...that Oakland A's owner Charlie O. Finley, desperate to get something in exchange for three of his stars before the free agency boom blew him out of the water, sold Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox and Vida Blue to the Yankees, in exchange for a total of $1.5 million. The deal was quickly (and controversially) voided by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who invoked his usual "best interests of baseball" justification, prompting Finley to rail against him as "the village idiot" in the press.
While the move would have certainly strengthened both teams, it's hard to say whether it would have appreciably changed the outcome of the 1976 AL East race, which the Yankees won by 10.5 games over the Orioles, and a whopping 15.5 games over the third-place Red Sox. At the time the deal was announced, Billy Martin's boys were already six up on Boston, and would go 65-40 the rest of the way. It's also unlikely that the addition of Vida Blue would've seriously helped the Yankee cause in October — he would've been a better choice for Game One of the World Series than Doyle Alexander, to be sure, but the Yanks really lost the Series at the plate and on the basepaths.
In any case, while Kuhn didn't officially void the deal until June 18, none of the three players had a chance to play for their "new" teams — though Rudi and Fingers did suit up for Boston. The above pic shows longtime Red Sox third baseman Rico Petrocelli welcoming Rollie (whose famous handlebar moustache is unfortunately somewhat obscured) to the Fenway clubhouse...
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