Customer Reviews

The 1969 Seattle Pilots: Major League Baseball's One-Year Team

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Do the names Jerry McNertney, Steve Hovley, Wayne Comer and Rich Rollins sound familiar? If not, don't worry too much, as only the biggest baseball trivia expert would quickly know that those players were part of the 1969 Seattle Pilots.

Who? Or better yet, What?

The Pilots, an American League expansion franchise in 1969, finished in last place in their only season in the city and - due to management's financial miscues that were worse than anything seen in Sick Stadium - relocated to Milwaukee shortly before the start of the 1970 season.

But what a wild ride it was for one year, as the Pilots started their only year with a roster of major league cast-offs, career minor-leaguers and several players who made the grade through a variety of tryout camps that were conducted under game conditions.

It is a wonder the club won 64 games - and lost 98 - while finishing in last place in the AL West, though nearly 670,000 fans passed through the turnstiles for the home games. And Seattle wasn't the worst team in the AL, as Cleveland won two fewer games.

Seattle was awarded the expansion franchise in 1967, but by that juncture attendance was dipping for a long-time minor league team in the Pacific Coast League and the stadium was showing the wear & tear of 30 years. The 1969 season became a bizarre culmination of what was once a rich tradition of baseball in the city.

Author Kenneth Hogan delivers an excellent overview of professional baseball in Seattle and the view of several major league clubs - Kansas City A's and Cleveland Indians - to possibly relocate their franchises to the city. He supplements his research with an oral history from 14 players, a healthy dose of statistics and a variety of other diamond gems.

Nearly 40 years later, the Pilots have found a home - of sorts - with fans; reproductions of the hats and jerseys, along with shirts that have the team logo, are hot sellers with the "throwback" generation.

Hogan dusts off home plate and delivers a winner about a franchise that couldn't get through the turbulence created by (mis)management. But what a ride it was in the summer of '69.

This was an absolutely fabulous book to read! I am a very big baseball fan and have known about the existence of the Seattle Pilots for over 30 years but have not really come across any hard information about them until I found a website dedicated to them which in turn informed me about this book. The book really goes into great detail about the team during it's 1-year tenure in Seattle and it's ultimate demise and subsequent move to Milwaukee. I highly recommend this book to any serious baseball historian.

The definitive (and perhaps only) book that details the 1-year history of the Seattle Pilots! (although I believe Jim Bouton's "Ball 4" recounts much of the Pilot's lone season from a player's perspective...). "The 1969 Pilots" briefly summarizes the history of Seattle baseball up to - and including - the awarding of the Pilots to Seattle by the A.L., the creation of the new team, the failures of ownership, an account of the season itself and Bud Selig's ultimate "press" to move the new team to Milwaukee.

I had always known how the Pilots were here for one lone season and then moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers by the current baseball commissioner. But I never knew "the how" or "the why," and wanted to find an account of what happened to cause the team to depart - and this book tells that story! I felt the chapters recounting the games and series of the entire season sort of slogged along (much like their season, itself), but I think recounting those games...and the heroes and goats of each game...along with the attendance numbers and constant perhaps "trigger-happy" dealings by the Pilot's GM (Marvin Milkes) help paint a picture of the team's season and ultimate failure.

The book also lays out a variety of interesting facts such as how Charles O' Finley (owner of the Oakland A's 70's dynasty teams) considered moving his A's from K.C. to Seattle instead of Oakland; describes Seattle's early teams and leagues, a brief history of the rise and fall of the old "Pacific Coast League" in Seattle, and how the Pilots demise ultimately laid the groundwork for our Mariners (who have provided Seattle with so much abounding glory). The book has two appendices - one is "by the numbers," which was fine, but I particularly thought the appendix containing Pilot interviews was a nice touch to the book! (one of my favorites...the Pilot's P.R. rep describing the time he observied Bud Selig at an A.L. owner's meeting "hiding and spying behind a plant...").

Though one customer review states there are spelling errors and grammatical miscues, I didn't find these to be particularly distracting. I believe I did note one factual error though- the author states that through the time the book was written the Milwaukee Brewers have only made the post-season once, their trip to the '82 World Series. This is not true as they also made the A.L. East Division series in '81, the year of the strike-interrupted season and rather quirky decision (in my opinion) to have the winner of the 1st and 2nd "halves" of the season play each other in the first round. In that first round the Brewers lost to the Yankees.

Pilot's memorabilia is hard to come by - and their lone season with mostly unheard of players has become a minor footnote in Major League history. It's nice to have this book that sums up their short-lived story, merchandise, uniforms and club members.

This book is one of two available on the Seattle Pilots' one and only season of 1969. The other, a disaster by one Carson Van Lindt, is a poorly written mishmash. I've wondered if that work was ever seen by a bona fide editor.

This Hogan book is better but the poor guy needed an editor as well. Misspellings are rampant. Plenty of grammar problems too.

That aside, it's a game-by-game look at the season accompanied by interviews of players and front office staff. The game recaps resemble fundamental gameday newspaper coverage. The interviews are insightful and have their moments.

Anyone who was there probably needs this book and Van Lindt's. You'll need to overlook the loose standards applied to English usage and remember these were two guys who meant well in taking on a subject that is largely a footnote in the history of major league baseball.