RetroSimba

The Cardinals had visions of a lineup featuring Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark McGwire.

In November 1999, the Cardinals sought to acquire Griffey from the Mariners.

Though Griffey was swapped to the Reds instead, the Cardinals’ pursuit of him was sincere.

Deal me out

After the 1999 season, Griffey, nearing his 30th birthday, told the Mariners he wanted to be traded to a team closer to his home in Orlando, Fla.

Griffey, a center fielder who won 10 Gold Glove awards and four times led the American League in home runs with the Mariners, was eligible to become a free agent in another year.

The Mariners offered him an eight-year contract worth about $140 million, but Griffey rejected it. Unable to keep him beyond 2000, the Mariners opted to trade him rather than lose him to free agency.

Griffey, who debuted with the Mariners when he was 19, had the right to approve or reject any proposed trade. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Griffey’s first choice was to go to Atlanta, “but the Braves decided a deal wouldn’t fit their situation.”

If the National League champion Braves weren’t interested, the Associated Press speculated, the Reds and Mets were the leading contenders. Though Griffey was born in Donora, Pa., the same hometown as Cardinals icon Stan Musial, he grew up in Cincinnati, where his father played as an outfielder on the Big Red Machine teams of the 1970s. Ken Griffey Sr. was a Reds coach in 1999.

Twin towers

The Cardinals were intrigued with the idea of acquiring Griffey and putting him in a lineup with McGwire, who in his two full seasons with St. Louis hit 70 and 65 home runs. Griffey twice hit 56 home runs in a season (1997 and 1998) and slugged 48 in 1999.

“We’ve discussed it with the owners and we’re going to look into it,” Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty told the Post-Dispatch. “We’re going to at least take a look at it to see if we can do it realistically. It might be very tough to do, but people thought we were crazy when we traded for McGwire.”

A few days later, at the general managers meetings in California, Jocketty and manager Tony La Russa met McGwire for dinner and asked him whether he would like the Cardinals to obtain Griffey, who would get a more lucrative contract than the one McGwire had, the Post-Dispatch reported.

“He thought it was great,” Jocketty said.

No go

According to the Seattle Times, the Cardinals were one of four teams “having serious discussions” with the Mariners about Griffey. The others were the Reds, Mets and Astros.

“The Cardinals might be on the short list of teams entertaining serious dreams of obtaining superstar Ken Griffey Jr.,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

The Mariners “would be certain to ask” for pitcher Rick Ankiel, the Seattle Times reported, but the Post-Dispatch declared, “Jocketty isn’t likely to give him up in any trade.”

According to the Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals might consider dealing to the Mariners some combination of third baseman Fernando Tatis, outfielder J.D. Drew, second baseman Adam Kennedy and pitcher Chad Hutchinson.

Eventually, the Mariners’ asking price was too high and the Cardinals backed off.

“We’ve had a couple of discussions, but player-wise it was going to be too rich for us,” Jocketty said. “They were looking for a killing on this deal.”

At the baseball winter meetings in December 1999, the other suitors for Griffey also broke off talks with the Mariners. Refusing to include infielder Pokey Reese in a trade for Griffey, Reds general manager Jim Bowden said, “There’s no chance at all” for a deal.

A month later, the Reds and Mariners resumed trade talks. The Reds insisted a deal would be contingent on Griffey agreeing to a long-term contract and giving up his chance to become a free agent after the 2000 season.

On Feb. 10, 2000, after Griffey accepted a nine-year contract proposal worth $116.5 million, the Mariners traded him to the Reds for four players, including outfielder Mike Cameron and pitcher Brett Tomko.

A month later, on March 23, 2000, the Cardinals acquired Jim Edmonds from the Angels to be their center fielder.

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Keith Hernandez of the Cardinals and Willie Stargell of the Pirates were first basemen who batted left-handed and played for teams in the National League East Division.

The link became even stronger on Nov. 13, 1979, when it was announced they would share the National League Most Valuable Player Award, finishing in a tie for first place in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).

Hernandez and Stargell are the only players to be co-MVPs in the National League. The closest the American League came to co-MVPs was in 1947 when Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees won the award with 202 points in the balloting and Ted Williams of the Red Sox was runner-up at 201.

Counting the votes

Hernandez had better overall season statistics than Stargell did in 1979, but Stargell provided leadership and power for the Pirates, who won the National League pennant and World Series title. The Cardinals finished in third place in the East, 12 games behind the Pirates.

