More Whacky Trades

Following the theme of my last post, I browsed the net for some other hilarious sports trades over the years and found this article from SeattlePI.com.

Interestingly enough, one of the most infamous and utterly hilarious trades in the history of major league baseball is absent from this list: the notorious trade of Hall of Famer Dave Winfield from the Twins to the Indians.

"During the 1994 baseball strike, which began on August 12, Winfield was traded to the Cleveland Indians at the trade deadline on July 31 for a "player to be named later." The 1994 season was cancelled two weeks later, so Winfield did not play for the Indians that year and no player was ever named in exchange. To settle the trade, Cleveland and Minnesota executives went to dinner, with the Indians picking up the tab. This makes Winfield the only player in major league history to be traded for a dinner."

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Anywho, here are some of the highlights (verbatim) from the original link:

1913: When the St. Louis Browns concluded spring workouts, they didn't have enough money to pay the rent they owed on the Montgomery, Ala., ballpark where they'd trained. So they gave the local minor league team a rookie infielder named Clyde Ellsworth "Buzzy" Wares to satisfy the bill.

1920: Before he made it to the majors, Lefty Grove pitched for the Martinsburg (W. Va.) Mountaineers. In June, a storm leveled the outfield fence at the town's ballpark. The Baltimore Orioles, then of the International League, agreed to pay the price of a new fence, about $3,500, if Martinsburg would fork over Grove.

1962: In April, the Mets traded catcher Harry Chiti to the Indians for a player to be named later. On June 15, the Mets received the PTBNL, who turned out to be Chiti, making Chiti the first player to be traded for himself (in 1987, in the same sort of scenario, Cubs pitcher Dickie Noles was also traded for himself).

1971: The Kitchener Concordia Kickers of the Canadian National League deemed Istvan Gaal such a pathetic player that they swapped him to the Toronto Hungarians for a soccer ball worth $27.50. Kickers president John Fischer said, "I think it was a very fair trade. We didn't give him away for nothing."

1973: In March, Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich (a Mariners reliever in 1977) swapped families and houses. Marilyn Peterson, her youngest child and their dog went to live with Kekich. Susanne Kekich, her youngest child and their dog went to live with Peterson. The unusual trade prompted Yankees GM Lee McPhail to declare, "We may have to call off Family Day."

1983: The Seattle Breakers of the Western Hockey League traded the rights to left-winger Tom Martin to the Victoria Cougars for a team bus. At the time of the swap, Martin was playing at Denver University and had stated that he wished to play in his hometown of Victoria. The Spokane Flyers purchased the bus from Trailways in 1981 for $60,000. When the Spokane franchise folded, the Cougars purchased the bus, but it remained in the United States because Victoria could not afford to pay customs, excise and sales taxes. The Breakers finally obtained the bus for Martin as well as $35,000. "I didn't think much about it at the time," Martin recalled later. "But it was a real nice bus."

2006: Romanian soccer club UT Arad sold defender Marius Cioara to Regal Horia in exchange for 33 pounds of meat. The deal turned out badly for Regal Horia because Cioara decided to retire. A Regal Horia official told Romania's Pro Sports daily, "We are upset because we lost twice -- firstly because we lost a good player and secondly because we lost our team's food for a whole week."

1998: A Romanian first division soccer club named "Jiul Petrosani" found itself so strapped for cash that it traded one of its players, midfielder Ion Radu, to a Romanian second division team for $2,500 worth of pork. At the same time, Jiul Petrosani also transferred defenseman Liviu Baicea to another Romanian club for 10 soccer balls.