Card Corner--Mike Andrews

As we continue our look book at cards from the 1973 Topps set, let's pay tribute to a player who took more than his fair share of hits 35 years ago...

Most baseball fans have heard of the pioneering efforts of Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith, two accomplished veteran pitchers who played the 1975 season under unsigned, renewed contracts as part of the players' efforts to gain free agency. Less well known are the preceding efforts of several players with the Chicago White Sox, including second baseman Mike Andrews. As Society for American Baseball Research members Maxwell Kates and Stew Thornley have pointed in their research efforts, four White Sox veterans took a courageous stand in 1973, two years before McNally and Messersmith put their baseball lives on the line. The quartet of players refused to sign new contracts with Chicago, instead reporting to the White Sox' training camp under automatically renewed contracts. The group included Andrews, third baseman Ed Spiezio (the father of troubled former major league Scott Spiezio), onetime bonus baby Rick Reichardt, and starting pitcher Stan Bahnsen.

Bahnsen eventually signed a new contract for the 1973 season, but the other three refused, instead deciding to play under the renewed contracts with the idea that they would become free agents after the season. Unfortunately, the strategy did not proceed as smoothly as Andrews did in turning a double play on his 1973 Topps card. The threesome, including Andrews, soon became "free," but not in the way that they would have desired. All three earned their releases (leaving them unemployed in midseason), as a direct result of their efforts to buck the system. If the Players Association had been as strong in 1973 as it is today, the White Sox likely would have faced a grievance--and the players probably would have gained some form of restitution, if not complete reinstatement of their jobs. Such was not the case in 1973, in the days before arbitration, free agency, and McNally and Messersmith.

The release (or as some would say, retaliation) ended Spiezio's career; he would fail to land another major league job. The other two players fared only slightly better. Reichardt signed on with the Kansas City Royals, but didn't catch the fancy of manager Jack McKeon, who released him the following season. As for Andrews, he did manage to a mid-season contract with the Oakland A's, the game's defending World Champions and favorites to repeat as winners in the American League West. The A's would indeed return to the World Series in the fall of 1973, but Andrews' participation in the Fall Classic would result only in bitter memories. After making two critical errors in Game Two against the New York Mets, A's owner Charlie Finley coerced Andrews into signing a false affidavit that indicated his shoulder was injured--thus the reason for the errors. In essence, Finley had "fired" Andrews so that he could replace him with the younger and more talented Manny Trillo. The classless handling of the episode so incensed Oakland manager Dick Williams that he told his players he would resign at the end of the Series. Andrews was eventually reinstated by the Commissioner's Office, but the affair left him embarrassed, angered Finley only further, and eventually triggered Andrews' off-season release. This time there would be no reprieve from baseball's highest office. Callously cut loose from the World Champions, Andrews would never again play in a major league game.