December 23, 1975: The Reserve Clause Is Killed

Peter Seitz

December 23, 1975, 50 years ago: The reserve clause is struck down, changing baseball forever.

The clause -- nothing Christmassy about this -- began in 1879, when the National League instituted it, allowing teams to reserve players for each season, unless a player opted out of his contract and did not play in the league for a year. This allowed the team owners to control salaries, since the players could not play one team owner off another and get higher bids for their salaries.

In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed. To some people in baseball, the reserve clause sounded like a violation of that act. In 1922, in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise, saying, in a 9-0 unanimous vote, baseball was an "amusement," therefore did not constitute "interstate commerce," and therefore antitrust laws did not to apply to it. That ruling has never been overturned by a later Supreme Court ruling.

So opponents of the reserve clause had to find another way to get it struck down. In 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies, and, having a home and a business in St. Louis, and believing Philadelphia to be a racist city, he didn't want to go. He contacted the Chairman of the Major League Baseball Players' Association, Marvin Miller, to see what could be done about it.

Curt Flood

Miller decided that the reserve clause was a legitimate basis for negotiation in collective bargaining between players and owners. The case of Flood v. Kuhn went to the Supreme Court in 1972, and the decision was 5-3 in favor of the owners.

Finally, Miller got the team owners to agree to impartial arbitration. What he needed was two players to challenge the clause, by playing the 1975 season without signing a contract. This was because Miller realized that the clause only reserved the player for one year. The owners had always interpreted it to mean the player was reserved until he was released: Even if traded, his new team assumed the reservation.

Marvin Miller

It had to be two players, so that it wouldn't look like one embittered player, as Flood, fairly or not, seemed to be. Both players turned out to be pitchers. Dave McNally had been traded from the Baltimore Orioles to the Montreal Expos, and had determined that 1975 would be his last season, as he planned to retire to his ranch in Montana. So he had nothing to lose.

Andy Messersmith had much to lose. Born on the Jersey Shore in Toms River, and raised in the Orange County suburbs of Los Angeles, the righthander was 29, and had gone 20-6 in helping the Los Angeles Dodgers win the National League Pennant in 1974. He was in position to make a great deal of money if he could put his skills up for bid. But Miller convinced him that striking the reserve clause down was more important. So he played the '75 season with the Dodgers, without a contract, turned 30, and went 19-14.

Andy Messersmith

In an interview with The Sporting News for the 10th Anniversary of the decision, Messersmith said, "It was less of an economic issue at the time than a fight for the right to have control over your own destiny. It was a matter of being tired of going in to negotiate a contract and hearing the owners say, 'OK, here's what you're getting. Tough luck.'"

The owners were terrified. There is one thing that a sports team owner values more than money, and that is control. If the clause were struck down, the owners would have to pay more in salaries, but, from their perspective, the bigger problem was that they would lose some measure of control over the players' fates. They could have compromised, but were too stubborn and set in their ways to do so.

So the decision went to arbitration. A three-man panel was chosen. Miller represented the players. John Gaherin, the chief negotiator of the MLB Player Relations Committee, argued on behalf of the team owners. Together, they found an arbitrator acceptable to both of them: Peter Seitz, a 67-year-old lawyer who had negotiated New York City's labor relations law a decade earlier.

On December 23, the ruling was handed down. Surprising no one, Miller sided with the players, and Gaherin sided with the owners. Seitz had the deciding vote, and he sided with the players, saying:

The grievances of Messersmith and McNally are sustained. There is no contractual bond between these players and the Los Angeles and the Montreal clubs, respectively. Absent such a contract, their clubs had no right or power, under the Basic Agreement, the Uniform Player Contract or the Major League Rules to reserve their services for their exclusive use for any period beyond the renewal year in the contracts which these players had heretofore signed with their clubs...

The leagues involved in these proceedings, without delay, shall take such steps as may be necessary to inform and instruct their member clubs that the provisions of Major League Rules 4-A(a) and 3(g) do not inhibit, prohibit or prevent such clubs from negotiating or dealing with respect to employment with the grievants in this case; also, that Messersmith shall be removed from the reserve list of the Los Angeles Club and McNally from the reserve or disqualified lists of the Montreal Club.

The next day, the owners fired Seitz as arbitrator. But that did nothing to change the official result of his decision: The reserve clause was mortally wounded. It wasn't quite dead, as the owners had the right to appeal. On February 4, 1976, the Seitz decision was upheld in a federal district court. On March 10, it was upheld in a federal appeals court.

