might have missed that year in Motown, it was something special and something that doesn’t happen very often, especially in this hitting era.
5. Bert Blyleven - Calvin Griffith the dinosaur of owners who ran the Minnesota Twins invented the trading dump of potential free agents when he couldn’t reach and agreement with Bert on a contract. Seeing the potential of losing an asset was shocking to the tight fisted Griffith, who shopped Blyleven to the highest bidder as the June 15th trade deadline loomed. Finally dealing him to Texas with Danny Thompson (who died of leukemia) for Roy Smally Jr., Bill Singer, Mike Cubbage, Jim Gideon and 250 K. This deal was noticed around the league and with the advent of the free agent era would soon become the way many teams would deal with the impending free agents on their teams throughout the years.
6. Here come the agents - Jerry Kapstein was a major player agent as the fee agent era started. He was a man that Reds GM Bob Howsam loathed enough to want to avoid, how bad did he loath him? Enough to deal two of his clients after the 1976 season, when he unloaded Tony Perez and Rawley Eastwick. An influential man in a changing time Kapstein caused a lot of owners to mumble under their breath, including this nugget uttered by Charlie O’ Finely “Kapstein kept me in the dark continuously, he never came to visit me once.” Somehow I found it hard to feel sorry for the old goat back then and I still can’t to this day. Go dance on your own dugout Charlie.
7. Reds Pass on Free Agents - Fresh off the 1976 title the free agent draft started, rather than pick players like most of the league the Reds decide to address their picks with a single statement and a stance that would hamstring the team in the early eighties as they faced a rebuild. the statement was this: “In fairness to the players who have won the World Championship for us two years in a row and considering how our organization is structured. We do not think it would right for the Cincinnati organization to get into the bidding contests that must come out of this draft.”
8. Charlie O’s reaction - As noted in Lords of the Realm, Marvin Miller’s greatest fear was that the market would open completely. It was Finley who suggested that very thing. Instead he watched his old players be picked up and noted “What the owners are doing is stupid, they are going to bankrupt themselves.” Over in Minnesota Griffith added, “Sports today are sick, if I’m going to stay in this I’m going to need a rich partner.”
9. Ted Turner in the House - 1976 is the year Ted Turner came to Atlanta, starting the slow change that would produce the team that we’ve been looking up at since 1991. It’s also the year that he was slapped with a tampering charge for messing with Gary Mathews, whose son is hitting .329 as I write this. The free agent season and the appearance of sharks like Ted caused the worst hot stove season for trades in years when only 14 transactions were made. Times were a changing.
10. Attendance record - 1976 was a year of great growth in attendance around the game. Nowhere was this more evidenced then in Cincinnati were the Reds lead both league in home attendance with 2,629,708, over 1.8 million went to see them on the road. Alas that still is the Reds highest attendance, and that gives them the distinction of being the only team in baseball that hit their attendance peak in the 70’s and the nearest team to them is the Dodgers whose 1982 season produced 3,608,881fannies in the seats. Only five other teams can claim to have attendance peaks in the 1980’s and their is a good chance that one of them (1988 Mets) might lose their title this season. One could only hope that a 30 year old attendance record could fall in Cincinnati some day, but if it takes only perfection to top 2.6 million then it’s not going to happen very soon.