John Holland

Once described as “a stocky mild-mannered man who cut his teeth on a baseball bat,” John Holland spent 30 years in professional baseball as a front office executive for the Chicago Cubs at the minor- and major-league levels.1 He continued the legacy of his father Jack Holland, who had played minor-league baseball from 1896 to 1909, managed in the minors from 1906 to 1919, and owned the Oklahoma City Indians at the time of his 1936 death.

Perhaps best known as the general manager who traded Lou Brock to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964, John Holland also consummated two key deals that worked out much better for the Cubs. In December 1965, he obtained Randy Hundley and Bill Hands; four months later, he landed Ferguson Jenkins. Those three – plus home-grown products Ken Holtzman, Don Kessinger, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams – and star shortstop Ernie Banks formed the nucleus of the team’s pennant contenders in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

John Davison Holland was born in Wichita, Kansas, on February 18, 1910. He was the youngest child of John Abner “Jack” and Myrtle (Davison) Holland. The couple also had daughters Pauline (b. 1905) and Camille (b. 1908). Shortly before the younger John’s birth, his father had purchased the Wichita Jobbers franchise that he managed in the Class A Western League and moved them to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they became the Drummers.

John was six when his mother was granted a divorce on October 11, 1916.2 Myrtle Holland told the court that she and Jack had married on September 20, 1901, in Stanton County, Nebraska, and that her husband deserted her in June 1915.3 She was awarded $115 per month in alimony and custody of their three children.4

In summer 1921, John became the batboy for his father’s ballclub, which had settled in Oklahoma City in 1918 after a brief spell in Hutchinson, Kansas. While school was in session, he remained in St. Joseph. In that city on June 7, 1922, the 12-year-old Holland was the losing pitcher in Sherwood School’s 8-6 defeat to Longfellow-Bliss School.5 He played football at St. Joseph Central High School and graduated in 1928.

Holland was involved in a fatal accident on November 2, 1929, when the automobile he was driving was involved in a two-car collision south of Gower, Missouri, near the intersection of Highway 33 and the St. Joseph-Kansas City highway. One of Holland’s three passengers, Margaret Porter, a 17-year-old St. Joseph Central High senior, died later that night from internal injuries.6 Holland hurt his back and sustained a deep cut over his right eye.7 His future wife, Gladys Bowen, also a 17-year-old Central High student, was bruised slightly and taken to her home. Coroner B.W. Tadlock declared the accident unavoidable and declined to conduct an inquest.8

After playing semipro baseball for a while, Holland appeared in 26 games, primarily as a catcher, for his father’s Oklahoma City Indians club in 1930. He hit .256 (11-for-43) with three doubles and one home run in his only professional playing experience.

Holland and Bowen were married on October 2, 1930, at Francis Street Methodist Church in St. Joseph. Immediately after the ceremony, the couple left to attend the World Series in St. Louis.9 The hometown Cardinals beat the Athletics twice to even the series before losing Game Five at Sportsman’s Park. When the series returned to Philadelphia, the A’s clinched their second straight championship.

After having little success as a player, Holland operated the concessions and worked as the team secretary for the Oklahoma City Indians. The team joined the Texas League in 1933 and won the circuit’s championship two years later. Following his 62-year-old father’s death from a heart ailment on March 10, 1936, Holland succeeded him as the club’s president. “I don’t think I could have had a better teacher,” he said as his father lay dying. “I’ve traveled with the team since I was able to walk.”10 After the Indians’ board of directors and stockholders elected him president, Holland, 26, said, “All I’ve got to say is that I intend to follow in my father’s footsteps. He started at the bottom. We’re starting at the top, where he put the team last season.”11

Holland remained the president of the franchise until World War II, when he worked in a West Coast airplane factory and served in the U.S. Armed Forces from 1942 to 1945. After the war, he became the business manager of the Visalia Cubs in the Class C California League for two seasons. The young Cubs finished last with a 39-91 record in 1946, but they moved up to third place with a 79-61 a year later and reached the playoff semifinals. Even though Visalia’s population was just 10,363 at the time, the team drew 104,311 fans in 1947, excluding the postseason. Holland later said that he had no explanation other than “the intense baseball interest there.”12

