1972Piniella

U.L.’s Toothpick: The Year Of The Card–Lou Piniella, 1972

Trades made at the end of spring training usually don’t amount to much. Often they are made in an attempt to clear roster space or try to get something, anything, for a player who would otherwise need to be designated for assignment. But one of the shrewd trades that built the early Royals teams happened just like that, at the end of the Royals’ very first spring training in 1969. On April 1 of that year, Kansas City shipped pitcher John Gelnar and outfielder Steve Whitaker to their expansion cousins, the Seattle Pilots, for a little-known outfielder named Lou Piniella.

Piniella had taken a frustrating road to the majors. Louis Victor Piniella was born in Tampa on August 28, 1943, son of immigrants from Spain. He grew up there, played at Jesuit High School and a year at the University of Tampa, before the Indians signed him as an amateur free agent in those pre-draft days. But he was only in the Cleveland organization for a year before being picked by Washington in the 1962 version of the Rule 5 draft.

Then in 1964, he was dealt to Baltimore. Although he made his major-league debut that season, he only appeared in four games and had one plate appearance. In 1966, Piniella was traded back to the Indians. He languished at their Class AAA affiliate in Portland for three seasons, despite hitting .303/.336/.434 over those years. After all that, he appeared in six games for the Indians in 1968, but was still looking for his first MLB hit.

The Indians left Piniella unprotected in the expansion draft, and the Pilots picked him. Good thing, as Piniella had decided to give up baseball if he wasn’t selected. But the Pilots ended up with lots of right-handed bats, and the Royals ended up with plenty of lefties. So the trade was an attempt to balance out both teams, but Kansas City definitely got the better of the deal; both Gelnar and Whitaker would be out of the majors by the end of the 1971 season.

Piniella got the distinction of being the first batter in Royals history, leading off against Minnesota at old Municipal Stadium. He took advantage, finally picking up that elusive first major league hit, a double. Jerry Adair followed with a single, and Piniella had scored the first run in franchise history, too. He would pick up four hits in that game, a perfect springboard to a season when he would win the Rookie of the Year award and become the team’s first star. He was becoming famous for his hitting, both of baseballs and water coolers. Baseball is a game of failure, and Piniella took out his failures on plenty of inanimate objects. That got him the ironic nickname of “Sweet Lou.”

Piniella followed up his rookie with a solid .301/.342/.424 line in 1970 and a slightly disappointing .279/.311/.368 in 1971. It was a tough-luck season; he got off to a slow start, then missed over a month with a broken thumb after being hit by a pitch in early May. His numbers after he returned were better, but overall it was not the season anyone expected.

But 1972 was a great bounce-back year for Piniella. He played in 151 games  and hit .312/.356/.441. All of those were career highs, and he also set career bests in doubles (a league-leading 33), runs, hits, and stolen bases, and tied his best home run season. Although the Royals finished with a disappointing 76-78 record (a work stoppage took eight games off the schedule), Piniella was credited with 2.9 WARP. He also earned his first (and, perhaps surprisingly, only) All-Star game berth, going 0-1 as a pinch-hitter.

That Royals team got off to a slow start, with a 13-24 record at the end of May. Piniella was about the only one hitting for the first two months, as he reached June with a .322/.371/.473 mark. He got that average up to .341 in early June before falling off a bit, but his average never dipped below .300 after a 3-6 performance on April 30.

However, Piniella would not stay in Kansas City long after that. In 1973, the Royals moved into spacious Royals Stadium. Piniella, a slow-footed left fielder, was probably a better fielder than he was given credit for, but he was not really a good fit for the big, Astro-turfed outfield in his new home ballpark. It didn’t help matters that Piniella’s BABIP dropped from .331 in that 1972 season to .268 in 1973, causing his batting line to plummet to .250/.291/.361. Manager Jack McKeon made it clear that he would prefer to play young outfielder Jim Wohlford going forward, so the Royals dealt Piniella to the Yankees for relief pitcher Lindy McDaniel.

It was a mirror image of the trade that brought the outfielder to Kansas City; McDaniel was just shy of his 38th birthday when the deal was done, and would pitch two decent years for the Royals before retiring. Meanwhile, Piniella would become part of the Bronx Zoo chapter of the Yankees dynasty, as part of the teams that defeated the Royals in three straight American League Championship Series and also won two World Series. Oddly, for such a volatile player, Piniella would be a model of stability for a very unstable franchise; he would stay with the Yankees into the 1984 season, with his release in June ending his playing career.

After that, Piniella had a very successful managing career, winning the 1990 World Series with Cincinnati and taking Seattle to the playoffs four times and the Cubs twice. His coaching career had actually started while he was still a player; in one of George Steinbrenner’s fits of pique in 1982, he made Piniella the Yankees’ hitting coach. Piniella had learned from Charley Lau, so he perhaps added a bit of Royals history to the Yankees.

Piniella left the Cubs’ managerial post in 2010, served as a consultant for the Giants in 2011, and then was out of baseball until this spring, when he joined the Reds’ front office as a consultant. From nearly leaving the sport before the expansion draft, he has fashioned a nearly 50-year career in the game.

Lou Piniella’s best games of 1972:
6/3 vs. BOS: Went 4-5, scored two runs, and drove in two in 10-4 win.
7/18 vs. CLE: Went 4-5 with two doubles and two RBI in 6-5 win.
5/20 vs. OAK: Went 3-5 with home run, scored twice, and had three RBI in 8-5 loss.
5/19 vs. OAK: Had three hits, a walk, a home run, scored three runs, and drove in two in 16-1 win.
4/28 vs. CLE: Singled, doubled, and tripled in 4-0 win.

About the card:
The 1972 Topps set was certainly groovy-looking, no? It just screams 1970s. Usually I like an action shot, but this is a good chance to see what the player looks like. I find it interesting that Piniella’s looks didn’t change much. On the back, I’d like to know what happened on that inside-the-park home run. Piniella was never a speedster. And that trivia question couldn’t be more obscure.

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