McCue's Stumbling Around the Bases Pulls Curtain Back on MLB Mismanagement

When it comes to baseball research, author Andy McCue is in a league of his own. What an absolute joy it is to read McCue's latest book, Stumbling around the Bases: The American League's Mismanagement in the Expansion Eras (nebraskapress.unl.edu). If you're a baseball junkie, this is a book for you.

History is reviewed by the numbers–many numbers. Team attendance figures, franchise prices, and legal expenses, all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by team owners to maintain or move to different cities are well documented by McCue.

Remember the Seattle Pilots, in the American League, during the 1969 season? How did they make it into the league, and why did they disappear after only one season? Did you know the San Francisco Giants were all but set to relocate to Toronto in the 1970s? Have you ever wondered how the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner came to be the principal owner of the team?

All the juicy details concerning these American League teams, and more, are delivered with surgical precision in Stumbling around the Bases.

Page 44 begins chapter six - New Blood, Bad Blood - Ten Men at a Table. This is by far my favorite baseball education offered by McCue, as I learned so much more about the late Los Angeles/California Angeles owner Gene Autry.

The background story on Autry, prior to his buying into the MLB as an expansion team in 1961, is an amazing rags-to-riches account many baseball fans may not be aware of. Working at a railroad station, employed as a part-time morse code agent, buying a guitar from a Sears & Roebuck catalog, having a chance encounter with famed newspaper columnist Will Rogers, then heading to New York City to make records and appear on radio, Autry is anything but dull to learn more of.

Then, there's Charles Oscar Finley, "Charlie O", and his entrance into baseball as an owner that is more must-read pages in Stumbling around the Bases. How did he earn the necessary money to buy into the Kansas City Athletics, then move the team to Oakland? The road was rocky but accomplished for a move west in 1968.

Getting back to the one-and-done season of the Pilots, McCue connects all the dots on how the team exited for the Midwest. Just how fast could teams move home cities? On March 19, 1970, in Tempe (AZ), the Pilots' ownership filed for bankruptcy.

Just 12 days later they were sold for $10.8 million and became the Milwaukee Brewers. Seven days from opening day, new ownership led by Bud Selig moved the team's home to County Stadium in "America's Dairyland."

American League President Joe Cronin, National League President Warren Giles, team general managers Gabe Paul and Lee McPhail, plus, MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, all major players during the game's expansion years of the 1960s and '70s, are introduced and explained by McCue as to their overall importance.

In McCue's research, it becomes clear as to how more organized the National League was, as well as how disorganized the American League proved to be.

"They (American League) finally got it right after 20 years," says McCue during a telephone conversation this past week about the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners coming into existence in the 1977 season.

With Cronin at the wheel for the American League during the expansion era, according to McCue, the hall of fame player is a perfect example of the Peter Principle–promoted based on his success in previous jobs.

"He (Cronin - player, manager, general manager) was a disaster as league president. The league was like a cartel. All team ownerships were equal, with no real structure provided to the league," said McCue.

All 139 pages of Stumbling around the Bases make for one continuous advanced understanding of what worked and what failed during the game's expansion era.

Speaking of baseball success, why did the Kansas City Royals in their inaugural season of 1969 succeed? Why did the San Diego Padres, who also entered the National League in 1969, have trouble paying their bills? How did the Padres rectify their problems, and what fast-food chain owner rescue the team?

McCue has the numbers and names to keep your interest throughout 13 chapters of Stumbling around the Bases.

Lawsuits filed by city officials in San Francisco, Seattle, and Kansas City, how did they shape baseball's future? You have to read McCue's findings for the answers.

With his mantra, research is fun, writing is work, McCue holds steady to his values with Stumbling around the Bases. So much information, so much excitement to finally learn how baseball's hierarchy controls the game, for the most part, hidden from the masses.