Marvin Milkes
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Marvin Milkes (August 10, 1923—January 31, 1982) was an American front office executive in three professional sports: Major League Baseball, soccer, and hockey. He is perhaps best known as the first general manager in the history of baseball's Seattle Pilots and — when that franchise was transferred after its only season in the Pacific Northwest — Milwaukee Brewers.
Milkes' baseball career began in 1946 when he became an executive with minor league affiliates in the St. Louis Cardinals' vast farm system. He won The Sporting News' Minor League Executive of the Year Award (Lower Classification) in 1956 as general manager of the Fresno Cardinals of the Class C California League. Beginning in 1957, he was the GM of the San Antonio Missions, then the AA Texas League affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. When the Orioles dropped the affiliation after the 1958 season, Milkes worked to keep the Missions franchise alive, securing a working agreement with the Chicago Cubs.
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[edit] At the Pilots' helm
In 1961, he joined the front office of one of the American League's first expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels. Serving as assistant general manager to Fred Haney, Milkes helped build the organization. One of his duties beginning in 1965 was to supervise its AAA club, the Seattle Angels, and when Seattle was granted an AL expansion team for 1969 — the Pilots — Milkes was named its first general manager.
Although he drafted many veterans from the 1968 expansion pool, Milkes also chose younger players who would go on to long and successful Major League careers — including Lou Piniella, Mike Marshall and Marty Pattin. But his most famous acquisition was pitcher Jim Bouton, purchased from the New York Yankees during the 1968 season. Bouton would immortalize the 1969 Pilots in his memoir/diary Ball Four, and Milkes would not escape Bouton's scorn as an example of a baseball executive willing to deceive his players for the benefit of the club's owners and management.
Bouton wrote on August 26, 1969: "As soon as a general manager says ['Now I want to be honest with you'], check your wallet. It's like Marvin Milkes telling you, 'We've always had a nice relationship.' The truth is general managers aren't honest with their players, and they have no relationship with them except a business one."[1]
[edit] One and done in Seattle
Unfortunately for Milkes, the Pilots' tenure in Seattle would be the shortest of any franchise in modern MLB history and Ball Four would be the team's lasting legacy. The Pilots were plagued by absentee ownership (the primary investor, William R. Daley, lived in Cleveland, Ohio), and played in a minor league facility, Sicks Stadium. The team was outdrafted by its expansion twin, the Kansas City Royals, and finished last in the American League West Division, winning only 64 games and drawing only 678,000 fans. During the 1969-70 offseason, it became apparent that the Pilots could not continue in Seattle unless new owners were found. A local group was forced to withdraw when Bank of America called a $4 million loan as part of the previous owners' debt. The American League appointed its own caretaker CEO, Roy Hamey, to watch over the foundering franchise.
But as spring training 1970 dawned, the only owners who appeared on the horizon were bent on moving the Pilots to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This group, headed by Bud Selig, still smarted over the 1965 move of the Braves to Atlanta. It had tried to lure the Chicago White Sox to Milwaukee, and failed to land a National League expansion franchise in 1969. As spring training drew to a close, Pilot players and management were unsure whether to report to Seattle or Milwaukee to begin the 1970 season. On April 1, 1970, a court ordered the Pilots' sale to the Selig syndicate.
As it turned out, the move to Milwaukee happened so late in the preseason that Selig and his syndicate had to retain Milkes and the new manager he had just hired, Dave Bristol. The Brewers took the field wearing their new name over the old Seattle uniforms, and Milkes was allowed to finish the season — during which Milwaukee won 65 games (one more than the Pilots had done), finished fourth in the AL West, and attracted 933,000 fans. Then, on December 17, 1970, Milkes turned in his resignation.
[edit] After baseball: hockey and soccer
As it turned out, Milkes' resignation signaled the end of a 25-year baseball career. His next job, in February 1972, was as the first general manager in the history of the New York Raiders, a franchise in the upstart World Hockey Association. But Milkes' tenure was brief; he resigned eight months into the job. Almost a decade later, in 1981, Milkes was general manager of Soccer Los Angeles, which operated the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League, but the franchise folded and in November of that year he resigned.
Slightly more than two months later, on January 31, 1982, Milkes died of an apparent heart attack at a Los Angeles health club. He was 58 years old.
[edit] References
- ^ Bouton, Jim, Ball Four. New York and Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1970, page 327.
- Obituary, The New York Times, Feb. 2, 1982.
- Spink, C.C. Johnson, ed., The 1968 Baseball Guide. St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1969.
| Preceded by First General Manager |
Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers General Manager 1968–1970 |
Succeeded by Frank Lane |
