Calvin Griffith in 1978

Johan Santana is not the first Twins ace to be traded in the wake of a salary dispute. In 1976, owner Calvin Griffith dealt 99-game winner Bert Blyleven and infielder Danny Thompson to the Texas Rangers in the middle of the season. In exchange, the Twins got infielders Roy Smalley and Mike Cubbage and pitchers Bill Singer and Jim Gideon. Texas gave Blyleven a $100,000 bonus and a three-year deal worth $150,000 a year. That’s about $550,000 a year in today’s dollars.

Blyleven, who would later return to the Twins and help them win their first World Series in 1987, made some noise on his way out the door. Tribune sports columnist Larry Batson explained how the deal went down.

Blyleven proves free enterprise still works

Bert Blyleven spent Tuesday burning bridges. Calvin Griffith, caught on the wrong side of the river, was looking for a boat. All in all, it was the most exciting day in the Minnesota Twins organization since Halsey Hall set fire to Ray Scott’s new suit with his cigar.

But as twilight stilled the songbirds on Pig’s Eye Island and the scent of roasting bratwurst wafted from Metropolitan Stadium all was well.

Blyleven was trekking southward, suitably bowlegged from the weight of a wallet stuffed by the Texas Rangers. His trail companion was Danny Thompson, an Oklahoman, who will play somewhere in the Rangers’ infield and presumably interpret for Blyleven until Bert learns to squint and say “yup.”

Griffith, lustily roaring a chantey, was being rowed ashore by four able-bodied lads he had hauled aboard in midstream. It was as if Captain Bligh, set adrift in a rowboat at dawn, has reappeared on the horizon at sunset in command of a man-of-war.

A giddy epic, by gad! And only Hollywood – the old Hollywood – could do it justice. Even then, it would require the combined directional talents of John Ford, Cecil B. De Mille and Leo McCarey. Personally, I see Sidney Greenstreet playing Blyleven, Dick Powell as Griffith and the Three Stooges as everybody else.

For a while, it’s going to be hard to settle down to plain old baseball.

Our drama began as an old-fashioned salary hassle, depressingly familiar to followers of the Twins. But, hoo boy, did it escalate.

Blyleven, a pitcher of solid performance and enourmous potential, came to regard his employer as niggardly, to say the least. And that was the very least that Blyleven, an outspoken person, said about Griffith.

Just 19 years old, Bert Blyleven won 10 games in 1970, his first season with the Twins. (Photo by John Croft, Minneapolis Tribune)

Three seasons ago, as Griffith tells it, Blyleven made a specific salary demand. Griffith immediately agreed. “I think that stuck in Bert’s craw,” Griffith said recently. “I believe he thought he could have got more money if he’d asked for it – and maybe he would have.”

The next year Blyleven took his case to arbitration and lost. He fumed.

This year Blyleven refused to sign, Griffith fumed.

Griffith is a merchant. He sells baseball and, quite often, baseball players. By playing a season without a contract, Blyleven could become a free agent. He could then sell himself.

Griffith had a potential competitor on his own payroll. Every fourth day, Blyleven would take the mound for the Twins and throw beanballs at Griffith’s corporate assets. It was galling – and Calvin had to pay Bert meal money on road trips to boot.

As Blyleven put it yesterday, he was merely setting up a little ma and pa store, taking a chance on the free-enterprise system of which he has heard so much from baseball owners.

“I had to think of my future, my career expectancy, and of security for my family,” he said. “Mr. Griffith should be able to understand that. He has a huge family.”

Observers will long debate and probably never agree on the motivation for Griffith’s next move. He told Blyleven that he could negotiate with any club interested in signing him. Was this frustration or genius? Was Griffith surrendering or baiting a trap?

If it was bait, Texas seized it. The Rangers talked to Blyleven in terms he could appreciate. He likes numbers with lots of zeroes, and who doesn’t? By Monday morning, Blyleven had decided that he was going to Texas.

As a parting gesture, Bert hoped to win his 100th game for the Twins that evening. He lost it, but improvised another gesture for jeering spectators which will probably be remembered longer.

“Fans pay good money and they’re entitle to boo,” Blyleven said yesterday. “But when they go too far, I think a player has the right to respond in kind.”

Meanwhile, Blyleven had established communications with Griffith in one area. “He told me he wouldn’t sign with us under any circumstances,” Griffith said, “and that’s that.”

“Right,” said Blyleven, “that’s my position.”

It was an historic moment, the first time in recent memory that the two had agreed on anything.

And so the deal was made. And each side can claim victory.

Blyleven has demonstrated that this is still a land of opportunity for a young man with pluck, perseverance and a humming fastball. May he prosper and gather victories in glossy clusters.

Griffith had managed to exchange two players who were slipping from his fingers (Thompson had not signed a contract, either) for four. It may have been Calvin’s finest hour.

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