Trade Deadline Memories: Losing Stormin Gorman

The year 1983 was turning out to be a solid year for eight-year-old Sean. I fell in love with a new show called The A-Team, saw Return of the Jedi and won a spelling bee in second grade. (The prize was a Pac Man mug.) Then came 6/6/83.

The morning of 6/7/83 started normally for me. I got up and played a game of Pitfall on the Atari 2600 and then watched Press Your Luck. I grabbed myself a bowl of Smurf Berry Crunch and a glass of orange juice (pulp-free, of course) and started reading the sports section of the local paper. That’s when I saw it. The Brewers had traded Gorman Thomas to Cleveland the day before.

How could the team do this to me? I spit my OJ out of my Pac Man mug. After Paul Molitor, Robin Yount, Ben Oglivie and Ted Simmons, Stormin Gorman was my guy. I didn’t know much about the inner workings of baseball as a kid but I knew he had a cool name, looked like a bad ass and hit home runs. That was good enough for me. The trade left me confused, angry and sad. I hadn’t had a feeling of sadness this deep since Han Solo was frozen in carbonite at the end of Empire Strikes Back. 

It took some time but I pulled myself together. Sure the Brewers had betrayed me, a loyal fan, but if they traded Gorman Thomas they had to have gotten a decent player in return. Rick Manning was one of the players the Crew received in return. “Who the heck is Rick Manning?”, I remember thinking to myself. “Rick Manning sounds like a guy who would get a game-winning hit while Paul Molitor was on deck, thus ruining a long hit streak Molitor was in the middle of,” I remember thinking. 

Like any eight-year old kid I bounced back. I played little league and listened to Rick Springfield, Eventually my focus shifted to the Packers and my guy John Jefferson. I was confident he would be in the Green and Gold for many years to come.

Fast forward to 1986, as I reading the sports section over a bowl of Mr T Cereal, a smile came over my face. The Brewers had signed  Gorman Thomas following his release from the Mariners. He was reunited with the Brewers and ended his career with them, just as Han Solo had been reunited with Luke, Leia and Chewbacca. Sometimes happy endings just take awhile. Oh and as for my guy John Jefferson, he was traded by the Packers in 1985. I’m still waiting for that happy ending.