Managing a trade

“Trader” Frank Lane lives up to his reputation 63 years ago today as the Cleveland Indians’ general manager convinces his counterpart from Detroit – Bill DeWitt – to make the unlikeliest of trades.

Namely, in a first for baseball, they trade for each other’s managers with Cleveland sending Joe Gordon to Detroit for Jimmie Dykes.

At the time, Cleveland is 49-46 under Gordon, while Detroit is 44-52 for Dykes.

The players for both teams, though, hardly are inspired as the Indians go 26-32 for Dykes while the Tigers are 26-31 for Gordon.

Neither team finishes within 21 games of the American League pennant-winning – and eventually World Series champion – New York Yankees.

Dykes, 63 years old at the time of the trade, manages only one more season with Cleveland before retiring.

Gordon, then 45, spends the following season tending to the 1961 Kansas City Athletics before leaving there, only to return in 1969 to manage the expansion Kansas City Royals.