Finally, rather than take the apparently inevitable beatdown from the U.S. Supreme Court, the owners decided to make a deal. On July 12, an agreement was reached on a 4-year labor deal, giving players with at least 6 years' play in the major leagues the right to free agency. (This would later be reduced to 5 years.) Finally, on August 2, 1976, the players voted on ratification, and the reserve clause was formally buried.

A few years later, Cardinals owner and Anheuser-Busch beer magnate Gussie Busch met with the man he had traded to unwittingly set all this in motion, Curt Flood. No owner had been more vehement than Busch that the reserve clause had to be maintained, or else baseball would be "destroyed." But Busch told Flood he was right, and the owners were wrong, and apologized to him.

Flood had sacrificed his career for Messersmith and all the players who came after him. Messersmith signed with the Atlanta Braves, for $1 million over 3 years. But he didn't pan out with them, due to injuries. He went 11-11 in 1976, and only 5-4 in 1977. He was traded to the Yankees for 1978, but made only 7 appearances, going 0-3.

The Yankees released him, and, with some irony, he signed as a free agent with the Dodgers. This was possible because their owner, Walter O'Malley, champion of the cheap, had died, and his son, Peter O'Malley, was one of the owners willing to pay big money if he thought it would bring big results. In Messersmith's case, it didn't: He made just 11 appearances, going 2-4, and was done at age 34.

Messersmith later coached at a community college in Northern California, while McNally worked on his ranch and ran a car dealership. Neither worked in professional baseball again.

Seitz died in 1983, Flood in 1997, McNally in 2002, Miller in 2012. As of December 23, 2025, Messersmith is still alive, age 80.

Analyzing the 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame Vote

Yesterday, there were 2 new players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America:

* Derek Jeter. The Yankee shortstop of 1996 to 2014 getting in surprised no one. What did is that he got 396 of a possible 397 votes. That's 99.7 percent of the vote. Just 1 voting member of the BBWAA refused to vote for him. Last year, his longtime teammate Mariano Rivera became the 1st-ever unanimous honoree. If Jeter doesn't get in unanimously, I don't see anyone else being so honored.

I would understand it if there were 5 people who didn't vote for him, or even 2. But one? I don't yet know who he is, and I don't favor him getting harassed over this for the rest of his life. But I do think he should come to Yankee Stadium on Opening Day, and stand before a microphone, and explain his vote to the fans.

* Larry Walker. The right fielder played for the Montreal Expos from 1989 to 1994, the Colorado Rockies from 1995 to 2004, and the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004 and 2005. He was a 5-time All-Star, a 7-tie Gold Glove, a 3-time National League batting champion, and in 1997 led the NL in home runs and won its Most Valuable Player award. It was his 10th and final year on the ballot. He got 76.6 percent of the vote, and is the 2nd Canadian native and/or citizen in the Hall, following Ferguson Jenkins.

These men got the necessary 75 percent of the vote. They will join the honorees by the Modern Baseball Era Committee, one of the groups that took the place of the old Veterans Committee: Ted Simmons, catcher for the 1970s St. Louis Cardinals and the 1980s Milwaukee Brewers; and Marvin Miller, Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, the players' labor union, from 1966 to 1982. He had been denied election several times, most likely due to his having exposed the team owners as greedy and swindling players, before his death in 2012.

They will also join the late Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe, who was posthumously given the Hall's award for sportswriters, the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, named for the longtime publisher of The Sporting News, once known as "The Bible of Baseball"; and Ken Harrelson, a slugger for 4 teams in the 1960s, now a broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, given the Hall's award for broadcasters, the Ford Frick Award, named for the sportswriter who served as NL President, and later as Commissioner of Baseball, and himself a Hall inductee.

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There were 4 players who got between 40 and 75 percent of the vote, all of them with a higher percentage than they got last year, missing this time, but suggesting that they will eventually get in through the writers' ballot: Curt Schilling, 70.0 percent; Roger Clemens, 61.0 percent; Barry Bonds, 60.7 percent; and Omar Vizquel, 52.6 percent.

It should be pointed out, though, that Schilling, Clemens and Bonds were each in their 8th year on the writers' ballot. Where once a player fell off the ballot if he failed 15 times, now, that threshold is 10. In other words, if they don't get elected in 2021 or 2020, they will have to wait for the Modern Baseball Era Committee.

Schilling has over 3,000 career strikeouts and an enviable postseason pitching record, but he might not be in yet because of all the feathers he's ruffled. If character truly counts, he goes from a good choice (but not an absolute choice) to a borderline choice.

