Larry Andersen looks back on the big trade with a sense of humor.
Larry Andersen can laugh fondly about the part he played in bringing the Astros an all-time great
PHILADELPHIA — When called into his manager’s office on Aug .30,1990, Larry Andersen figured new sofa trade loomed. The journeyman reliever, then 37, had pitched well for an Astros team going nowhere. A contender required his services.
So after Art Howe notified the righthander he had been dealt to the Boston Red Sox, Andersen asked, “Who for?”
Some Class AA player named Jeff Bagwell, he was told.
“I’m coming off of two sub-2.00 ERA years, and I was like, ‘Really? That’s all they got? All they got for me after the years I had was the Double A guy?’ ” Andersen recalled recently.
“It’s funny because in retrospect and in talking to Baggy, I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me? I’m a Hall of Famer, and I got traded for this old reliever?’ ”
Forever linked
In addition to his slider, Andersen, who pitched in parts of 17 major league seasons from 1975 to 1994, is known for his zany sense of humor. He long has been able to laugh about his distinction as the other half of one of the most lopsided trades in baseball history, undoubtedly the best deal in Astros history.
Andersen would joke about it when Bagwell was still playing. Now the radio color analyst for the Philadelphia Phillies, Andersen broke into broadcasting with the team in 1998, when the Astros’ first baseman was still in the prime of his Hall of Fame career.
A friendship even formed over the move that will forever link them.
“He used to always give me a hard time,” said Bagwell, who won’t forget Andersen when he makes his induction speech Sunday in Cooperstown. “When I’d see him, if I wasn’t doing that well, he’d starting yelling at me. He’d say, ‘Hey, man, people are going to start forgetting about me if you don’t start picking it up.’ We’ve always had that relationship.
“He’s such a great guy. He’s hysterical. He’s really, really funny. He’s just a good person, and I couldn’t be more proud to have been traded for him.”
As Bagwell’s support from Hall of Fame voters grew in the last seven years, the only man for whom he was ever traded rooted for his election. If nothing else, Andersen joked, it would boost his stock. He can say he was traded straight up for a Hall of Famer, not simply a player who almost made it to Cooperstown.
“Major league athletes in any sport, they’ve got egos, and I do, too,” Andersen said on a recent afternoon at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. “For me, I looked at it like, ‘Hey, if nothing else happens, at least I’m going to be in the news for the next five or 10 years after the trade.’
“And here we are almost 30 years later, and I’m talking about it again still. I was fine with it. Whether you’re part of trivia in that respect or people saying (it’s) ‘the worst trade of all time’ or ‘one of the worst,’ that’s fine with me. I don’t live my life based on what other people’s projections are or what they think. I’m OK with it, and I have fun with it.”
Naturally, mention of the trade surfaces on occasion in his current line of work, especially recently. Andersen, who rejuvenatedhis career while pitching for the Astros from 1986-90, has no issue playing along.
The former pitcher even owns an autographed baseball from Bagwell on which the Hall of Famer jokingly wrote, “Thanks for making my career.”
Bagwell laughed when asked last week if he remembered signing it.
“That was a long time ago,” he said. “We’ve always laughed about it. We met after games in Philly and stuff like that and had some fun with the clubhouse guys and Larry. That’s the kind of guy he is, though, man. We’ve had a lot of fun with it, and I’m sure he’s happy for me. I’ ll give him ash outout when I’m up there( at the podium on Sunday ). I promise .”
A not-so-warm welcome
Two moments stand out for Andersen from his first two days as a member of the Red Sox. The first was getting called into Howe’s office at the Astrodome. The other occurred while he was waiting at baggage claim at Logan International Airport on his way to joining his new team. The airline lost his luggage, so as he waited for it to be found, he picked up a copy of that morning’s Boston Globe.
It featured a story about the previous day’s trades.
“The Oakland A’s get Willie McGee and Harold Baines. The Red Sox get Larry Andersen,” it read. “Is it like countering a nuclear attack with a squirt gun?”
“It’s like, ‘Welcome to Boston,’ ” Andersen said with a laugh when retelling the story.
The Red Sox reached the 1990 playoffs but were swept by the A’s in four games in the American League Championship Series. A free agent at season’s end, Andersen signed that winter with San Diego, where he spent two seasons. He finished his career with two seasons in Philadelphia, his second stint with the Phillies.
At the time of the trade, Bagwell was a Class AA third baseman blocked in the Red Sox organization by Wade Boggs, Scott Cooper and Tim Naehring. He was batting .333 with just four homers but 34 doubles and 16 more walks than strikeouts in his first full professional season after being drafted the year before in the fourth round out of the University of Hartford.
More than a footnote
Lost in the fact that then-Boston general manager Lou Gorman dealt a promising corner infield prospect for a month and change for a reliever is that Andersen pitched well in his short time with the Red Sox. He had a 1.23 ERA in 22 innings over 15 appearances and struck out 25 against just three walks.
“He was very good,” Bagwell said. “People a lot of times forget how good he pitched when he was with the Red Sox. It just didn’t happen to work out for them getting to the World Series (that year), and obviously, with my career the way it is, they think about that.”
In the final four seasons of his career, Andersen faced Bagwell seven times. He limited him to one hit and two walks. Bagwell remembers only one of their battles specifically, one in which the former slugger said Andersen fed him slider after slider before catching him looking at a fastball right down the middle.
“When I would see him after games or if we were having a beer, it would be the same thing,” Andersen said. “I would say, ‘Hey, c’mon, we need to get in that Hall of Fame.’ We’d joke about it and laugh about it.
“I wouldn’t say we were best friends, but I think we had mutual respect for each other and enjoyed our times. And for me, joking about it was all part of it, having fun with it. It’s all part of the deal. But to see him get in, that was not a joke. I was literally thrilled when he got the news.”