In November 1947, Holland was named the business manager of the Des Moines Bruins of the Class A Western League. “I’m glad to be with the Des Moines club and to find that I’ll be working here with [manager] Stan Hack,” he told the Des Moines Register. “I am looking forward to a busy, but a pleasant 1948.”13 The Bruins won the 1948 Western League title and had the circuit’s leading hitter, 28-year-old Leon “Red” Treadway, who hit .352 and struck out only 19 times in 440 official at-bats. The club also set a home attendance record for baseball in Des Moines of 232,038, somewhat short of Holland’s preseason goal of 250,000.

Holland was nominated for the Des Moines Tribune’s Community Service Award in December 1949 for his “untiring efforts” to bring professional baseball to Des Moines.14 A day after Hack was honored at Pioneer Memorial Stadium in September, Des Moines Register sports editor Garner “Sec” Taylor described Holland as “the efficient and accommodating business manager of the club.”15 Taylor added, “John has served as player, concession man, part owner, and business manager. Consequently, he knows all the angles, as he has proved it in his two seasons here.”16 Despite finishing with a .500 record, the Bruins made the playoffs for the second straight year.

In May 1950, after making his minor-league debut with a few appearances for the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate in Springfield, Massachusetts, infielder Gene Baker became the first African American to play for Des Moines. On September 22, 1953, Baker and fellow rookie Ernie Banks formed the first African American double play combination in major-league history.

Des Moines failed to make the playoffs for the first time in five years in 1951. Yet the year ended on a high note when Holland was named the Bruins’ president on December 12.

In 1953, Des Moines won the Western League’s Governors Cup. Despite finishing the regular season in fourth place, the Bruins took three out of four from the first-place Colorado Springs Sky Sox in the semifinals, and did the same to the Denver Bears in the finals.

The 1954 Bruins surpassed 100,000 in home attendance for the first time in four years. (The final tally was 113,691.) “I want to thank the Des Moines fans for supporting the club,” Holland said. “My bosses [the Chicago Cubs] are pleased with the support we received here this year.”17 The Bruins won 23 of their last regular season 31 games to finish second before capturing a second straight Western League championship in the playoffs.

Following the 1954 death of Los Angeles Angels president Don Stewart, Holland joined that Pacific Coast League team.18 Although the PCL was still classified as “open,” the Angels were affiliated with the Cubs. When Holland was introduced as the franchise’s new president in January 1955, he inherited a team that had finished in sixth place and 27 games out of first place in 1954.

On the eve of the season opener, Holland told the Los Angeles Times, “I’d rather have a team of eager young athletes than old-timers who are going through the motions of playing out the string. The youngster may make a few mistakes, but he’ll give the customers enough excitement on the bases and in the field to compensate.”19 The Angels finished fourth with a 91-81 record. First baseman Steve Bilko slugged 37 homers, drove in 124 runs, and batted .328. Starting pitchers Jim Brosnan and Don Elston each won 17 games.

In July 1956, Holland acknowledged that he had received serious offers for two Angels – Bilko and infielder Gene Mauch – after giving them bonuses for waiving their rights to be claimed by another team in December’s major-league draft. Holland kept both players and the Angels batted a league-best .297 and went 107-61 to finish 16 games ahead of second-place Seattle. Bilko won the PCL Triple Crown by hitting .360 with 55 homers and 164 RBIs, while Mauch went deep 20 times and batted .348.

Meanwhile, the Cubs finished 1956 in the National League cellar with a 60-94-3 record. On October 11, Holland was part of a major shakeup in the parent club’s front office. Holland was named a Cubs vice president along with Charlie Grimm, a former Cubs player and manager of two pennant-winning teams. The Cubs’ board of directors also accepted the resignations of manager Stan Hack, director of player personnel and procurement Wid Matthews, and James Gallagher, the business manager who had been with the team since 1940.

