The 1969 Seattle Pilots

The Mariners were not Seattle’s first major league baseball team. In 1937, Seattle businessman Emil Sick bought the city’s failing Pacific Coast League team, the Indians, renamed them the Rainiers and constructed a new, state-of-the-art stadium. Over the next few decades, at least two teams—the Kansas City A’s and the Cleveland Indians—would consider relocating to Seattle, and both PCL president Dewey Soriano and Cleveland Indians owner William Daly lobbied to bring a major league team to the booming city. Their efforts paid off in 1967, when despite shrinking Rainiers attendance figures, Seattle was awarded the second of two American League expansion teams. For one season—1969—Sick’s Stadium became the home of the Seattle Pilots.
From the earliest days of the franchise through their final move, this book tells the story of the first one-year team in the American or National League since 1901 (when, ironically, the Milwaukee Brewers left town after the AL’s first year of major-league status). After a concise discussion of Seattle’s amateur and minor league history, the main text provides a detailed account of the efforts to bring major league baseball to town, the first team draft, the 1969 spring training and regular season, the attempt to save the team, and finally the move to Milwaukee. Brief interviews with fourteen players round out the text. Tables including a team roster, final league standings, wins and losses and player stats are also provided.

Kenneth Hogan is a New York City firefighter and lives in Breezy Point, New York. His previous books include The Old Firehouse and America’s Ballparks.

Kenneth Hogan
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 204
Bibliographic Info: 112 photos, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2007
pISBN: 978-0-7864-2786-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0471-8
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1

1. Early Seattle Baseball      3
2. Emil Sick and the PCL      7
3. A New Beginning      14
4. Building a Team      16
5. Getting Ready      22
6. Birth of a Team      27
7. The Season’s First Half      32
8. The Season Continues      89
9. The Failure      124
10. The End      132

Appendix A: Pilots Interviews      145
Appendix B: By the Numbers      179
Notes      191
Bibliography      193
Index      195

“truly exceptional…run out to your book store and get…brings the team back to life”—One More Inning; “the author paints a wonderful word picture of the obstacles Seattle had to overcome to land a major league franchise”—1190kex.com.