Chuck Tanner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death last Friday struck particularly close to the hearts of longtime Pirate fans.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the down-to-earth local kid who went away, made good, and then returned to lead his hometown club to a World Series title in 1979.\u00c2\u00a0 But as the Pittsburgh media reminisced about Tanner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life and career last week, they mostly overlooked the strange and somewhat controversial trade that brought him to the Pirates in the first place.<\/p>\n
The back story is a convoluted tale of ego and money.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Tanner managed the Chicago White Sox from 1970-1975, but following the \u00e2\u20ac\u212275 season new owner Bill Veeck hired his old buddy Paul Richards to run the club and bumped Tanner upstairs.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Tanner demurred and instead jumped to the Oakland Athletics, whose owner Charlie Finley was hoping to make one final run at a pennant before the last remnants of his early \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc70s dynasty played out their contracts and beat a path out of town.<\/p>\n
Although the Swingin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the talent they had a few years earlier, Tanner made them fun to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0They ran crazy that season, stealing 341 bases\u00e2\u20ac\u201c a modern record that might never be broken.\u00c2\u00a0 But Tanner lacked the starting pitching he needed to complement all that speed.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0The A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great run ended with a whimper \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a second-place finish, two-and-a-half \u00c2\u00a0games behind Kansas City.<\/p>\n
By October, Tanner had his eye on the Pirates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 job, which came open when Danny Murtaugh, who was gravely ill, stepped aside.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Sure, Tanner yearned to return to Pittsburgh; but as much as that, he just wanted to escape Oakland and the poisonous tendrils of the odious Finley.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owner fostered a destructive culture in which he and his players engaged in open warfare.\u00c2\u00a0 He denigrated them.\u00c2\u00a0 They hated him.\u00c2\u00a0 And Tanner was the poor sap caught in the middle, struggling to keep a simmering clubhouse from boiling over into outright mutiny.<\/p>\n
Nor was he properly compensated for his trouble.\u00c2\u00a0 Finley, a man unencumbered by the shackles of conscience, agreed to pay Tanner a salary of just $25,000.\u00c2\u00a0 He insisted the White Sox were responsible for making up the remaining $35,000 Tanner would have earned under his old Chicago contract.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Veeck, understandably, thought Finley was nuts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Tanner agreed to manage anyway, although the unresolved pay dispute loomed in the background all season.<\/p>\n
Tanner relished the chance to work for a professional organization run by sane people.\u00c2\u00a0 But in return, he offered the Pirates something of a fresh start as well. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Pittsburgh was a successful franchise throughout the 1970s, but it was as if they had been playing under a dark cloud since their 1971 World Championship.\u00c2\u00a0 Roberto Clemente was dead their best pitcher, Steve Blass, lost his ability to throw strikes; and the Bucs had lost in the NLCS three times in four years.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0By 1976, things were really starting to slide.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0With Willie Stargell apparently on the decline, the Bucs were no match the Phillies, who won the NL East by nine games.\u00c2\u00a0 Attendance barely topped one million.\u00c2\u00a0 New general manager Harding Peterson believed Tanner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s optimism and the exciting style of play he encouraged would shake things up and re-energize the fan base in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc77.<\/p>\n
On October 21, American League president Lee MacPhail ordered the White Sox to pay Tanner his $35,000 for 1976, but ordered Finley to re-work the final two years of Tanner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contract. \u00c2\u00a0Peterson saw his opening.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0He swooped in and offered Finley his choice of $100,000 or catcher Manny Sanguillen for the rights to Tanner.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Finley didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like that choice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he wanted both.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to run a finishing school for managers I want to be paid for it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he snarled to reporters.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s highway robbery without a gun, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get my pound of flesh.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Indeed, he did.\u00c2\u00a0 At first, Peterson huffily declared the deal dead.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But a couple of weeks later he cooled off, went back to Finley hat in hand, and gave the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owner exactly what he wanted \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Sanguillen, plus the cash.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Finley, who cherished every nickel, was ecstatic.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can get $250,000 for Sanguillen.\u00c2\u00a0 That would mean I would be making $350,000 for having a manager somebody else wants.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Peterson realized he was taking a big risk on his old minor league teammate.\u00c2\u00a0 It was not the first time a team had traded for a manager \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Mets landed Gil Hodges via a trade in 1967 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but it was highly unusual.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And the Mets only surrendered a second-rate pitching prospect for Hodges; here Peterson was, handing over a popular three-time all-star. \u00c2\u00a0But the arched eyebrows didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shake him.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am sure I will be criticized to some degree [but] Tanner was my man\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6We had to pay the price.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel we came out the winner.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Although it is difficult to measure the impact of a manager in wins and losses, it seems Peterson was right \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially with Sanguillen hitting an empty .275 in his lone season in Oakland, then returning to Pittsburgh to come off the bench for Tanner for three years.<\/p>\n
Tanner has been criticized for losing control of his clubhouse in the 1980s, turning the other way and whistling a happy tune while his teams stumbled along in a cocaine-addled haze.\u00c2\u00a0 Those criticisms are not without merit.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But with his ebullient, relentlessly positive personality, Tanner was the perfect leader for the high-spirited, veteran Pirate teams of the late 1970s.<\/p>\n
James Forr\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book, <\/em>Pie Traynor: A Baseball Biography (co-authored with David Proctor) was a finalist for the 2010 Casey Award.\u00c2\u00a0 He also was the 2005 winner of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chuck Tanner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death last Friday struck particularly close to the hearts of longtime Pirate fans.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the down-to-earth local kid who went away, made good, and then returned to lead his hometown club to a World Series title in 1979.\u00c2\u00a0 But as the Pittsburgh media reminisced about Tanner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life and career last week, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":734,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4362,13094,759,123,6765,13093,13091,13088,3698,13085,13084,558,13082,13083,13092,13090,13086,12629,124,2445],"class_list":["post-11992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-bill-veeck","tag-charlie-finley","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-clubhouse","tag-danny-murtaugh","tag-dynasty","tag-last-friday","tag-mutiny","tag-oakland-athletics","tag-open-warfare","tag-paul-richards","tag-pennant","tag-pirate-fans","tag-pittsburgh-media","tag-remnants","tag-tanner","tag-tendrils","tag-whimper","tag-world-series","tag-world-series-title"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t