“Naturally, we’ll make some changes, and we’ll try to make deals that will help as soon as possible,” Holland said after his promotion. “I have some names in mind and we want to talk to our new field manager first. I recognize the value of a farm system and we want to integrate this with the business of getting out and beating the bushes for new players.”20 The next day, Holland hired former Angels skipper Bob Scheffing to manage the Cubs.

Holland’s 19-year stint in Chicago started with an eight-player trade with the St. Louis Cardinals on December 11, 1956, that he described as “only the first of several deals we have in mind.”21 The Cubs received pitchers Tom Poholsky and Jackie Collum, catcher Ray Katt, and shortstop Wally Lammers. In return, the Cardinals received pitchers Sam Jones and Jim Davis, catcher Hobie Landrith, and infielder Eddie Miksis.

On February 27, 1957, Holland and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi completed a deal in which the Dodgers bought the Los Angeles Angels franchise and its ballpark, the “other” Wrigley Field, for a reported $3 million. In exchange, the Cubs acquired the Dodgers’ Double-A Texas League franchise in Fort Worth. The deal, originated by Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley and Dodgers head Walter O’Malley, surpassed the $2.6 million that the Ruppert heirs had received for the New York Yankees.22 “Mr. Wrigley actually was in a precarious position out there because of the constant threat that the territory could be drafted by a big league club,” Holland told The Sporting News. “If that had happened, he could have suffered a tremendous financial loss.”23 Holland predicted that the extra cash would give the Cubs more flexibility in the trade market.

Author Ron Rapoport claimed “the biggest mistake Holland made in his first months on the job was one that set the pattern for one of his key failings as Cubs general manager. He announced he was prepared to trade Gene Baker.”24 Rapoport explained, “By making public the fact that one of his best players was on the block, Holland at once reduced Baker’s value by allowing other teams to take turns making low ball offers and stamped himself as a baseball naif incapable of improving his team in private conversations with other general managers.”25

In what one sportswriter called a “somewhat unexpected and startling move,” Holland traded Baker and first baseman Dee Fondy to the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 1, 1957, for outfielder Lee Walls and first baseman Dale Long.26 At the time, Baker led the Cubs with 10 RBIs. The four-player swap meant that Holland had traded 15 players since taking over in late 1956. Shortly thereafter, he predicted the moves were over, barring unforeseen circumstances. “All we can do now is to try to knit together the unit we have,” he said. “I don’t think there will be many more changes. I’m confident we’re stronger than when we left our Arizona training camp.”27

After the Cubs lost seven straight games in September, Holland announced a five-point plan for improvement: get help at second and third base, find a regular center fielder, add at least one catcher, and obtain more left-handed pitching. Five days before the World Series started, Holland announced that Scheffing would return as manager in 1958 even though the Cubs had finished 62-92-2 and tied the Pirates for seventh place. Despite a league-worst .245 team batting average, the Cubs slugged 147 home runs, including 43 from Banks.

The Cubs moved up to fifth place in both 1958 and 1959, thanks largely to Banks’ back-to-back MVP seasons. In 1958, he batted .313 and led the majors with 47 homers and 129 RBIs. A year later, he hit .304, went deep 45 times and drove in a big-league best 143 runs.

After a two-year effort to obtain outfielder Richie Ashburn, Holland finally landed the 1958 NL batting champion on January 11, 1960. In return, the Philadelphia Phillies received veteran third baseman Alvin Dark, pitcher John Buzhardt, and rookie infielder Jim Woods. “We should have scored a lot more runs than we did last year, considering the great cleanup hitter we have in Ernie Banks,” Holland said. “But we just couldn’t get those runners on base ahead of Ernie. Now we will with Ashburn.”28 Although Ashburn’s batting average had fallen to .266 in 1959, he reached base 229 times, which was more than any Cub who hit ahead of Banks that season.

