Forty Years Ago, Baseball Was a Different Game

Now, I realize that as I age I become even more crotchety and convinced that the ‘good old days’ are gone, never to return. But baseball wise, this short span of time really has dumped a lot of old baseball into the dust, and I don’t think it’s returning any time soon. For my example, I’ll use the 1968 Pittsburgh Pirates.

The start of the 1968 season was the last spring the Pirates would hold spring training in Fort Myers, Florida. It would be their 14^th and last spring training there, tying a record for the Pirates for longest consecutive years at one site, matching their spring training in Hot Springs, Arkansas from 1901-1914. The Pirates this season are spending their 40^th year in Bradenton, having extorted lights from the city of Bradenton and having gotten yet another new re-creation of Pirate City, their complex across town that had been re-built just a few short years earlier. Mold is quite a problem in steamy Bradenton. The Pirates undoubtedly pump revenue into Bradenton, but I’d hate to see an accurate cost/benefit analysis. Forty years ago major league teams would have been ashamed to extort stadiums, improvements, roads, etc. from their home towns, or their homes away from home. It’s accepted business practice now. This isn’t for the better, in my opinion, or do you think the Yankees really needed help in building a new stadium?

Players have changed as well. Does anyone remember Bruce Dal Canton? He had come up in September of 1967 for the Pirates, and pitched in 11 different seasons, from 1967-77 mostly with the Pirates and Kansas City Royals. Bruce graduated from high school, went to college and graduated from California State College (it’s in Pennsylvania) in 1963. Bruce played baseball all through college, and took California State to the NAIA Finals. Certainly someone who pitched this well would be drafted? Sorry, this was before the draft system was enacted. So Bruce got a teaching certificate and taught high school science. In his spare time and in the summer, he played in the Fayette County League. After a few years of this, the Pirates signed him out of there. Amazingly enough, this league still exists. In the ‘Sports Center’ era, he’d be a celebrity, a guy from a beer league who made it to the majors! It was unusual back then, but not as unusual as it would be today, that’s for sure.

Another blast from the past that year was Bill Virdon. Bill had retired after the 1965 season and started managing in the New York Mets farm system. Well, that’s not so unusual; players do that all the time. Quite true. However the Pirates had a lot of injuries in the outfield in 1968. So, in mid July, first base coach Bill Virdon became outfielder Bill Virdon for one last time. He spent about a month on the roster, then went back to coaching full time. Did he also coach while playing that month? Of course. No need to waste. That just doesn’t happen anymore, and it still happened with a fare amount of frequency up thru the ‘60s. Ironically, probably the last player I can remember doing that was a teammate of Virdon’s on that ‘68 Pirate team, Manny Mota. The Dodgers did that with Manny at the very end of his career, adding him to the roster in September. Other than an occasional stunt, this is as extinct as Republican shame on advocating torture. Oh, how did Bill do? He went 1-3 with his last homer.

Baseball was secure as the ‘National Pastime’ back then, the lines between major leaguers and mere mortals weren’t surrounded by razor wire, most ballplayers had offseason jobs, and clubs thought that building stadiums was an expense of their own. Kinda refreshing, huh?