And speaking of character and for how much it counts, Clemens and Bonds are still under the steroid cloud, despite Clemens' acquittal in a court of law. And I'd still like that bloodstain on Schilling's famous sock tested.

The fact that Clemens and Bonds, both of whom have overwhelming career statistics, are getting closer (but not much closer) to the magic 75 suggests that maybe, just maybe, the writers believe they have been punished enough for whatever cheating they may have done, and are getting closer to being willing to overlook it.

Or maybe they're just warming up for the election of 2022, when both Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz will become eligible. But, based on how the baseball world reacted to each of these men, we can guess that Big Papi will be elected that year, and A-Rod will not.

This is despite the facts that, when he got caught, A-Rod came clean, and Big Papi got caught, and continues to lie about it to this day. People hate the Yankees, and, as the Yankees' biggest rivals, they love the Red Sox, and they want to believe that the Yankees' achievements are illegitimate, while their opponents' achievements are worthy of admiration, and not of suspicion. The truth is, it shouldn't work that way, given the evidence that we have.

If you are wondering about the other major known or suspected steroid cheats: Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro have failed to get 5 percent of the votes on a ballot, and thus have dropped off the ballot completely, and are waiting to become eligible through the Veterans Committee. Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield and Sammy Sosa are hanging on, and I'll get to them shortly.

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The following players got between 5 and 40 percent of the vote, making it unlikely that they will ever get in through the writers' ballot:

* Scott Rolen, 35.3 percent in his 3rd year. In 1 year, he jumped 18 percent, suggesting he could make it. The Hall doesn't have many 3rd basemen, and this may work to Rolen's advantage. After all, for most of his career, the only 3rd baseman with notably better stats and a comparable fielding acumen was A-Rod.

* Billy Wagner, 31.7 percent in his 5th year. Among left-handed pitchers, only John Franco has more career saves (barely, 424 to 422). What hurts Wagner is the statistics that make him, arguably, the worst relief pitcher in postseason history, even worse than Armando Benitez.

* Gary Sheffield, 30.5 percent in his 6th year. Over 500 home runs, but that asterisk likely means it's the Veterans Committee or bust.

* Todd Helton, 29.2 percent in his 2nd year. This nearly doubles his percentage from last year. Being a hitter for the Colorado Rockies, in the high elevation of Denver, hurts him, as it had hurt Walker. But Walker now getting in may have, as was said yesterday, "taken the curse off of Coors Field." And being a contact hitter, a hitter for average, first and a power hitter second may actually help him.

* Manny Ramirez, 28.2 percent in his 4th year. He 5.4 percent over last year. Here's a guy who, like Clemens and Bonds, was good enough that he didn't have to cheat, but he did anyway. And he proved himself to be someone of a very low character. In spite of over 500 home runs, I don't think he'll ever get in.

* Jeff Kent, 27.5 percent in his 7th year. Being the all-time home run leader at the position of 2nd base has helped his Hall of Fame chances about as much as a degree in ancient astrology has helped someone go from barista to manager at Starbucks.

* Andruw Jones, 19.4 percent in his 3rd year. Here's a guy who played 17 major league seasons, reached the postseason in 13 of them, hit 434 home runs and won 10 Gold Gloves. How could he not even get 20 percent of the Hall of Fame vote?

* Sammy Sosa, 13.9 percent in his 8th year. With steroids, he hit 609 career home runs. Without them, he might have had half as many. He's not getting in unless the Veterans Committee is really lenient about performance-enhancing drugs.

* Andy Pettitte, 11.3 percent in his 2nd year. He was far more honest about what he did (very briefly) than some others we've mentioned. He won 256 games in the 5-man rotation era, and a record 19 more in postseason play. But he didn't gain much over last year, and the writers may be holding his Yankeeness against him.

* Bobby Abreu, 5.5 percent in his 1st year. Very good player, and clean as far as we know, but he'll never get in.

These players, all in their 1st year of eligibility, got very few votes, and thus fell off the ballot completely: Paul Konerko, 10 votes for 2.5 percent; Jason Giambi and Alfonso Soriano, 6 votes for 1.5 percent; Eric Chavez and Cliff Lee, 2 votes for 0.5 percent; and Adam Dunn, Raul Ibanez, Brad Penny and J.J. Putz, 1 vote for 0.3 percent.

Remember when Lee was supposed to be the best pitcher in baseball? He, Konerko and Soriano may have better luck when they become eligible through the Modern Baseball Era Committee.

These players, all in their 1st year of eligibility, got no votes at all, and thus fell off the ballot completely: Josh Beckett, Heath Bell, Chone Figgins, Rafael Furcal, Carlos Pena, Brian Roberts and Jose Valverde.

