Baseball’s executives select New York City as the site of the game’s first free-agent draft, a controversial measure approved during the winter meetings that gives teams with the worst records the first picks to the talented amateur players. With the first pick in the history of the draft, the A’s will select ASU outfielder Rick Monday when the draft begins on June 8 at the Hotel Commodore.
San Francisco Giants outfielder Willie Mays, the highest-paid player in major league baseball, signs for $105,000.
On January 15, 1959, the Texas League makes a radical rule change, allowing pitchers to automatically signal an intentional walk. The rule change eliminates the need for the pitcher to intentionally throw four pitches out of the strike zone.
1958 – The New York Yankees announce that 140 games will be televised this season. The deal is worth over one million dollars. Six days later, the Philadelphia Phillies agree to televise 78 games into the New York City area, which is without National League baseball for the first time since the league’s inception in 1876.
The Kratter Corporation grants Walter O’Malley an additional two years on the three-year lease on Ebbets Field agreed to last year. The new timeline means the ball club has a home in Brooklyn until 1961, but the extension may have been prompted by the Dodgers owner’s uncertainty about L.A’s ability to secure the land needed to build a stadium if the team moved to the West Coast.
Mike Marshall is born in Adrian, MI. He pitches in only four games as an Astro in 1970 before he is sent to Montreal. As a Dodger in 1974, Marshall wins the Cy Young Award by winning 15 and saving 21 while appearing in a remarkable 106 games in relief.
On January 15, 1942, the Chicago Cubs suspend plans to install lights at Wrigley Field. The Cubs had originally signed an agreement with a contractor to install the lights but decide against it because of the U.S. military’s need for materials.
On January 15, 1942, “I honestly feel it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.” – FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, U.S. President sends his famed “Green Light” letter to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, encouraging major league baseball to continue playing during World War II. Despite the loss of many star players to military…
Horace Stoneham is elected president of the New York Giants, succeeding his late father, Charles. Stoneham, at age 32, will remain president for the next 40 years, presiding over its move to San Francisco, CA, before selling the team in 1976.
IRS figures for 1934 show Branch Rickey as the highest-paid man in Major League Baseball at $49,470. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis had voluntarily taken a cut in 1933 from $65,000 to $40,000 because of the Depression.
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