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TRADES

Pierce, Woodling Traded to Cleveland
All-Time Win, Hit Leaders Shipped in 14-Player Deal
CLEVELAND (May 1) -- The St. Louis Maroons  traded away the all-time UL leaders in several batting and pitching categories in a move that heralds -- in no uncertain terms -- the beginning of a rebuilding in the Gateway to the West.  The Cleveland Barons swapped a package of young players and draft picks for four regulars they hope will close the gap with East Division powerhouse Brooklyn.
   Pierce, 32, leads the league in several categories, including wins, strikeouts, innings pitched, and complete games.  The Maroons' second round pick the league's formation draft in 1951 and staff ace since 1952, Pierce has tallied 172 wins, including four 20-win seasons, and 2,273 strikeouts, including three consecutive 300-strikeout seasons in 1954-56.  Pierce won the Cy Young in 1954, when he went 24-6 with a 2.42 ERA, 19 complete games, and 343 strikeouts.  He holds the UL record with 18 strikeouts in a game (5/6/56), and won Player of the Game 111 times, which must be some kind of record.  
   Gene Woodling, 36, is the league's all-time leader with 1,493 hits, despite never finishing higher than third in any single season.  The former Brooklyn Superba has been called a "hitting machine," driving it at least 70 runs nine straight years, and hitting .310 or better in eight of nine seasons.  Woodling joined the Maroons in midseason 1957 and proceeded to post career highs in hits, batting, and OPS the following year at the age of 34.
   In addition to Pierce, the Maroons shipped their #2 starter, 30-year-old Jack Sanford, who was off to a torrid start with a 4-0 record and 2.40 ERA in six starts; and second baseman Billy Goodman, 34, who hit .298 in nine seasons with Washington before becoming a free agent at the end of 1959.
   With the trade, the Maroons have effectively traded away the core of the team that finished first or second in eight of nine seasons.  In February, the Dark Reds dealt aging fan favorite Stan Musial to Washington to help make room under the salary cap to renew their lefty ace.  But the incremental aging of the Maroons roster over the years led GM Timothy J. Smith to reconsider this strategy in favor of radical rebuilding.  Before the trade, 22 of 25 roster players were over 30 years old.  St. Louis received three Cleveland draft picks and two young players they hope to build their lineup around: right fielder Roger Maris and second baseman Don Blasingame.  Maris, 25, has cooled since his 1957 Rookie of the Year campaign (.288-23-89, .884 OPS), and Blasingame, 28, figures to be a steady glove man and a productive hitter versus righties (.305, .384 OBP in 227 PA last year).  To balance the payroll effects, the deal also included starting pitcher Harvey "Kitten" Haddix (11-16, 4.09 last year) and a handful of aging has-beens with bloated contracts.
   Cleveland GM Charlie Qualls parted with a slice of his future to make a run for a title now.  With the trade, the Barons rotation is now Pierce-O'Dell-Sanford-Drysdale, and the addition of Woodling and Goodman strengthens an already potent lineup.  Whether the club can close a 36-game gap with Brooklyn in one fell swoop remains to be seen.  Stranger things have happened.

Mantle Lifts Superbas
The Mick's Stick Comes to Life
BROOKLYN (May 1) -- Superbas centerfielder Mickey Mantle went on a tear in late April to vault  his newly-adopted club into first place after a slow start had the Brooklyn faithful worried.  Mantle hit .289-10-25 in April to lead the league in HR, RBI, and OPS and take home his first Batter of the Month award.  "The Mick" was torrid against Detroit April 15-18, batting .647 (11-17) with 4 homers and 7 RBI.  Mantle hit two homers on the 16th, clobbered a 474-foot blast on the 18th, and collected four hits against Louisville on the 22nd.  Brooklyn is riding a 10-4 surge and has overtaken Cleveland, who jumped to an early East Division lead with a three-game sweep of the Bas to start the season.
   Originally drafted by the Boston Beacons in the 2nd round of the 1951 Initial Draft, Mantle played seven and a half seasons with the B's, including his 1953 MVP campaign, then played for Chicago for a year before coming to Brooklyn in the July 16 blockbuster that sent Richie Ashburn, Don Mossi, and Tom Gorman to the Colts.

Cleveland Nips Colonels in 26-Inning Marathon
Rookie Pitches 13 Relief Innings Without Earned Run, Loses
CLEVELAND (Apr. 26) -- Louisville rookie Steve Barber, in his fourth major league appearance, threw 201 pitching in 13 innings of work without allowing a single earned run, but still lost, as veteran catcher Sherm Lollar drove home Eddie Mathews, who led off the 26th with a single and advanced to third on a stolen base and a throwing error by catcher Ed Bailey.  The already meager crowd of 18,705 in the cavernous ballpark dwindled to perhaps a hundred brave, and probably unemployed, souls who sat through all 8 hours and 36 minutes of the marathon contest.
   Louisville had a 2-0 lead in the fourth, but didn't score again in the game's final 22 innings, thanks to the shutout ball of Harvey Haddix, Bob Tiefenauer, Russ Kemmerer, Leo Kiely, Roy Face, Seth Morehead, and John Tsitouris.  Tsitouis anchored the relief effort with eight five-hit shutout innings.  Al Kaline, Bill Skowron, and Hal Jeffcoat established a UL record 11 at-bats; the Colonels turned seven double plays, and the game was so long that Louisville had 16 hits, but hit just .180 in the game (16-89).

Season in Preview: 1960 By Sean Holloway

American U-2 spy plane Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Russia . Powers sentenced to prison for 10 years - freed in February 1962 in exchange for Soviet spy. Top Nazi murderer of Jews, Adolf Eichmann, captured by Israelis in Argentina - executed in Israel in 1962. Communist China and Soviet Union split in conflict over Communist ideology.  Senegal , Ghana, Nigera, Madagascar, and Zaire gain independence. Cuba begins confiscation of $770 million of U.S. property, one year after Castro comes to power. There are 900 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam. Rednecks rule TV, with the six highest rated-TV shows being:  Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel, The Andy Griffith Show, The Real McCoys and Rawhide, while also capturing the top spot for song of the year with Marty Robbins’ “ El Paso ”. David and Mary were the country’s most popular baby names. In the Hughes Laboratory in California , physicist Theodore Maiman perfects the laser, now widely used in surgery, holography, communications, and printing. Communist China, led by Mao Zedong, criticizes the Soviet Union , causing a split in Sino-Soviet relations; Mao's “Great Leap Forward,” intended to increase food production, fails.

Democrat John F. Kennedy defeats Republican Vice-President Richard Nixon to win the presidential election, He becomes both the youngest and the first Roman Catholic president. France becomes the fourth nation to acquire atomic capability (after the United States , Britain , and the U.S.S.R.), exploding a nuclear device in the Sahara Desert . In Vietnam , the National Liberation Front is formed by Communist dissident groups called Vietcong who seek to overthrow South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. Film classics such as The Magnificent Seven and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho come out in theaters while ``The Twist,'' by Chubby Checkers, starts a dance craze. The Celtics win the NBA title, Minnesota is the NCAA football champ, the Montreal Canadians win another Stanley Cup, and the Pittsburgh Pirates capture the World Series. The Olympic Games are held in Rome and Squaw Valley , with the US highlights being Wilma Rudolf’s three gold medals and the original “Miracle on Ice” with the US winning hockey gold.