And then there were none.
If you love to watch the old Home Run Derby series from 1960, you may be saddened to know that Rocky was the last living participant, and therefore really the last of the great baseball heroes from my childhood.
Rocky was not only a terrific player for the Indians, but was a beloved local hero. The Rock was a tall, handsome, personable, powerful man, with perhaps the strongest arm in history among notable players. He was the very embodiment of Cleveland baseball. In his great 1959 season, just before the filming of Home Run Derby, Rocky had homered four times in one game on his way to a league-leading 42 and the cover of Time magazine.
Rocky’s slugging kept the team in first place most of the year, although they had been merely a .500 team during the previous two seasons. Cleveland attendance in that magical season was more than double what it had been in 1958, rising to 1.5 million from 600,000. The fans were in love with their Rock, and he seemed to be the cornerstone on which the Indians would build many future championships.
And then, in one of the most inexplicable trades ever pulled off by the Indians’ erratic general manager, “Trader” Frank Lane, or for that matter by anyone else, Rocky was traded to the Detroit Tigers just two days before opening day. The Indians slipped right back down to .500 ball in 1960, and their attendance dropped back to 900,000. Meanwhile, the Tigers, another perennial .500 team, took only two seasons to create a 100-win powerhouse, ignited by the Rock’s 45 homers and 140 RBI.
Trading Rocky from Cleveland wasn’t just a mistake, it was a sacrilege. It was the equivalent of the Cardinals trading Musial, or Ireland trading St. Patrick.
Although I think the Irish could have gotten a couple of top draft picks from Australia, where a guy who could banish the snakes would have tremendous trade value.
That last-minute trade let to a confusing anomaly for young baseball card collectors. The Rock’s 1960 card, designed and printed before the season began, identified him as a member of the Cleveland Indians. He was not. He played the 1960 season with the Detroit Tigers.
Not content to get rid of the Indians’ charismatic slugger after the successful 1959 season, Frank Lane also traded away the team’s best overall player, the legendary Minnie Minoso. Minoso went to the White Sox, where he immediately batted .311 with 105 RBI. Understandably, Mr. Lane found himself seeking other employment about a year after the Colavito and Minoso trades. The A’s gave him a shot, but that didn’t last long, and Lane soon found himself working in basketball as the general manager of the Chicago Packers, which was approximately the American equivalent of being sent to Siberia.
The Indians got their Rock back in 1965, when he was somewhat past his prime, but was still good enough to lead the American League in RBI. The city eventually got him back for good as a Cleveland resident and broadcaster.
In his own words,
“I love Cleveland. It’s my favorite town in the world. That’s the God’s honest truth. I’m not blowing smoke to anybody, because I don’t have to.”
The Rock wasn’t just IN Cleveland baseball. He WAS Cleveland baseball.
Rocky was good but years he was there he had 1 powerhouse season where Tigers won 101 games and was 2nd to my childhood and real powerhouse team the Yankees Tigers never had another good season until the later part of the sixties when CBS was destroying the Yankees.
I maybe born and raised a Braves fan but I have always had a soft spot for the Cleveland Indians and had really hoped they would’ve made it to the World Series this year. I hope to see Cleveland win the World Series soon.
Once upon a time about a million yrs ago was a diehard tribe fan ie Rocky, Leon “daddy” Wags, Max Alvis, Vic Davalillo, Fred Whitfield, Jose Azcue, Tito Francona, Tommy John, Mudcat Grant, Sam McDowell, Sonny Siebert, Luis Tiant (’63, ’64, ’65).
Digressing …
As in “Buy your rags at Daddy Wags” (he had a clothing store).
Terrific player, better man. As for Frank Lane, it’s enough to say that the man once said, “You can find sympathy in the dictionary between shit and syphilis”.
We still call it the curse of Rocky Colavito to this day, although it feels like our teams have been cursed for much longer than that!
Lane supposedly said when asked why he made the trade What’s all the fuss about? All I did was trade hamburger for steak.
What an idiot
What did we ever do to deserve getting Frank Lane AND Ted Stepien* AND Art Modell?
* Cavs owner in the 80s.”Traded away five consecutive first-round picks, covering 1982 until 1985, [generally for a rack of basketballs]. The NBA thereafter instituted the “Stepien Rule”, which states that a team (usually) cannot trade its first-round pick in consecutive years” (WIki) Also tried to start a pro softball league – which lasted one year. “In 1980, Stepien held a promotional event for the league in Cleveland in which he dropped softballs from the 52nd floor of Terminal Tower to be caught by outfielders from his Cleveland Competitors team.] The balls were estimated to be traveling at 144 mph by the time they reached the street, damaging cars and injuring several spectators. One was caught.” (Wiki)
Art Modell’s Browns go on to become the Ravens while the Browns are still the Browns. Ozzie Newsome is still in Baltimore. Yeah it’s not a Colavito curse, it’s the whole city. I remember Randy Newman singing about the river being on fire. Burn on, big river, burn on.
And Art Modell, who was a true scumbag, didn’t get to pass the team on to his kid, which was the purported excuse for the move. A bad businessman his whole life. Even all the public money Md. threw at him couldn’t right his sorry finances.
His original intent was, having cut the deal before the 95 season, to keep the whole thing a secret, rake in one last year of gate receipts, and then announce the dirty deed after the season.
The scheme was spoiled when The Md. Gov’s kid blabbed about it to a schoolmate whose father was a reporter, whereupon the shit hit the fan in the middle of the season.
Few people remember that Cleveland got hosed on BOTH Colavito trades. They got too little for him when he was in his prime, and then gave up too much to get him back when he was approaching twilight time.
They gave up Tommie Agee, Tommy John and John Romano.
Agee almost immediately became the rookie of the year in 1966, with a 6.4 WAR – more than the Rock had in all three of those Cleveland comeback seasons combined!
John went on to win approximately a zillion games, including a 14-7 record instantly, in his first year out of Cleveland.
Romano still had some pop in his bat. Although obviously the weakest of the three players, he would be the Sox first-string catcher in 1965-1966 and had the same WAR as Rocky for those two years. Equally important, his absence forced the Indians to give his playing time to Jose Azcue (.230 with no power) and the immortal Duke Sims, who had plenty of power, but wasn’t so good at the whole “making contact” aspect of the game.
The Indians also got Cam Carreon in that trade, which was meaningless. He got 52 at bats as a third-string catcher.
In other words, Romano for Colavito would have been an even trade, so the Indians gave up Tommy John and Tommy Agee for free.
LOL. I sure as hell remember. I was actually going to throw that in, but then getting Rocky back was of some value in its own right, if only temporary. Except for when they got Gaylord Perry in exchange for Sam McDowell (and his drinking problem) in ’72, the franchise generally made awful trades until the ones for S. Alomar, Baerga, and Lofton in the early 90s. Those were pure genius.
I had a college friend whose Dad was on Stepien’s softball team, so I heard about that shortly after it happened. (No, he did not catch a ball, I think he ran immediately).
Man, I’m doing a lot of Kevin Baconing today.
The Rock had two pitching appearances, giving up zero runs in 5 2/3 innings pitched. For his second appearance he was credited with the win, shutting down the Yankees for 2 2/3 innings in 1968.
Not quite. He was pitching FOR the Yankees. He donned the pinstripes on his final stop before retiring. The Tigers were his opponents that day. Rocky not only got the W, but also scored the winning run.
His other appearance was also against the Tigers. Al Kaline was the only player ever to get a hit against him.
If you are interested, here are the newspaper accounts of his two pitching appearances (click to enlarge):