This Week in CFCL History

Here’s a look at this week in CFCL history, covering the dates April 21 to April 27.

April 21, 1987	COPPERFIELDS trade Bruce Bochy to APOLLOS for Alan Ashby. Ooooh – a catcher-for-catcher challenge trade…and the Copperfields come out ahead big time with this one (well, as much as possible in a swap of two elderly part-time backstops). 1987 Stats: Ashby - .288 BA - 14 HR - 63 RBI - 1 SB Bochy - .160 BA – 2 HR – 11 RBI – 0 SB
April 21, 1992	DA PAUL MEISTERS trade Roger McDowell and Darryl Boston (RL) to LAMBCHOPS for Marvin Freeman and Kevin Gross (RL).
April 21, 1995	COPPERFIELDS trade Brad Ausmus and their 13th and 14th Round Rotation Draft Picks to RUFFINS for their 4th and 5th Round Rotation Draft Picks. The first trade in CFCL history to be made via the Internet. You can relive this one in excruciating detail in our April 21 post: The First Internet Trade in CFCL History
April 25, 1986	BALD EAGLES trade Nolan Ryan to Z-28s for Ed Lynch. The first in-season trade made by Eagles’ owner Bob Monroe (he made plenty of deals in the 1986 pre-season), and he deals a future Hall of Famer in exchange for a future Futile General Manager . This one is not all that it appears to be, though. A rule from the early days of Roto puts this one in perspective: there was not a Free Agent Acquisition Budget at the time and the only way teams could acquire a free agent was by reserving a player who had been put on the disabled list by their National League team. Bob actually had no interest in Lynch at all. He DID have his eye on free agent pitcher Roger Mason, though. What made Lynch attractive to the Eagles was that he was injured but hadn’t been reserved by the Z-28s yet. As soon as the trade was completed, Bob reserved Lynch and called Mason from the Free Agent Pool. This was actually a quite common Bald Eagle tactic – as soon as news hit about a player injury, the rest of the league joked that the players’ owner was probably busy fielding a call from the Eagles. At the time the Eagles acquired him, Mason had won two of his three starts and had put up a 2.05 ERA and allowing fewer base runners than innings pitched. That was the high point of his season, though. After the trade, Mason posted only two wins in eight starts with a damaging 6.39 ERA. The Z-28s came way out ahead on this one. Ryan won 10 games with a 3.04 ERA after the deal. What about Lynch? He never threw a pitch for the Eagles. He sat on their Reserve List until early July and the Eagles waived him when he came off the DL. A couple side notes on Lynch’s tour of duty as Cubs’ GM … he presided over much of Sammy Sosa’s tenure with the team, and in fact Sosa’s breakout season coincided with Lynch’s arrival on the scene (coincidence, I’m sure). Still, what does Lynch’s Wikipedia page choose to highlight in the section on his time as an Executive? The fact that when he studied Law at the University of Miami after retiring as a player he “was a popular person at UM, and was known to let other students try on his 1986 World Series ring.” Attaboy, Ed!
April 26, 2010	DEM REBELS trade Melky Cabrera to MO’s RED HOTS for Ronny Cedeno. This was prior to Mekly’s huge season with Kansas City (2011) and his All Star follow-up with San Francisco (2012), but the Rebels must have been desperate for middle infield help for them to make this deal.