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Based on the preceding, who is likely to be elected next year? Among the first-time hitters are Torii Hunter, Shane Victorino, Grady Sizemore and Nick Swisher. Unless the voters consider Hunter's 9 Gold Gloves along with his 2,452 hits, 353 of which were home runs, neither of which is a HOF stat by itself, I don't think any of them gets in.

Among the first-time pitchers are Tim Hudson, Mark Buehrle, Dan Haren, Barry Zito and A.J. Burnett. Hudson and Buehrle are borderline cases at best, and the others aren't even that.

It's possible that no first-timers will get in next year -- as opposed to 2022, when the first-timers will include the aforementioned A-Rod and Big Papi, and also Mark Teixeira and Jimmy Rollins, who are less likely, although not because of steroid use, because they've never been seriously suspected of it.

Therefore, with 2022 probably being Ortiz' year, and maybe also A-Rod's, 2021 could be it for Schilling, Clemens and Bonds. If they don't get elected in 2021, then it's the Modern Baseball Era Committee for them -- which, unlike the BBWAA vote, will include former players, and maybe the respect they've generated from their peers will help.

If they don't get in in '21, then, in '22, the steroid question will be forced with the eligibility of A-Rod and Papi.

Two years from now, give or take a few days, we will know whether the writers are willing to overlook PED use for all, some, or none. Given what we have seen, about their feelings for the Yankees and the Red Sox, I'm still thinking it will be Clemens and Ortiz in, and Rodriguez and Pettitte out, with Bonds a toss-up. After all, it is widely presumed that Clemens wasn't cheating while with the Red Sox.

April 14, 1917: Marvin Miller, Baseball Hero, Is Born

April 14, 1917, 100 years ago: Marvin Julian Miller is born. In Brooklyn. So, to Walter O'Malley, the man who was de facto dictator of baseball from 1955 to 1979, that alone was Strike 1.

While O'Malley, part owner of the Dodgers starting in 1942, and controlling owner from 1950 until his death in 1979, made his fortune foreclosing on houses as a lawyer for the Brooklyn Trust Company during the Great Depression, Miller took a different path, with his career as a lawyer, representing people who actually worked for a living, in his case the United Steel Workers. For O'Malley, that was Strike 2.

Then Miller became Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1966. A union that directly challenged the team owners. For O'Malley, that was Strike 3. But Miller would end up hitting a home run off him. And you wonder why O'Malley is in the Baseball Hall of Fame and Miller isn't.

In 1992, Red Barber said, "Marvin Miller, along with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, is one of the two or three most important men in baseball history." At the very least, Red was right as far as the last 100 years are concerned.

The Executive Director of the MLBPA from 1966 until 1982, Miller died on November 27, 2012. He was 95. He still wasn't yet elected to the Hall of Fame.

UPDATE: He was finally elected to the Hall of Fame in 2020.

Marvin Miller, 1917-2012

Marvin Miller has died.  He may have been the most important person in baseball since Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson reintegrated the game 65 years ago.

He is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  He lived to be 95, and they didn't elect him.

Why? Because he pissed the team owners off, that's why.

Here's Tom Verducci's article on him for SportsIllustrated.com... through Comunitee.com, a website I help produce at work.

He'll probably never be elected. They elected his 2 main antagonists, Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and O'Malley's puppet Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn. They didn't elect Miller.

But when Ken Burns was doing interviews for his Baseball miniseries, he made sure he interviewed Miller.

Every professional athlete in this country, and every sports fan, is better off for Marvin Miller having gotten involved.

The owners don't see it that way, even though he, far more than they, is responsible for Major League Baseball teams going from being worth $5 million half a century ago to being worth $500 million or more today.

These are very intelligent men, who become idiots thanks to their own greed.

Miller made sure that players had their say. As Ken Singleton, then an outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles and now a broadcaster for the Yankees, put it a few years ago, "The owners have been screwing us for a hundred years. We've got 75 years to go."

UPDATE: Miller has no gravesite. He donated his body to New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, for medical research.

Top 10 Scariest People in Baseball History

A Halloween Special: The Top 10 Scariest People in Baseball History.

10. David Freese. Especially if you live in Texas.

9. Marvin Miller. The one man who ever scared the baseball team owners.

8. Dual Entry: George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin. How could I not put them together?

7. Bob Gibson. "I didn't throw at a lot of batters, but when I did, I made sure I ht them." Gibson was the man Pedro Martinez only thought he was.

