Billy Pierce Selected for Hall of Fame
NEW YORK (Dec. 1) -- Pitcher Billy Pierce joined Ralph Kiner in the UL Hall of Fame today, winning induction on his first year on the ballot.  Pierce pitched 15 seasons, including 10 with St. Louis and four with Chicago, winning a record 279 games with 3,613 strikeouts.  He won the Cy Young Award in 1954, was nominated to three All-UL teams, and is the all-time leader in wins and innings pitched, second in strikeouts, games started, and complete games, and third in shutouts.  He had seven 20-win seasons, including 25- and 24-win seasons after being named Pitcher of the Decade in January 1961, and won two championships -- in his first season in 1951 with St. Louis, and in his last, with Chicago in 1965.

Pierce won the Cy Young Award in 1954 with a 24-6 record, 2.42 ERA and 343 strikeouts, a tally he would best by one the following year before fanning 371 in 1956.  Joining the Colts in 1962 after a year in Cleveland, Pierce was 25-6 with a 2.54 ERA and 320 strikeouts, leading the Colts to their second World Series, in which he defeated Gene Conley in Game 1 before Brooklyn swept the next four games.  After an off year in 1964, Pierce was again dominant (24-12, 2.90, 1.12 WHIP), prompting speculation that he might become the first to top 300 wins.  He entered 1965 just 26 wins shy of 300, but after a dismal start, the 37-year-old southpaw on July 12 announced that he would retire at the end of the season.

Pierce's election turned out to be closer than many pundits had expected.  He narrowly missed a majority in the first round, capturing 47 percent of the vote, forcing a runoff with Stan Musial, who won 28 percent of the first round vote, followed by Roy Campanella (13 percent) and Carl Erskine (10 percent).  In the runoff, Pierce won by a comfortable 36-24 margin, almost the exact vote count as last year's runoff between Kiner and Musial.

Hall of Fame voters will select three more inductees in 1967, 1968, and 1969 before unveiling the inaugural class in the UL Hall of Fame in 1970.

Record Payouts in Arbitration
Killebrew Gets $5.6 Million, Monuments $10 Million Over Cap

NEW YORK (Nov. 1) -- The arbitration committee awarded record payouts this year, as the average arbitration salary increased by 70 percent, double last year's rate.  Atlanta's Harmon Killebrew was awarded $5.6 million, the biggest salary in the three-year history of arbitration, and seven other players were awarded more than $4 million.  The Washington Monuments, the club with the biggest exposure (9 players), were hit hardest, as their payroll jumped $11.5 million with big payouts to MVP Dick Howser, Sammy Taylor, and Dick Stuart.  The Atlanta Hilltoppers took the second biggest payroll hit, thanks to $3 million raises for Killewbrew and Dom Demeter.  The club with the second most arbitration cases, Brooklyn, saw only a $550,000 payroll increase, as Jim Perry's $1.4 million raise was offset by paycuts for the other four.

     A record 32 players went to arbitration, but the average base salary was below $1.2 million, well below last year's $1.7 million, which partly accounts for the 71 percent increase.  Twenty-one players got salary increases, and 11 took pay cuts, including Brooklyn's Whitey Herzog and Detroit's Leon Wagner, who were reduced to the league minimum.  In percentage terms, the biggest gainers were Washington's Howser, who got a six-fold increase from $700k to $4.65 million, Monuments catcher Taylor, who jumped from $1 million to $4.57 million, and Los Angeles reliever Bob Trowbridge, who went from the league minumum $300k to $1.33 million.

     The huge arbitration payouts present the Monuments with a financial crisis, bumping the club's payroll to $71 million, $10.6 million over its cap, which is likely to force the club to either make big trades or release some of its pitching prospects like Rick Wise, Nelson Briles, Jack Aker, and Bob Veale (all with $2 million salaries) or LF Carl Yastrzemski.

 


 

TRADES

October 30 (145)
BROOKLN gets:
WAS's '68 3rd round pick

WASHINGTON gets:
SP Lew Burdette


January 2 (146)
CHICAGO gets:
SP Lew Burdette
SS Rocky Bridges
WAS '67 1st round pick

WASHINGTON gets:
RF Tommy Harper
ATL '67 2nd round pick
CHI '67 3rd round pick
CHI '68 2nd round pick
CHI '68 3rd round pick
$4 million


 

February 1 (148)
ATLANTA gets:
3B Eddie Mathews
MR Steve Barber
 C Pat Corrales

CLEVELAND gets:
SP Billy O'Dell
1B Norm Siebern
SP Billy Loes
2B Dick Green
ATL '67 4th round pick (37)
LA '67 4th round pick (46)
CHI '67 4th round pick (47)
 

League Champions

Most Valuable Player

Cy Young Award

Rookie of the Year

1951

ST. LOUIS MAROONS

Ralph Kiner, DET

Sam Zoldak, STL

Jackie Jensen, LOU

1952

WASHINGTON MONUMENTS

Jackie Robinson, NYG

Larry Jansen, WAS

Stu Miller, WAS

1953

WASHINGTON MONUMENTS

Mickey Mantle, BOS

Stu Miller, WAS

Smoky Burgess, BRO

1954

WASHINGTON MONUMENTS

Stan Musial, STL

Billy Pierce, STL

Ed Bailey, LOU

1955

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

Roy Campanella, LA

Tom Gorman, BRO

Gene Conley, BRO

1956

WASHINGTON MONUMENTS

Ralph Kiner, DET

Johnny Antonelli, LOU

Frank Robinson, LA

1957

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

STL

BRO

Granny Hamner, BRO

Gene Conley, BRO

Roger Maris, BOS

1958

LOUISVILLE COLONELS

LOU

BRO

Willie Mays, WAS

Carl Erskine, WAS

Orlando Cepeda, NYG

1959

SAN FRANCISCO SPIDERS

SF

BRO

Granny Hamner, BRO

Gene Conley, BRO

Vada Pinson, LA

1960

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

LOU

BRO

Hank Aaron, LOU

Gene Conley, BRO

Joe Gibbon, NYG

1961

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

CHI

BRO

Granny Hamner, BRO

Johnny Antonelli, LOU

Dick Howser, WAS

1962

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

CHI

BRO

Granny Hamner, BRO

Johnny Antonelli, LOU

Tom Tresh, LA

1963

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

CHI

BRO

Ernie Banks, CHI

Gene Conley, BRO

Boog Powell, DAL

1964

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

CHI

BRO

Mickey Mantle, BRO

Whitey Ford, WAS

Pete Ward, MAN

1965

CHICAGO COLTS

CHI

CLE

Ernie Banks, CHI

Johnny Podres, CLE

Dick Allen, DET 

1966

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS

CHI

BRO

Dick Howser, WAS

Johnny Antonelli, LA

Don Sutton, STL