This Trade Sure Ranks in Top 10

If you had asked historian Arnold Toynbee what was the worst trade in history, he might have replied it was Alaska to the U.S. for $7 million. Or maybe it was the Louisiana Purchase, everything from the Mississippi west to the Rockies that Napoleon deeded to America for $15 million a half-century earlier.

To a baseball fan, both those transactions are in second place. The worst trade in history, certifiably, was Babe Ruth from Boston to the New York Yankees in 1919 for $125,000. It changed the face of sports in this country forever.

But terrible trades are as much a part of baseball as the infield fly rule. A study of the game would make you pause and wonder what’s so smart about baseball men. Blunders are legion.

Try on for size the trade of Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles for Milt Pappas in 1965. Robinson went into the Hall of Fame on the fly. Pappas, although a pretty good pitcher with 209 wins, became a trivia question, like the third baseman in the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance infield.

Most historians agree that the Lou Brock-for-Ernie Broglio trade was one of the game’s great gaffes. Brock went into the Hall of Fame standing up. Broglio went into private business.

Would you believe that the Philadelphia Phillies once traded Grover Cleveland Alexander, after seasons in which he had won, successively, 31, 33 and 30 games, to Chicago for people named Mike Prendergast and Pickles Dilhoefer? Believe it. They thought Alex drank. He drank his way to 183 more victories after that, including 27-, 22- and 21-win seasons.

The Cincinnati Reds once got George Foster for Frank Duffy and Vern Geishert, if you can credit that. But any discussion of rotten trades over the years has to put the one the St. Louis Cardinals made with the New York Mets in 1983 as one of the top 10 of all time.

Keith Hernandez for--are you ready for this?--Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey. The Cardinals made Napoleon look like promoter David Harum.

Keith Hernandez at the time just might have been the best all-around ballplayer in the league. He had had seasons at the plate of .344, .321, .306, .299 and .297. He was co-MVP in ’79.

Not even if he got caught voting Communist or eating with his hat on should a player like that be traded for two nobodies. Not even if he had a hole in him someplace, which a lot of baseball people began to suspect had to be the case.

Well, not any more than Grover Alexander, Frank Robinson or Lou Brock--or Babe Ruth--did. Keith Hernandez, in New York, proceeded to bat .311, .309 and .310. for the Mets.

He is an almost perfect first baseman. That is to say, he hung up a .996 fielding average last season, the best of anybody at any position in the league.

An interesting argument could be made that the World Series was lost at first base last year--see Game 6 and the Buckner E-3 stat. If so, that’s one place the Mets won it. Keith Hernandez made only five errors all year. And that was not one of his great years. He had four the year before. He’s had as few as three. He’s won nine consecutive Gold Glove awards at his position.

The real measure of the effectiveness of a traded player is not always in the decimals and compound fractions of the press box actuaries. You check the flagpole.

When Keith Hernandez joined the New York Mets, they were less a team than a situation comedy. They had finished dead last, 27 games out of first place, the year before. They were last when he joined them.

By the next year, they were second, only 6 1/2 games out. By the next, they were second by 3. In his third year, they won the division title by 21 1/2.

There were other factors, to be sure: The arrival of Gary Carter. The emergence of Dwight Gooden. The coming of age of Darryl Strawberry. The direction of Davey Johnson.

But the St. Louis Cardinals had not been in a World Series in 14 years when they made it with Keith Hernandez in the lineup in 1982. And the Mets had not been there in 13 years when they made it with him in 1986.

That’s how you really measure trades. The Baltimore Orioles had never won a pennant when Frank Robinson joined them in 1966. They won four of the next six after he joined them. Lou Brock helped St. Louis take consecutive pennants when he arrived.

Hernandez performs before the most demanding audience in the big leagues. Playing baseball in New York is like telling jokes at a Friars banquet. New York is used to great first basemen. Lou Gehrig played there. So did Bill Terry. Gil Hodges. Now they have Don Mattingly.

“If there’s one thing a New Yorker knows, it’s how to play first base,” says Keith Hernandez, grinning.

And second base. And short. And pitcher. New Yorkers are expert on everything when they get to a ballpark--40,000 guys with a skeptical look. “Call yourself a first baseman? You shoulda seen Gehrig. You couldn’t wipe his shoes.”

Says Hernandez: “Our relationship has been good, though. I admit I was apprehensive coming to New York. I mean, I come from California and I played in St. Louis and I knew New York wouldn’t be laid back. They think they invented the game here.

“I figured the media would be tough, probing, caustic. I figured the crowds would be impatient with imperfection. And they are. But they’re knowledgeable. They tear you apart when it’s your fault, but they know when it’s not your fault. I’m comfortable here. I think our relationship is based on respect.”

If it isn’t, it ought to be. New Yorkers are getting impeccable pennant-winning play from a guy who can be mentioned in the same breath with Gehrig, Terry and Hodges. And they got him for next to nothing.

New York got Manhattan Island from the Indians for a box of beads. At Shea Stadium, they may not be impressed. They got Keith Hernandez without a bead--and didn’t even have to throw in the Brooklyn Bridge.