6. Carl Pavano. A zombie for the Yankees, a monster when he played for anyone else.

5. Bud Selig. He sucked the blood out of the 1994 postseason and the 2002 All-Star Game.

4. Walter O'Malley. He haunts Brooklyn to this day.

3. Ty Cobb. If you've ever heard of him, you know why.

2. Kevin Mitchell. Not because of the cat incident that Dwight Gooden apparently made up, but because of his curse on the Mets, now 25 years old.

1. Babe Ruth. He's been dead for 63 years, and he still scares the hell out of people, especially Red Sox fans.

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October 31, 1887: Edouard Charles Lalonde is born. “Newsy” (from working in a newspaper plant) was one of early hockey’s greatest stars, winning 7 scoring titles and Captaining the Montreal Canadiens to their first Stanley Cup in 1916. On December 29, 1917, in the first-ever NHL game, he scored a goal on route to the Canadiens’ 7-4 victory over the Ottawa Senators. In 1922, the Canadiens angered him and a lot of their fans by trading him to the Pacific Coast Hockey Association’s Saskatoon Sheiks, but the Habs got future Hall-of-Famer Aurel Joliat in the deal.

From his retirement in 1927 until Maurice Richard surpassed him in 1954, his 455 goals in all leagues in which he played combined stood as a pro record. He was also the best lacrosse player of his era, and in 1950, he was named athlete of the half century in lacrosse. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1950, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, and the Sports Hall of Fame of Canada. He had lit the torch when the Sports Hall of Fame opened in Toronto in August, 1955. In 1998 he was ranked number 32 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, making him the highest-ranking player on the list who had played in a professional league before the founding of the NHL. He was the first Canadiens player to wear Number 4, and Joliat got it after the trade, but it was retired for later star Jean Beliveau.

October 31, 1933: Phil Goyette is born. The center won Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens in 1957, ’58, ’59 and ’60. He was the first coach of the New York Islanders in 1972-73, but was fired due to a poor record midway through the season.

October 31, 1942: Dave McNally is born. He pitched a complete game to clinch the 1966 World Series for the Baltimore Orioles, and won another game and hit a grand slam in it to help them win it in 1970. His career won-lost record was a sterling 184-119. But he’s best known as one of the two pitchers, along with Andy Messersmith, who played the 1975 season without a contract to test the legality of the reserve clause. McNally, by then with the Montreal Expos, had been injured, had a successful ranch in his native Montana, and was ready to retire anyway, so he was an ideal player to make the test, since he didn’t need the money. The clause was overturned.

Also on this day, David Ogden Stiers is born. Best known as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, the pompous but sometimes surprisingly human surgeon on M*A*S*H, he has spent much of the last few years doing voiceovers for PBS documentaries – in his real voice, not in Charles’ Boston Brahmin accent. I still can't believe "Chahles" wore a Brooklyn Dodger cap in one episode.

October 31, 1943: Brian Piccolo is born. The All-American running back from Wake Forest overcame his natural prejudice to help Chicago Bears teammate Gale Sayers come back from a devastating knee injury, then developed lung cancer at died at age 26.

Shortly before Piccolo’s death, Sayers was given the NFL’s most courageous man award for winning the 1969 rushing title on a knee with no cartilage in it. At the award ceremony, he said he didn’t deserve the award, because Piccolo was showing more courage. “I love Brian Piccolo,” he said, “and tonight, when you get down on your knees to pray, I want you to ask God to love him, too.” The Bears retired Piccolo’s Number 41. In the 1971 film Brian’s Song, Piccolo was played by James Caan, and Sayers by Billy Dee Williams, career-making roles for both men.

October 31, 1946: Stephen Rea is born. He starred in The Crying Game and was nominated for an Oscar for it. He’s best known in the U.S. as Inspector Eric Finch, a good guy who figures out that he’s really working for the bad guys, in V for Vendetta, it was because of that film that he was the only actor besides Colin Firth that I recognized from the original, British soccer, version of Fever Pitch.

October 31, 1947: Frank Shorter is born. He won the Olympic marathon in 1972, and finished second in 1976. Thanks to his ’72 win, the Boston Marathon was reborn as an event the whole country wanted to watch, and the New York City Marathon, which started the year before, took off. It will be run again tomorrow, and nearly 50,000 runners will participate. Along with Jim Fixx and his Book of Running, Shorter is probably more responsible than anyone for the rise of recreational running in America. I leave it to you to decide whether that’s a good thing.