Holland was in the middle of a strange managerial change after the 1960 Cubs started the season with a 6-11 record. On May 4, Cubs broadcaster Lou Boudreau, who had led the Cleveland Indians to the 1948 World Series title as a player-manager, replaced Charlie Grimm as skipper. Boudreau, who had worked with Jack Quinlan on WGN radio broadcasts, was given a managerial contract to finish the season. Grimm, 62, retained his title as vice president and replaced Boudreau in the broadcast booth.

In 1959, Holland appeared to have found Baker’s replacement for Baker at second base in Tony Taylor. The 23-year-old Cuban native hit .280 with a team-leading 23 stolen bases. But on May 13, 1960, Taylor was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitcher Don Cardwell and first baseman Ed Bouchee. Although Cardwell pitched a no-hitter in his first appearance for Chicago, he spent only three of his 14 major-league seasons with the Cubs while Taylor spent 15 years with the Phillies.

After a nine-game losing skid in June 1960, Holland and Boudreau decided to go with youth. Twenty-year-old future Hall of Famer Ron Santo was purchased from Triple-A Houston and joined the Cubs on June 26.29 Santo, a third baseman, joined center fielder Danny Murphy, 17, who had been signed out of high school 10 days earlier for a substantial bonus. The immediate result was a doubleheader sweep of the league-leading Pirates in Pittsburgh by scores of 7-6 and 7-5. Three weeks later, however, the Cubs fell 20 games below .500 after they were swept in a four-game series in St. Louis following the All-Star break. Murphy – just 5-for-43 at the plate at the time – was demoted to Double-A San Antonio, and the Cubs wound up in seventh place.

Following the dismal season, Holland helped pick 23 players for the Cubs’ entry in the Winter Cactus Circuit in and around Mesa, Arizona. That squad featured two bonus signees: Murphy and first baseman Mack Kuykendall. Future Hall of Famer Lou Brock, an outfielder signed out of Grambling College, was considered a “sleeper.”30

On December 14, 1960, Wrigley shocked the baseball world when he proposed having a head coach rather than a manager during a meeting with Holland, Grimm, vice president Clarence “Pants” Rowland, treasurer Bill Heymans, farm director Gene Lawing, and player-coach El Tappe. Eight days later, Holland announced that former Cub James “Ripper” Collins would be the first new addition to an unprecedented eight-man coaching staff, joining holdovers Tappe, Vedie Himsl, and Harry Craft. Chicago’s two-year “College of Coaches” experiment – in which they rotated coaches between the majors and minors – was unsuccessful; they finished 64-90 in 1961 and 59-103 in 1962. However, the Cubs continued to shift coaches between the majors and their minor-league affiliates through the 1965 season.31

Holland, the team’s vice president of player personnel (or general manager), executed perhaps the most infamous trade in Cubs history on June 15, 1964. Desperate for a fourth starter, he swapped Brock and pitchers Paul Toth and Jack Spring to the Cardinals for starting pitcher Ernie Broglio, lefty reliever Bobby Shantz, and rookie outfielder Doug Clemens. While the 25-year-old Brock had hit .257 in 327 games for the Cubs to that point, Broglio had compiled an 18-8 record for St. Louis in 1963. “We’re taking more than a shot at the flag. We’re blasting at it with both barrels,” Holland told The Sporting News. “After all, the National League race is wide open.”32 Sportswriter Edgar Munzel said, “[T]he bold move, from the standpoint of the Wrigley brass, was to sacrifice a great young prospect like Brock and go for experienced pitching.”33

The Cubs were playing .500 ball before the deal. However, they finished 1964 in eighth place while the Cardinals won the World Series. In 103 games with St. Louis, Brock batted .348 with 12 homers, 44 RBIs, and 33 stolen bases. Meanwhile, Broglio – plagued by a bad pitching elbow – had a three-year record of 7-19 for Chicago. He was out of professional baseball by 1968.

