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April 11
⚾Seattle Pilots play there first home game
TODAY ON THE DAILY HIGHLIGHT
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April 11, 1969 Seattle Pilots Play First Home Game in Sicks Stadium.
As part of a four-team expansion that also saw the debuts of the Montreal Expos, Kansas City Royals and San Diego Padres, the Pilots began in Seattle in 1969. But just a year later they were gone, relocated to Milwaukee after going bankrupt and being bought by Bud Selig.
"You go back a couple generations in baseball history and we had professional baseball from 1901 to 1969, through two world wars and a depression, and then -- poof! -- it's gone," Seattle sports historian David Eskenazi said. "The first year we didn't have pro baseball was 1970."
The Pilots might be remembered even less had it not been for the finest baseball book ever written: "Ball Four," Jim Bouton's diary of that 1969 season. Bouton wrote in his Opening Day entry after beating the Angels 4-3, "Already we're better than the Mets." The Pilots did not remain so.
The Mets went on to win their first World Series that year, but Seattle went 64-98 and finished last in the six-team AL West.
The aptly named Sicks' Stadium was a tiny and old minor league ballpark with plumbing issues that resulted in players sometimes taking cold showers or just going home without showering. Sicks Stadium was not ready for the start of the season, seats were being installed right up until game time.
Those Pilots drew only 677,944 fans, though that still was more than the Phillies, White Sox, Padres, or Indians drew that year (the major league average was 1,134,569). They drew 14,993 for the April 11, home opener, a 7-0 win over the White Sox. Check out the highlights!
A few years ago when I was in Seattle I spent hours looking for something that showed a MLB stadium was once where a Lowes now stands. I did find the sign.
"I don't think this is a town that will ever draw 25,000 or 30,000 regularly," Bouton wrote. "It's a town much more concerned with culture than athletics." (This one didn't age well)
The Seattle owners, Dewey and Max Soriano, were not rich enough to support the Pilots. Seattle was about to begin staggering layoffs that would lead to an early '70s billboard that infamously read: "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights."
One week before the 1970 season began and with the team's finances in ruins, the Pilots' fate was still so much up in the air that they sent their equipment truck from spring training in Arizona to Provo, Utah. There, the drivers stopped and waited for word on whether to continue to Seattle or veer northeast to Milwaukee. On March 31, eight days before the team's season opener, word was sent: Go to Wisconsin. The Pilots were moving to Milwaukee.
The Seattle Pilots did have an official theme song that included the lyrics: "You brought the majors to the evergreen Northwest; now, go, go you Pilots, you're going to be the best!"
Game of the Day
April 8, 1969 Seattle Pilots vs California Angels
Pilots play their first game
Today’s line up: Click to Listen
Did you know?
April 11, 1912 — at Washington Park III, Rube Marquard of the New York Giants begins a nineteen-game consecutive winning streak by beating the Brooklyn Dodgers, 18-3, in a game which features 13 ground rule doubles hit by the visitors because of the overflow crowd being placed in the outfield and along the foul lines.
Marquard helped his own cause going 3-4 with 3 RBI’s. The future Hall of Fame southpaw’s streak will end in July when the Giants lose to Chicago at the West Side Grounds, 7-2.
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🎙️ Classic Baseball Moment of the Day! 🎙️
Don Larsen(1956), Sandy Koufax(1965), Bob Gibson (64,67 and 68), Mantle, DiMaggio, Williams (1941), Clemente 1971, Brooks 1970, Oakland Three Peat and so many others!
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Trivia:
Who was the first draft pick in 1968 of the Seattle Pilots?
Hint: The answer is below
TODAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
April 11, 1928 Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker both start on Opening Day for the A’s. The 8-3 loss to New York at Shibe Park marks the first time the future Hall of Famers have played as teammates in a game.
April 11, 1954 — The New York Yankees trade two minor leaguers along with rookie right-hander Mel Wright to the Cardinals in exchange for 38 year-old right-fielder Enos Slaughter. The future Hall of Fame outfielder will hit only .239 in 79 games during his first tenure with the Bronx Bombers, but Bill Virdon, one of the prospects dealt to the Cardinals, will be named the National League’s Rookie of the Year in 1956.
April 11, 1961 –Boston Red Sox rookie Carl Yastrzemski, in his major league debut, singles off Kansas City’s A’s Ray Herbert in the team’s 5-2 Opening Day loss at Fenway Park. The 21 year-old left fielder from Bridgehampton, New York, will amass 3,419 hits during his 23-year Hall of Fame career with Boston.
April 11, 1963, At County Stadium, 26,000 fans witnessed, Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves becoming the all-time winningest left-hander in major league history. Spahn’s 6-1 victory over the New York Mets gives him 328 career wins, moving him ahead of Eddie Plank on the all-time list. Fellow future Hall of Famer Hank Aaron homered and drove in 3 runs.
April 11, 1975, Hank Aaron returns to Milwaukee as a member of the Brewers. A crowd of 48,160 fans watches Aaron drive in a run in the Brewers’ 6-2 win over the Cleveland Indians. Aaron had starred for the Milwaukee Braves before the franchise moved to Atlanta in 1966.
Quote of the day:
the day after the move to Milwaukee was announced, he and his teammates entered their spring training clubhouse and found their jerseys now had MILWAUKEE stitched across the chest rather than SEATTLE. "It's amazing how cold this business can be," Hegan said.
MILESTONES
Birthday Boys
Highlights: Jim Britt, Barney McCosky and Sam Chapman
Debuts
A few notable debuts, Billy Conigliaro, Carl Morton and Yaz
Final Games
Passings
Walker Cooper and Billy Henry
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Trivia Answer:
Don Mincher of the California Angels was the Pilots' first pick. Manny Mota was the first pick of the Expos; Ollie Brown the first pick of the Padres; and Nelson the first pick of the Royals.