October 31, 1950: John Candy is born. In the closing minutes of Super Bowl XXIII, when the Cincinnati Bengals had just scored to take the lead, the San Francisco 49ers were nervous, when quarterback Joe Montana, pointed out of the huddle to the stands and said, “Isn’t that John Candy?” The question relaxed the players, and Montana drove them for the winning touchdown.

Candy played the Cubs’ broadcaster in Rookie of the Year, and I give him a lot of credit for playing someone similar to, but not a total caricature of, Cubs broadcasting legend Harry Caray. On the other side of Chicago, he also shot a scene at the old Comiskey Park in its closing days for Only the Lonely. Considering his weight, I’m not surprised that he died young (53), but I’m still sorry about it. He gave us a lot, but he had a lot more to give.

Also on this day, Jane Pauley is born. The longtime co-host of The Today Show on NBC, she is married to Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

October 31, 1951, 60 years ago today: Nick Saban is born. The son of legendary coach Lou Saban, he hasn’t yet moved around to as many coaching jobs, but he has moved around with considerably less ethics than his father. He did, however, lead Louisiana State to the 2003 National Championship, and Alabama to the 2009 edition. He now has 'Bama ranked Number 1 again.

October 31, 1953: John Lucas is born. He played both basketball and tennis professionally, and was a member of the Houston Rockets’ 1986 NBA Western Conference Champions. His overcoming of drug addiction led him to become an NBA head coach and an addiction counselor. He is currently an assistant coach under Mike Dunleavy of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Like Dunleavy, he has a son who played in the NBA, John Lucas III, who, unlike his father whose 1974 Maryland team was prevented under the rules of the time from playing in the NCAA Tournament due to its loss in the ACC Final, went to the 2004 Final Four with Oklahoma State. John III played in the NBA with the Rockets, was recently waived by the Miami Heat and is currently a free agent. Another son, Jai Lucas, now plays at the University of Texas.

October 31, 1959: Mats Naslund is born. The left wing was known as Le Petit Viking (the Little Viking) when he played for the Montreal Canadiens, a tenure that included the 1986 Stanley Cup, in which he became the most recent Canadien to score 100 or more points in a season. He helped Sweden win the 1994 Olympic Gold Medal, and as general manager of the team he built their 2006 Gold Medal team.

October 31, 1960: Mike Gallego is born. He was the starting second baseman on the Oakland Athletics’ 3 straight Pennants of 1988-90. In 1993, he was voted the second baseman on their 25th Anniversary team (25 years since they’d moved to Oakland). He briefly played for the Yankees in the early 1990s, and is now back with the A’s as a coach.

Also on this day, Reza Pahlavi is born. He was 18 years old and the Crown Prince of Iran when his father, the Emperor, Mohammed Reza Shah, was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Luckily for him, he was already in the U.S., training as a fighter pilot (much as was his cousin and fellow heir to a throne, now King Abdullah II of Jordan).

He now lives in Potomac, Maryland, outside Washington. Unlike his father, who ran a brutally repressive, unofficially fascist regime, he has been an outspoken supporter of human rights, saying that in order to bring freedom to his homeland, “Idealism and realism, behavior change and regime change do not require different policies but the same: empowering the Iranian people.” His supporters have referred to him as “His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah II” since his father’s death on July 27, 1980, but he officially calls himself “the former Crown Prince,” and admits he has no realistic hope of the monarchy being restored, even when the Ayatollahs are finally and rightfully toppled.

October 31, 1961, 50 years ago today: A federal judge rules that Birmingham‚ Alabama laws against integrated playing fields are illegal‚ eliminating the last barrier against integration in the Class AA Southern Association.

October 31, 1963: Fred McGriff is born. In 1982, the Yankees traded first baseman McGriff, young pitcher Mike Morgan and outfielder Dave Collins to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Dale Murray and third baseman Tom Dodd. Dodd did play one year in the majors, but for Baltimore, and is not the man for whom the ballpark belonging to the Norwich Navigators, a former Yankee farm team, is named. (That was Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, father of current Senator Chris Dodd.) Murray got hurt and never contributed to the Yankees, either. Collins was pretty much finished, but in 2001, 19 years later, Morgan pitched against the Yankees in the World Series for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and McGriff was also still active. By trading him, the Yankees essentially traded 493 home runs for nothing.

Or did they? McGriff was 20 at the time, and did not reach the majors for another 4 years. Had he done so with the Yankees, he would have smacked right into Don Mattingly at his peak. The Yankees may not have had anyplace for him. Still, the trade looks bad. McGriff was involved in some other big trades: The Jays traded him to the San Diego Padres in 1990, a trade which brought them Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar, key figures in their 1992 and ’93 World Champions; and the Padres sent him to the Atlanta Braves as part of their 1993 “fire sale,” a pure “salary dump.”

