When I heard that Ron Santo had passed away, I was immediately saddened by the loss of a beloved baseball icon who would not live to see his eventual induction into the Hall of Fame. Santo was the kind of hard-nosed all-round player that I wish had played for the Yankees in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He might have made those seasons of mediocrity a bit more tolerable.
Little did I know that the Yankees nearly acquired Santo after the 1971 season. That nugget of information comes courtesy of Bronx Banter posting favorite “Williamnyy23” (whose real name still escapes me). During the 1971 season, Santo and Cubs manager Leo Durocher endured a major falling out. With tensions between the two men raging, the Cubs decided to entertain trade offers after the season. The Yankees, who desperately needed a new third baseman to take over for the overmatched Jerry Kenney (no home runs in 395 plate appearances), came knocking. They offered their two top starting pitchers, Mel Stottlemyre and Fritz Peterson, but rather remarkably, they were turned down by the Cubs. The Yankees apparently thought so highly of Santo that they were willing to surrender 40 per cent of their rotation–the top 40 per cent, no less.
Both Stottlemyre and Peterson were 29 at the time, both in the prime of their careers. Stottlemyre had gone 16-12 with a 2.87 ERA and Peterson had won 15 games with a 3.05 ERA. The pair had combined to give the Yankees over 500 innings in 1971. Their departures would have left the Yankees with three younger starters in their mid-twenties–Stan Bahnsen, Steve Kline and Mike Kekich–followed by two gaping holes in the rotation. But that’s how much the Yankees valued the 31-year-old Santo, even coming off a down season in which his home run total had dropped to 21 and his slugging percentage had fallen to .423, his lowest mark in three years.
As it turns out, none of the principals in the proposed trade had much staying power. Santo put up two more decent seasons before being traded to the White Sox, where he closed out his career rather ungracefully in 1974. Peterson had only more good season in New York before becoming embroiled in the infamous wife swap of 1973 and being traded to the Indians in the Chris Chambliss deal. Stottlemyre pitched well for two seasons before tearing his rotator cuff, an injury that basically ended his career in the spring of 1975.
In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing that the Yankees did not make the Santo trade. With Santo in the fold in 1972 and ‘73, the Yankees never would have made the fruitful trade that brought them Graig Nettles during the winter of ‘72. They would have been stuck with an over-the-hill Santo by 1974, putting them in the position of having to trade for another third baseman. Who knows if Nettles would have still been available? Who would have been a reasonable trade option? Buddy Bell, Darrell Evans, and Bill Madlock were all traded during the 1970s, so it’s possible that the Yankees might have made a deal for one of them. All three were fine players, but none would have performed any better than Nettles did for the Yankees from 1973 to 1983.
Still, it’s interesting to think of what might have been. Ron Santo as a Yankee? The Yankees wanted it to happen, but the Cubs had other thoughts. And the rest is history.
