Before the Mariners there were the Milwaukee Brewers and Seattle Pilots, the evanescing expansion team from 1969. Lasting only a single season, the Pilots flew off to Milwaukee during spring training under the new ownership of a car salesman and future MLB commissioner Bud Selig after declaring bankruptcy in April 1970. The MLB had rushed their expansion plans and landed the Pilots in Seattle to play in a minor league stadium with plumbing issues and a press box with blocked views under duress from a Missouri senator who had threatened the MLB’s coveted anti-trust exemption. The resulting financial stress on the owners and reticent Seattle taxpayers grounded the Pilots after their first season, which became just a short Seattle layover on their way to Milwaukee.
For team collectors, the MLB’s 1969 jaunt into Seattle offers an opportunity to own a unique moment in baseball history. Eminently collectible, the 1969 and 1970 Topps Pilots include notable cards such as Lou Piniella’s third rookie card, a team card with its entire franchise history on the back, and the entire team roster that numbers in the mid-double digits.
Seattle’s Sick’s Stadium in the background.
The reverse features the Pilots entire statistical
franchise history- in team colors.
Among the 26 1969 Topps Pilots cards, most of the issue features the Topps hallmark airbrushed logo-less caps, but Jim Gosger (#482) is the first card to introduce the Pilots uniform and colors. Three of the Pilots, including Gosger, were issued with the yellow/white team name variation- the others are Rich Rollins (#451) and Diego Segui (#511). The rarer white team-name variations command a 3.5x premium over the card value of the more common yellow team-name issue.
Cuban hurler Segui offers an interesting view into Seattle’s future as he is one of two Pilots that segued to the Mariners to finish their careers. Segui pitched both the first games for the Pilots and for the Mariners in their inaugural season in 1977. The other Pilot with a Seattle stop-over is Lou Piniella who is pictured on his third “rookie card” #394. Piniella was also pictured on a Topps rookie card in 1968 for the Indians (#16) and in 1964 for the Washington Senators (#167), his true rookie card. However, Piniella never actually played for the Pilots since he was traded to the Kansas City Royals in spring training after the Topps print run. Piniella returned to Seattle and managed the Mariners from 1993-2002 and took the team to the postseason four times including for their 116-win, 2001 season and won manager of the year in 1995 and 2001.
The 24 1970 Topps Pilots cards were issued as the team was being renamed the Milwaukee Brewers. In fact, the Brewers blue and gold colors are a legacy of the move at the end of the 1970 spring training in Tempe, Arizona when the equipment vans with the Pilots uniforms enroute to Seattle were instructed to divert east to Wisconsin instead. Arriving within days of Opening Day, there was no time for new Brewers uniforms so the team just adopted the Pilots colors and sewed “Brewers” on the jerseys in a simple block script.
The most notable card of the 1970 series is the high-numbered Pilots team card (#713) which is the only one to feature Seattle’s Sick’s Stadium, the minor league venue that was forced into MLB service before it could be expanded and updated and was the main cause of the Pilots financial distress with its uncovered seats with bad views, and high ticket and concession prices. Sick’s Stadium was ignominiously demolished in 1979, a fate which seems to be a recurring theme for Seattle sports venues. (See also the Dugdale Field arson 1932, the toppled UW Huskie Stadium 1987, and the imploded Kingdome 2000.) The only remnant remaining is a small sign and home plate hidden in the clutter and carts at the entrance of a home improvement store. The back of the Pilots’ team card summarizes its entire roster and statistical history- in their team colors. Photos of the players cards were taken either at spring training in Tempe, Arizona, with the Butte dominant in the background, or at Yankees Stadium in front of the grandstand.
Conspicuously absent from the 1969 and 1970 Topps Pilots cards is the card for Jim Bouton. Bouton was fast-baller for the Yankees who won two games in the 1964 World Series and developed a knuckleball as a relief pitcher for the Pilots. Known as “Bulldog” for his competitive play, his contract was picked up by the Pilots before the expansion draft in 1968. He is best known however for his memoir Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues in which he openly shares his unvarnished view from within baseball based on his diary from the 1968 and 1969 seasons. Bouton should have had a 1969 Topps card since he had joined the Pilots early in their tenure, and certainly by 1970, but it has been suggested that his involvement with the Players Union may have disenfranchised him with Topps. His book, which was published in 1970 and immediately denounced by commissioner Bowie Kuhn who tried to discredit the exposé, sealed the deal and his 1968 Yankees #562 would be his last Topps card.
Other collectible and oddball series are the 1983 Renata Galasso set of the entire roster of 43 Pilots (including Jim Bouton), the 1970 Kellogg’s 3-D Super Stars which feature Tommy Harper #74 and Don Mincher #75, the 1969 Topps Deckle Edge of Tommy Davis #15, and the 1969 Topps Super cards of Tommy Davis #32 and Don Mincher #33.
Following the Pilots flight to Milwaukee, the city of Seattle decided to play hardball with the American League and filed suit for $32 million in damages for breach of contract as King County voters had already approved a $40 million bond issue in 1968 for a new domed stadium as a condition of being awarded the Pilots. After years of failed negotiations, the trial finally started in 1976 and resulted in an agreement by the League to provide an expansion team for the 1977 season. The new $67 million domed multipurpose stadium, the Kingdome, was completed in 1976 in time for Opening Day for when the Mariners would finally dock in Seattle.
Editor’s note: Pilots fans may also enjoy these two other SABR Baseball Cards articles:
