This day in baseball

Ah, those were the days.

Dec. 11, 1959: The New York Yankees traded outfielders Norm Siebern and Hank Bauer, first baseman Marv Throneberry, and pitcher Don Larsen to the Kansas City Athletics for outfielder Roger Maris, shortstop Joe DeMaestri, and first baseman Kent Hadley.

It was bad enough for the A’s to send Maris, already widely recognized as one of the most exciting young left-handed power hitters in the game, along to the Yankees and their short right field porch. But it was far worse that they did it for no defensible reason.

Yes, Siebern was a fine young left-handed-hitting outfielder. But so was Maris; exchanging one for the other accomplished nothing for the A’s, and moreover Maris was younger than Siebern, more powerful, quicker on the bases, and a far better fielder. And yes, Throneberry was an impressive young long-balling first baseman, but so was Hadley; Throneberry as well provided nothing the Athletics didn’t already have.

And Bauer and Larsen had of course once been standouts, but at this point Bauer was obviously over the hill and the tender-armed Larsen had struggled in 1959. Acquiring them wasn’t close to worth surrendering DeMaestri, Kansas City’s light-hitting but slick-fielding first-string shortstop.

The deal worked out spectacularly for the Yankees, of course, as Maris immediately blossomed into a back-to-back MVP-winning superstar. But the discomfiting aspect of the trade was the manner in which it was so transparently designed to serve the Yankees’ purposes, and their purposes only: they achieved an upgrade from Siebern to Maris while costing themselves nothing (indeed, while converting the unneeded Bauer and Larsen into a useful backup shortstop in DeMaestri). Meanwhile the Athletics improved nowhere.

Given the cozy business relationship between the Yankees’ and Athletics’ ownerships (K.C. owner Arnold Johnson held the deed to Yankee Stadium, and was thus the Yankees’ landlord), and the long string of similarly questionable trades between the franchises that had been occurring since Johnson’s acquisition of the A’s in 1954, there’s little conclusion to draw other than that this one stunk to high heaven.