McGriff hit the first home run at the SkyDome in 1989. With the Jays that season and the Padres in 1982, McGriff became the first player in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era to lead both leagues in home runs. He helped the Braves win the World Series in 1995, and later played for his hometown Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He now works in the Rays’ front office and as co-host for a show on Bright House Sports Network, a Tampa Bay-based outfit, and will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in its next election, this coming January. Despite falling 7 homers short of the magic 500 Club, he will probably make it, if not in his first year of eligibility then within the first couple of years thereafter. He was always popular – ESPN’s Chris Berman took the public-service-announcement character of “McGruff the Crime Dog” and nicknamed McGriff “Crime Dog” – and despite his home-run heroics, he has never been seriously suspected of steroid use. His son Erick McGriff plays football at the University of Kansas.

Also on this day, Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri is born. The Brazilian soccer player was nicknamed “Dunga” by an uncle, Portuguese for “Dopey,” since he was short and expected to stay that way. But the midfielder starred for several Brazilian teams, with his longest tenure at Internacional (like the Milan club known as “Inter” for short) of Porto Alegre; for Fiorentina in Italy and Stuttgart in Germany. Dunga was a member of Brazil’s 1994 World Cup winners, but bombed as manager of the national team at the 2010 World Cup.

October 31, 1964: Marco van Basten is born. The striker starred for Ajax Amsterdam in his native Netherlands, winning League Championships in 1982, ’83 and ’85 and the Dutch Cup in ’83, ’86 and ’87 – meaning they won “The Double” in 1983. He moved on to AC Milan in Italy, winning Serie A in 1988, ’92 and ’93, and back-to-back European Cups (now the Champions League) in 1989 and ’90. He led the Netherlands to the European Championship in 1988. Three times he was named European Player of the Year, and the magazine France Football placed him 8th in a poll of the Football Players of the Century. He has managed both Ajax and the Netherlands national team.

October 31, 1966: Mike O’Malley is born. The comedian and actor, formerly star of Yes, Dear, is a tremendous Boston Red Sox fan. But he’s funny, so I forgive him.

October 31, 1968: Antonio Davis is born. After going undrafted out of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), he played pro basketball in Athens and Milan before signing with the Indiana Pacers. He was an All-Star for the perennial Playoff contenders and Knick nemeses, although they didn’t reach the NBA Finals until after he left.

October 31, 1970: Steve Trachsel is born. In 1996, the Chicago Cubs pitcher was named to the All-Star Team. In 1998,gave up Mark McGwire’s steroid-aided 62nd home run, but he also won the Playoff for the NL Wild. Since the Cubs only made the Playoffs 4 times in the 62 seasons between 1945 and 2007, this makes him a Wrigleyville hero for all time. He also pitched for the Mets, winning the NL East with them in 2006. He last pitched for the Baltimore Orioles in 2008, but has not officially retired.

October 31, 1972: The Philadelphia Phillies trade third baseman Don Money and 2 others to the Milwaukee Brewers for 4 pitchers‚ including Jim Lonborg and Ken Brett. This was a rare good trade for both teams: Lonborg was a key cog in the Phillies developing a pitching staff that would reach the Playoffs 6 times in 8 years from 1976 to 1983 (though Lonborg retired after ’78), Money helped stabilize the Brewers and make them a contender by 1978 and a Pennant winner in 1982, and trading him allowed the Phillies to make room for the best player in the history of Philadelphia baseball, Mike Schmidt.

October 31, 1973: David Dellucci is born. The outfielder was a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks team that beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series, and of the Yankee team that won the 2003 American League Pennant. He was released by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2009 and retired.

October 31, 1976: José María Gutiérrez Hernández is born. “Guti Hernandez” is a midfielder who starred for Real Madrid as they won Spain’s La Liga in 1997, 2001, 03, ’07 and ’08; and the Champions League in 1998, 2000 and ’02. He now plays for Besiktas in Turkey.

October 31, 1983: George Halas dies at age 88. He was the founder of the Chicago Bears, for all intents and purposes the founder of the NFL, formerly the winningest coach in NFL history (324), and no coach in the history of professional football has won as many league championships, 8: 1921, 1932, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1943, 1946, 1963. One of his last acts as owner was to hire former Bears star Mike Ditka as head coach, and Ditka would lead them to a 9th World Championship in 1985. When asked by Bob Costas in the locker room afterwards if he thought of “Papa Bear,” he said, “I always think of Coach Halas.”