After a lackluster 1965 season, Holland hired skipper Leo “The Lip” Durocher. Although the Cubs’ announcement did not specify the 59-year-old former major-league player and manager’s title, Durocher made it clear that he was the manager — not a head coach or anything else. While battling a 102-degree temperature during a press conference at Wrigley Field on October 25, 1965, Holland said, “Durocher will be in complete charge on the field and we will work together on all player deals.”34 Durocher asserted that the Cubs were not an eighth-place ballclub. He was right. They finished 10th with a 59-103 record in his first year.

However, Holland’s trades for pitcher Ferguson Jenkins (from the Phillies on April 21, 1966) and catcher Randy Hundley (acquired from the Giants with Bill Hands on December 2, 1965) started the Cubs on the path to pennant contention. Rapoport opined that they were the two best deals of Holland’s tenure as the Cubs’ GM. “Both of the players [Jenkins and Hundley] he acquired were major leaguers at the age of 22, both languished with teams that hadn’t recognized their value, and both quickly became two of the most reliable players the Cubs ever had,” Rapoport noted.35

In July 1969, columnist David Condon called the acquisition of Jenkins “one of the Holland masterpieces.”36 “We’d had eyes on Jenkins for some while. [Coach] Fred Martin had told us, a few seasons before, that Jenkins was as good a prospect as we could find in the minors,” Holland explained.37

Jenkins and Hundley were key members of the Cubs’ teams that finished third in 1967 and 1968. Following the advent of divisional play in 1969, Chicago finished second – fading after a long stay atop the NL East as the New York Mets charged to their improbable championship. The Cubs came in second in 1970, third in 1971, and second in 1972. Santo, outfielder Billy Williams, pitcher Ken Holtzman, and shortstop Don Kessinger were all signed during Holland’s tenure. Chicago also drafted Glenn Beckert from the Boston Red Sox, and moved him to second base after the death of Ken Hubbs, the 1962 NL Rookie of the Year.

Following the 1971 season, the Cubs shipped Holtzman to the Oakland Athletics for outfielder Rick Monday, the first player chosen in the inaugural June amateur draft in 1965. Holtzman had thrown two no-hitters for Chicago, but he slumped to a 9-15 record in 1971 with the worst ERA (4.58) of his career. “We talked to quite a number of clubs about him [Holtzman]. It got, down to Oakland, but each of us thought his player was worth a little more than just a one-for-one deal,” Holland said. “I talked to [A’s owner/GM Charles O.] Finley just the other day in Chicago, but we did not make the deal until today over the phone.”38

Holland’s breakup of the Cubs accelerated after they finished fifth in 1973. On October 25, he traded Jenkins to the Texas Rangers for infielders Bill Madlock and Vic Harris. On November 7, Beckert and minor-leaguer Bobby Fenwick were sent to the San Diego Padres for outfielder Jerry Morales. On December 6, the Cubs and Minnesota Twins exchanged catchers, Hundley and George Mitterwald, respectively. On December 11, Santo was traded to the crosstown White Sox after refusing to go to the California Angels.39 In return, the Cubs received pitchers Ken Frailing and Steve Stone, and catcher Steve Swisher.40

After the Santo trade, Holland said the Cubs could still contend. “We should have just as much punch, and we’ve got a lot of speed we didn’t have before,” he said.41 Yet the 1974 Cubs were even worse, finishing last in the NL East. On October 24, Williams, who had played in only 117 games that season, was traded to Oakland for second base prospect Manny Trillo and pitchers Darold Knowles and Bob Locker. A year later, Kessinger, the last remaining veteran from the 1969 Cubs, was sent to the Cardinals for reliever Mike Garman.

