strange exchange

Just when you think the sports world has produced every weird trade imaginable, they still manage to outdo themselves…

An announcer for a rabbit. And a cartoon rabbit, too.

When baseball official Harry Chiti was traded to the New York Mets for a player to be named later, he didn’t know that player would be him. The Chicago Cubs were able to do without a backup catcher early in the season, and apparently the Mets saw enough of Chiti afterward. So when they later gave a list of players to choose from to complete the deal, Chiti’s name was there. Perhaps his choice said something about the other players, but there’s no question the Cubs got the same value in return.

At least that transaction was a player-only deal, albeit only for one player.

Non-player transactions have had various impacts on the teams involved. An obvious example was a trade between the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians. Midway through the season, they managed to swap managers. Jimmy Dykes was sent to the Tribe, and Joe Gordon moved to the Motor City, making it the only such deal in North American sports history. Both were probably clueless for the rest of the season, but they would surely agree that it was better than being fired, which is what usually happens when teams want to get rid of their boss.

However, there was a more notorious playerless deal. It could have happened more quietly, except it affected the New York Yankees. The year was 1972, and though it had been half a decade since The Summer of Love, pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson kept their spirits alive. They and his wife were close friends. Very close. So close, in fact, that during spring training the next season, they ended up making their own trade. When Marilyn Peterson switched houses with Susanne Kekich, it was news that she made more than the agate type in America’s newspapers.

Said Yankees general manager Lee MacPhail, “We may have to cancel Family Day.”

A bag of baseballs isn’t all that attractive as fodder for starters. So when minor leaguer Tim Fortugno was unceremoniously traded to another team in exchange for one of those bags, we can only imagine that $2,500 in cash was included in the deal to make him feel better.

Much more money was put on the table in 1919 for a rising star named Babe Ruth. The Boston Red Sox had just completed a lousy season and owner Harry Frazee wanted to unload wages. He also had his eye on Broadway, so he sold Ruth to the Yankees for $125,000 and a $300,000 loan (with Fenway Park as collateral). Frazee used the proceeds to put on ‘No No Nanette’, the lively musical that gave the world tunes like ‘Tea for Two’ and can still be found lit up to this day. This is the deal that spawned the Curse of the Bambino, which may have plagued the Red Sox for so many years, but Frazee did just fine.

Ruth justified his title as Sultan of Swat in 1927, becoming the first player in history to hit 60 home runs in a season, a revered record that would stand for 34 years. That was not the only notable achievement in 1927; Walt Disney also brought the first cartoon rabbit to the big screen.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit looked like a copy of Felix the Cat, and he probably was. However, cartoon characters were a novelty at the time, so Oswald enjoyed some commercial success. In fact, Disney was sure that he could expand the rabbit’s fame if he had a larger budget, which is why he traveled to Universal Studio’s headquarters and requested so much. The studio refused, even showing its power by cutting the budget by 20% and telling Disney to like it or bundle it. Saddened, Disney resigned and decided to go freelance. He was sure that he could create another cartoon character to help him realize his visions of commercial success.

We now see that the empire built around the fame of Mickey Mouse never forgot its origins.

When ABC decided to move Monday Night Football to its subsidiary, ESPN, former broadcaster Al Michaels decided he didn’t want to tag along. He expressed a preference to remain paired with virtuous analyst John Madden, who left to join NBC, which had acquired the broadcast rights to the NFL’s Sunday Night Football.

Michaels’ career began at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. She exclaimed to the US: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” when the American hockey team completed the biggest upset in team sports history by defeating the behemoth of the Soviet Union and paving the way to an unlikely gold medal. Michaels, one of the best in the business, eventually moved into Monday Night Football’s prime time and stayed there for 20 years.

NBC saw his addition to its broadcast team as a natural move. ABC also saw an opportunity and floated the idea of ​​a trade.

ABC is owned by the Disney empire. They noticed NBC’s partnership with Universal and decided it was time to bring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit home. Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, did a double take. He accepted Michaels’ business package that contained cable rights to Ryder Cup golf through 2014 and expanded access to Olympic highlights, but he had never heard of the cartoon rabbit.

Michaels took the fact that he was changed to a cartoon pioneer in stride. “Oswald is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft pick,” Michaels said, referring to the compensation the New York Jets received for trading head coach Herman Edwards to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Walt Disney’s daughter Diane Miller is excited, saying, “Having Oswald back will be so much fun.”

And so it came to pass that the strangest sports trade to date was sealed. NBC got the polished veteran it wanted, while Disney could hope its reacquisition could win Comeback of the Year.

For Oswald, it will be a whole new ball game.

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