This, despite a reputation for being cheap, which led Ditka to say, “George Halas throws nickels around like manhole covers.” It was also Halas’ cheapness that kept the Bears in Wrigley Field, with a football capacity of just 47,000, in spite of Soldier Field having over 65,000 seats and lights, because he didn’t want to pay the rent the City of Chicago was demanding; the Bears didn’t move there until 1971, when the money available to teams on Monday Night Football, which couldn’t be played at then-lightless Wrigley, more than offset the cost of the rent. In spite of this, when the aforementioned Brian Piccolo got sick, Halas paid all his medical expenses and for his funeral.

An NFL Films documentary from 1977 showed Halas walking through the Bears’ practice facility at Lake Forest, Illinois (the main building is now named Halas Hall), and announcer John Facenda said it was “like visiting Mount Vernon and seeing George Washington still surveying the grounds.” He had planned to hand the team over to his son George Jr., but “Mugs” predeceased him. His daughter Virginia handed control to her husband, Ed McCaskey. Unfortunately, Big Ed handed a lot of control over to his and Virginia’s son, George’s grandson, Mike McCaskey, who ran the franchise into the ground before Big Ed took it back and handed it over to someone else prior to his own death. Virginia is still alive and the nominal owner of Da Bears.

October 31, 1987: Nick Foligno is born. The center plays for the Ottawa Senators. His brother Marcus Foligno is in the minor-league system of the Buffalo Sabres, for whom their father, Mike Foligno, was an All-Star.

October 31, 1998: Elmer Vasko dies at age 62. “Moose” was an All-Star defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks, winning the Stanley Cup with them in 1961.

October 31, 2001, 10 years ago today: Game 4 of the World Series. The Yankees trail the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th, and are about to fall behind in the World Series by the same margin of games. This is due in large part to the fine pitching of Curt Schilling, who was asked about the “mystique” of Yankee Stadium. He said, “Mystique, aura, those are dancers in a nightclub.” (Three years later, pitching for Boston, he would prove he was still not intimidated by Yankee Stadium, saying, “There’s nothing like making 55,000 Yankee fans shut up.”)

Byung-Hyun Kim, a “submarine” style pitcher from Korea, tries to close the Yankees out in the bottom of the 9th. But he lets a man on, and Tino Martinez comes to the plate. Tino electrifies the crowd but slamming a drive toward the upper deck. On the video, a fan in the front row of the upper deck tries to catch the ball, but it bounces off your hand. Now, imagine you’re that fan: Are you excited that the Yankees have come back in this World Series game, or are you mad that you were unable to catch this historic homer (and probably hurt your hand in the process)?

As the clock strikes midnight, for the first time ever – due to the week’s delay from the 9/11 attacks – a Major League Baseball game is played in the month of November. It is the bottom of the 10th, and Derek Jeter steps to the plate against Kim. A fan holds up a sign saying, “Mr. November.” (It’s often been asked, “How did he know to hold up that sign for Jeter?” The answer is easy: He didn’t hold it up specifically for Jeter. Jeter was just the batter when the clock struck 12, making him the first batter for whom it could be held up.)

At 12:03 came a typical Jeter hit, an inside-out swing to right-center, and it just... barely... got over the fence for a game-winning home run. Yankees 4, Diamondbacks 3. The Series was tied. The old ballyard was shaking. The “Yankee Mystique” had struck again. It is hits like this that have gotten Jeter the nickname “Captain Clutch.”

The next night, the first game to officially be played in the month of November, a fan made up a sign that said, “BASEBALL HISTORY MADE HERE” on what looked like an ancient scroll. Another fan made up a sign that said, “MYSTIQUE AND AURA APPEARING NIGHTLY.” (Two years later, in the Aaron Boone game, that same fan made up one that said, “MYSTIQUE DON’T FAIL ME NOW.” It didn’t.)

October 31, 2002: The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association votes 9-6 to prohibit the use of metal bats in the state high school tournament in 2003. Twenty five of 40 leagues will switch to wood for the regular season. The State is the first to outlaw metal bats. In this particular case, Massachusetts is ahead of the curve in baseball.

October 31, 2009: Alex Rodriguez's Game 3 fly ball in the right-field corner Citzens Bank Park becomes the subject of the first instant replay call in World Series history. The Yankees' third baseman hit, originally ruled a double, is changed by the umpires to a home run after the replay clearly shows the ball going over the fence before striking a television camera and bouncing back to the field.

Figures that A-Rod's first World Series home run would be controversial. But it does help make the difference, as the Yankees win, 8-5.