Deadline drama in 1986: There was none
From SABR member Christina Kahrl at ESPN.com on July 29:
One thing the 1986 season wasn’t famous for was its deadline drama, because quite simply, there really wasn’t any. That’s despite the fact that 1986 was baseball’s first to have the July 31 non-waivers deadline as we know it. As SABR’s Cliff Blau reminds us, the thicket of rules and schedules regulating trades between versus within leagues made matters needlessly complicated.
Maybe it was the newness of the thing, or the fact that teams were used to the old, earlier mid-June deadline, but this first July 31 deadline fizzled in the drama department. The biggest trade pulled off at the end of the month was between the Yankees and White Sox, and was consummated on July 30. Four games behind the Red Sox in the old seven-team AL East, the Bombers dealt catcher Ron Hassey, corner infielder Carlos Martinez, and a PTBNL (who would be catcher Bill Lindsey) to the White Sox to get DH Ron Kittle, catcher Joel Skinner, and infielder Wayne Tolleson.
Read the full article here: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/14362/deadline-drama-1986-style
Originally published: July 29, 2011. Last Updated: July 29, 2011.