On September 30, 1975, four weeks before Kessinger was swapped, Salty Saltwell, the former vice president in charge of park operations, replaced Holland as the Cubs GM. Although Saltwell and his Cardinals counterpart, Bing Devine, were responsible for the deal according to Cubs manager Jim Marshall, sportswriter Richard Dozer opined, “The trade, of course, is Holland’s and Marshall’s — with the Saltwell ‘veneer’ applied artistically to the surface.”42

Holland permanently retired from the Cubs’ front office on November 29, 1976, following a meeting of the team’s board of directors. The board also approved the firing of vice president Whitey Lockman, who had been the director of player development. “That Holland’s Cub career was coming to an end was apparent at this time last year when he was eased into semi-retirement,” sportswriter Jerome Holtzman said. “However, he retained his full title, and his office, and was active in club affairs.”43 Holland became a consultant for the Cubs in 1978. He served on the club’s board of directors from 1963 to 1978.

John Holland died on July 5, 1979, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He was 69. Obituaries did not indicate the cause of death. He was survived by his wife Gladys, son John T., daughter Janice Caldwell, and four grandchildren. Holland is buried at St. Joseph Memorial Park Cemetery.

Holland’s three decades of service to the Cubs’ organization earned mixed reviews. As author William Bike said, “He built the contending Cubs of the 1960s and 1970s by signing or trading for stars Glenn Beckert, Randy Hundley, Ferguson Jenkins, Don Kessinger, Ron Santo and Billy Williams, but he also engineered or allowed the disastrous trades of Lou Brock, Oscar Gamble, Dick Selma and Ted Abernathy.”44 One might also add the names of Bill North and Larry Gura to the list of quality young players for whom the Cubs received little in return. Furthermore, the franchise got minimal production from its first-round amateur draft picks during the Holland era.

Northsiders, a 2008 collection of essays about the Cubs, contained an especially blunt critique of Holland. Author George Castle said Holland’s subservience to Philip Wrigley was the only reason for his longevity and called him “decades behind the times.”45

Indeed, by the 1970s, professional baseball had entered a new era. Yet Beckert offered a kinder interpretation in the wake of Holland’s passing. “He was tough,” Beckert told the Chicago Tribune. “He had his own ways. But he was a nice man, a gentleman. He felt something for the players. He didn’t treat it as it is treated now — a business.”46

Acknowledgments

The author received assistance from the staff at the St. Joseph Historical Society/Robidoux Row Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, for this article, which was reviewed by Rory Costello and Malcolm Allen and fact-checked by members of the SABR Baseball Biography Project fact-checking committee.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed below, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, findagrave.com, paperofrecord.com, and newspapers.com.

Notes

1 Associated Press, “Bob Scheffing Replaces Hack as Chicago Field Manager,” San Pedro (California) News-Pilot, October 12, 1956: 10.

2 “Jack” Holland’s Wife Is Granted Divorce,” St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette, October 12, 1916: 5.

3 “Jack” Holland’s Wife Is Granted Divorce.”

4 “Jack” Holland’s Wife Is Granted Divorce.”

5 “Longfellow-Bliss Won,” St. Joseph News-Press, June 8, 1922: 12.

6 “Crash Kills High School Girl, 3 Injured,” St. Joseph Gazette, November 3, 1929: 1.

7 “Crash Kills High School Girl, 3 Injured.”

8 “2 Die in Car Wrecks,” St. Joseph News-Press, November 4, 1929: 2.

9 “Bowen-Holland,” St. Joseph Gazette, Friday, October 3, 1930: 4.

10 “Young Jack Holland to Carry on as President of Indians,” Oklahoma City News, March 11, 1936: 11.

11 In 1935, Oklahoma City won the Texas League championship with a 95-66 record and then won the Dixie Series, an interleague championship between the Texas League and Southern Association title holders. “John Holland Succeeds Dad,” Daily Oklahoman, March 18, 1936: 13.)

12 “New Bruin Bosses Study 1948 Plans,” Des Moines (Iowa) Register, November 19, 1947: 13.

13 “New Bruin Bosses Study 1948 Plans.”

