September 9, 1941

NY Giants trade Jumbo Brown (295 lbs) to the St. Louis Cardinals for Tom Sunko (190 lbs).

That trade's coming in at 242.5 ppp (pounds per player).  Surely the biggest trade in history by any objective measure.

It doesn't look nearly as big now with 30 years of hindsight, but the shocking first-ever swap of $100,000 players, Bobby Bonds for Bobby Murcer -- and both were just  between their 28/29 seasons at the time of the trade!

As an aside, I noticed just yesterday that Bobby Murcer was #3 on Vernon Wells' list of comparables through age 27.  It's a pretty nice list, but won't stay that way if his current year doesn't show some modest improvement.

Bobby Murcer was #3 on Vernon Wells' list of comparables through age 27.

And at #1 is old pal Shawn Green! So some time in the next year, Wells will be swapped to an NL club for ... for ...well, who's the current equivalent of Raul Mondesi?

Here are a couple more big trades not yet mentioned:

In June of 1976, the Yankees traded Rudy May, Dave Pagan, Tippy Martinez, Scotty MacGregor and Rick Dempsey to the Orioles for Ken Holtzman, Grant Jackson, Elrod Hendricks, Jimmy Freeman and Doyle Alexander.

In November of 2003, the Giants traded Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser to the White Sox for A.J. Pierzynski and cash.  The full magnitude of this trade will be realized with time - particularly if Liriano makes a full recovery.  One of the most lopsided trades in history.  Of course, the Giants have a long history of such largesse (George Foster for Frank Duffy and Vern Geishert, Orlando Cepeda for Ray Sadecki, basically giving away Felipe Alou, etc.) .

Seems to me there was a window of time when there were a lot of big trades back in the 50's, 60's, 70's.  The advent of free agency and huge long term contracts in the 80's and 90's really made it much more difficult to make trades, and you could improve your team by signing free agents, rather than trading away players.  Back in the early decades of the 20th century, star players tended to play their whole career with one team - the middle decades of the century seem to be the golden era for the big trade.

Well, if it is a myth, I would say it stems from such examples as Christy Mathewson playing 16 years for New York, Ed Walsh playing 13 years for Chicago, Walter Johnson playing 21 years for Washington, Red Faber playing 20 years for Chicago, Eddie Rommel playing 13 years for Philadelphia, Ted Lyons playing 20 years for Chicago, Carl Hubbell playing 16 years for New York, Lefty Gomez playing 13 years for New York, Tommy Bridges playing 17 years for Detroit, Bob Feller playing 18 years for Cleveland, Bill Terry playing 14 years for New York, Lou Gehrig playing 17 years for New York, Charlie Gehringer playing 19 years for Detroit, Bobby Doerr playing 15 years for Boston, Stan Hack playing 16 years for Chicago, Luke Appling playing 21 years for Chicago, Zack Wheat playing 18 years for Brooklyn, Harry Heilman playing 16 years for Detroit, Ted Williams playing 19 years for Boston, Ty Cobb playing 22 years for Detroit, Joe DiMaggio playing 13 years for New York and Mel Ott playing 22 years for New York.

All of these players started their careers in the 30's or earlier, and played all or virtually all of their careers with one team.  A few, like Cobb, played 1 or 2 partial seasons at the end of their careers elswhere.  You very, very seldom see a player stay this long with one team any more.

Yes, sometimes players were sold for cash back in the early decades of the 20th century, something that MLB frowns upon these days.

You very, very seldom see a player stay this long with one team any more.

True, although it's more common than you might think. In fact, Mags and I collaborated-on-the-fly (translation: I hijacked his idea) to do a Hall-of-Names-type feature on this very topic, called Ten-Year Men.

'You also named several players who didn't spend their entire careers with one team.'

Not true.  As I stated in my post, all of those players players played all, or virtually all of their careers with one team - a few, like Cobb, played a partial season or two with another team at the end of their career.

'There are lots of those guys in recent years.'

Not really.  Have a look at the top players from the last 10-15 years or so - The stars being what my point was about in the first place.  Bonds, M Ramirez, Ortiz, Thome, F Thomas, Delgado, R Johnson, P Martinez, Carpenter, ARod, Sosa, Piazza, Clemens, Glavine, etc all have played with 2 or more teams.

Well, to be fair and accurate, it's worth mentioning that the majority of the players you name there changed teams precisely because of the advent of free agency. Not all changed teams as free agents, though some did -- Martinez, Glavine, hmm, both in New York now -- while others changed uniforms in trade because of impending free agency or because of budget issues caused or exacerbated by free agency.

The fact that many players didn't change teams in the first 2/3 of the 20th century is all about indentured servitude, not a change of attitude among the club owners or anything.

Yes, absolutely, it is all about indentured servitude.  I couldn't agree more.  Players were property until the Curt Flood trade got the ball rolling.  The increased player movement in recent times is due to the increased freedom the players have.