Vida Blue had a sensational 1971 season at the age of only 21-22. With a 24-8 record and an ERA of 1.82, he won both the Cy Young and MVP awards in the American League.
As the season went on, it became clear that his team, the Oakland Athletics, might have difficulty signing him in 1972. In a commercial for Aqua Velva, Blue said “you’ve probably heard that I’m the lowest paid super-star in America. Well, I am. But next year, I’m going to make a whole lot of money.”
Even President Nixon took notice. During a White House reception, he told Blue, “I’d like to be the lawyer who negotiates your next contract.”
Had he been, Nixon would have gone up against Oakland’s owner Charlie Finley. It would have been an interesting matchup. Finley a self-made man, made a mule his team’s mascot because that’s as close as he could come to an animal as stubborn as he was.
Blue demanded a contract for $115,000, up from the $14,750 he had made the year before. The demand was reasonable, given Blue’s financial contribution. Thanks in considerable part to his efforts, the A’s drew 150,000 more fans in 1971 than in 1970. But $115,000 was way out of line what players made off of one great season during this era.
Finley countered with an offer of $50,000 and insisted he would go no higher.
In 1972, players almost always negotiated with management by themselves. Blue took the unusual step of using a lawyer to whom Tommy Davis had introduced him for the purpose of negotiating endorsement deals.
Blue’s use of an attorney infuriated Finley. He took out his rage on Davis, who had batted .324, and .464 as a pinch hitter, the year before. Finley ordered his manager, Dick Williams, to cut Davis spring training, and to do it just before an exhibition game in Yuma, Arizona.
The move left Davis stranded in Yuma, three hours away from the A’s camp in Mesa. Fortunately, the team’s traveling secretary took pity on the player, lending him his car.
Around the same time, Blue announced his retirement from baseball. He took a job as vice president of public relations with a manufacturer of bathroom fixtures — a client of his attorney. The salary? $55,000 a year.
No one took this move seriously, least of all Blue, who giggled his way through the press conference announcing his new job. The pitcher wanted to pitch. He therefore contacted Finley and agreed to meet with him, minus his attorney.
Feeling that he now had the upper hand, Finley refused to budge. He also took to making fun of Blue to the press. And to fill the hole in his pitching staff, Finley signed Denny McLain, who won the Cy Young award in 1968 and 1969, but had struggled since then.
Blue continued his holdout. When the season began after a short strike, he was not with the ballclub.
The A’s started fast, thanks in part to rainouts that enabled Williams to use a three-man starting rotation — Ken Holtzman, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, and McLain. But McLain was usually ineffective, and even with the return to action of John “Blue Moon” Odom, it became clear that the team would need Blue.
More importantly, baseball needed its top drawing card of 1971. One out of every twelve American League tickets sold that year had been for a game Vida Blue started.
Thus, commissioner Bowie Kuhn stepped into the breach. On April 27, he met with the parties in Chicago for 22 hours.
During these negotiations, Finley and Blue were equally ill-tempered. But when the pitcher retired to his hotel room for some sleep, his lawyer hammered out a deal for $50,000 (prorated to account for time missed), plus a $5,000 bonus for his 1971 performance and an $8,000 set aside for college tuition.
Blue would not accept the deal, however. The sticking point was Finley’s insistence that it be characterized as a $50,000 contract. He wouldn’t allow Blue to save even a little face and Blue wouldn’t allow Finley to stick it to him that badly.
Finally, Kuhn demanded that Finley sign the negotiated deal and that it be characterized as a $63,000 contract. Kuhn told the owner that if he did not agree, he would declare Blue a free agent.
That did the trick. The parties signed the agreement on May 2.
At the press conference, a petulant Blue said it would take him a month to get ready to pitch and that he would be lucky to win 10 games in 1972. Later that day, he told the press that Finley had treated him like “a damn colored boy” and “had soured his stomach for baseball.”
Blue’s prediction of a return date was a little too pessimistic. On May 24, Blue took the mound for Oakland as a relief pitcher against California.
It didn’t go well. Entering a 4-4 tie in the sixth inning, Blue walked two of the first three batters he faced, and also uncorked a wild pitch. He then gave up back-to-back singles to Ken Berry and Vada Pinson. A double-play grounder got him out of the inning, but he had allowed two runs.
Williams removed him after that. Oakland went on to lose 6-5, with Blue taking the defeat, on his way to a 6-10 record, albeit with a 2.80 ERA.
After 1972, Blue had two more 20-win seasons, pitched in three more all-star games, and was a member of the starting rotation on the A’s back-to-back-to-back championship teams of 1972-74. However, he never came close to matching that magical 1971 season.
NOTE: Much of the information in this post comes from Jason Turbow’s excellent book Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s.