14 “One Day Left to Nominate,” Des Moines Tribune, December 28, 1949: 7.

15 Sec Taylor, “Sittin’ in With the Athletes,” Des Moines Register, September 15, 1949: 13.

16 Taylor, “Sittin’ in With the Athletes.”

17 Tony Cordaro, “Bruins Pass 100,000 Mark at Gate,” Des Moines Tribune, September 6, 1954: 14.

18 “John D. Holland, Jr. Named Prexy of Los Angeles Club,” The Sporting News, January 12, 1955: 26.

19 Ned Cronin, “Cronin’s Corner,” Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1955: 79.

20 Associated Press, “Holland, Grimm to Head Cubs,” Long Beach (California) Independent, October 12, 1956: 29.

21 The Cardinals also promised to send two more players to the Cubs from their Triple-A affiliates in Omaha and Rochester. Associated Press, “Cards, Cubs Swap 10 Players,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1956: 73.

22 Joe King, “Wrigley Opens Coast Door to Majors Entry,” The Sporting News, February 27, 1957: 15.

23 Edgar Munzel, “L.A. Deal Will Aid Cubs, Take P.K. Off Spot, Says Holland,” The Sporting News, February 27, 1957: 16.

24 Ron Rapoport, Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks (New York: Hachette Books, 2019): 133.

25 Rapoport, Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks.

26 Ed Prell, “Bruins Wear Swap Broom Down to Nub,” The Sporting News, May 8, 1957: 18.

27 Ed Prell, “Holland Puts Cub Broom Away,” The Sporting News, May 29, 1957: 17.

28 Edgar Munzel, “Swifty Richie Solves Bruins’ Picket Puzzle,” The Sporting News, January 20, 1960: 25.

29 Steve Dunn, “June 26, 1960: Ron Santo makes auspicious debut for last-place Cubs,” Society for American Baseball Research Game Story,

https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-26-1960-ron-santo-makes-auspicious-debut-for-last-place-cubs/.

30 James Enright, “Bruins Pick 23 Phenoms for Winter Cactus Circuit,” The Sporting News, September 28, 1960: 37.

31 Rich Puerzer, “The Chicago Cubs’ College of Coaches: A Management Innovation That Failed,”

https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-chicago-cubs-college-of-coaches-a-management-innovation-that-failed/.

32 Edgar Munzel, “P.K.’s Rallying Cry Sent Cubs to Market,” The Sporting News, June 27, 1964: 12.

33 Munzel, “P.K.’s Rallying Cry Sent Cubs to Market.”

34 Edgar Munzel, “P.K. Asks Lippy to Lead Cubs to Light,” The Sporting News, November 6, 1965: 3.

35 Rapoport, Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks, 225.

36 David Condon, “In the Wake of the News,” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1969: 49.

37 Condon, “In the Wake of the News.”

38 Richard Dozer, “Angry Trade Winds Blow Holtzman, McDowell West,” Chicago Tribune, November 30, 1971: 47.

39 Santo was the first player to exercise the new Basic Agreement that gave a player with 10 years of major league experience and five years with one club the right to reject a trade.

40 The White Sox sent pitcher Jim Kremmel to the Cubs on December 18, 1973, to complete the deal.

41 Richard Dozer, “’Am I Next?’ Asks Billy, Thinking of Fergie and Ron,” The Sporting News, December 29, 1973: 37.

42 Richard Dozer, “Cubs Trade Kessinger to Cards,” Chicago Tribune, October 29, 1975: 62.

43 Jerome Holtzman, “Bruins Close the Door Behind Holland,” The Sporting News, December 18, 1976: 44.

44 William Bike, The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2021): 122.

45 George Castle, “Philip K. Wrigley: Contrarian,” in Northsiders (Gerald C. Wood and Andrew Hazucha, editors), Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. (2008): 55.

46 Mike Kiley, “Former Cubs recall Holland as ‘gentleman,’” Chicago Tribune, July 17, 1979: 42.