Hernandez, 25, batted .344 with 210 hits, 116 runs, 11 home runs, 105 RBI and a .417 on-base percentage in 161 games.

Stargell, 39, batted .281 with 119 hits, 60 runs, 32 home runs, 82 RBI and a .352 on-base percentage in 112 games, including 16 as a pinch-hitter.

In voting by 24 members of the baseball writers association, two from each National League franchise city, Hernandez and Stargell each received 216 points.

Stargell got 10 first-place votes and Hernandez got four, but Hernandez was the only player chosen on all 24 ballots. Stargell was left off four ballots.

Each of the 24 writers was required to submit 10 names on his ballot. A first-place vote was worth 14 points, with a second-place vote worth nine points, a third-place vote worth eight points and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. Voting was done before the start of the postseason.

In addition to the 10 first-place votes for Stargell and the four for Hernandez, others getting first-place votes were Padres outfielder Dave Winfield (four), Reds third baseman Ray Knight (two), Astros pitcher Joe Niekro (one), Pirates reliever Kent Tekulve (one), Expos catcher Gary Carter (one) and Pirates third baseman Bill Madlock (one).

Winfield was runner-up to Hernandez and Stargell in the voting, with 155 points. He batted .308 with 184 hits, 97 runs, 34 home runs, 118 RBI and a .395 on-base percentage. Neither Charley Feeney of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette nor Dan Donovan of the Pittsburgh Press had Winfield on his ballot, according to The Sporting News.

Great debate

The four writers who omitted Stargell from their ballots were Kenny Hand of the Houston Post, Harry Shattuck of the Houston Chronicle, Mike Littwin of the Los Angeles Times and Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal.

Pittsburgh Press sports editor Pat Livingston noted, “Had any one of those four cast even a 10th-place vote for Willie, he would have won the MVP Award by himself.”

Pirates general manager Harding Peterson told the Pittsburgh Press the omission of Stargell from the four ballots was “most disturbing.”

“How can anybody leave Stargell off their ballot?” Peterson said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “He was the driving force for our club all season.”

Jack Lang, secretary-treasurer of the baseball writers association, said to the Pittsburgh Press, “I don’t know what some of these guys think about when they make out their ballots.”

Littwin told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette his first-place vote went to Winfield. Asked why he omitted Stargell, Littwin said, “I have as high a regard for Stargell as anyone. I decided to put two Pirates on my ballot and I decided on Kent Tekulve and Dave Parker.”

Hand also said Parker was a more deserving candidate than Stargell. “Parker batted higher (.310) and drove in more runs (94) than Stargell,” Hand said.

Shattuck said he was limited to seeing Stargell play only against the Astros. Though Stargell hit .302 with five home runs and 13 RBI in 10 games versus the Astros in 1979, it wasn’t enough to earn a vote from Shattuck.

Tucker, who gave Knight his first-place vote, said he thought center fielder and leadoff batter Omar Moreno was the most valuable player on the Pirates. “I felt Moreno’s ability to get on base and his defense were more important than Stargell’s role,” Tucker said.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Phil Musick said the requirements for determining a MVP were not clear and criticized the voting as “a flawed process which the BBWAA members have not corrected because arguing is more fun.”

Good sports

Hernandez and Stargell both were professional in their reactions to sharing the MVP Award.

“A taste of honey is better than none,” Stargell said to the Pittsburgh Press.

Hernandez told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Willie was the sentimental favorite. He was the inspirational man for the pennant winners with a lot of intangibles going for him. He was deserving.”

(Almost 40 years later, in his 2018 memoir “I’m Keith Hernandez,” Hernandez said, “Part of me felt that Willie Stargell, superstar that he was, didn’t deserve the MVP that year.” Hernandez also said he was puzzled why Lang, when he called with the news of the vote results, said, “You wouldn’t mind sharing the National League MVP with Willie Stargell, would you?”)

Hernandez said teammates such as Lou Brock and Willie Crawford helped him develop into a MVP.

“Lou is very unselfish,” Hernandez said to the Post-Dispatch. “He’s done more for me than just about anybody. He always had a pat on the back at the right time and he was there with encouragement in my moments of self-doubt.”

Crawford was Hernandez’s teammate for one season, 1976, and Hernandez credited him as the player who pushed him to take extra batting practice and “work on the inside pitch, which was giving me trouble then.”

The 1979 American League MVP voting created no controversy. The Angels’ Don Baylor won in a landslide, receiving 347 points and 20 first-place votes. The Orioles’ Ken Singleton was runner-up, with 241 points and three votes for first.

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