Two-time All-Star and 1966 National League Rookie of the Year Tommy Helms passed away. He was eighty-three.
Tommy Helms, a right-handed hitter who played second base for the Cincinnati Reds (1964–71), Houston Astros (1972–75), Pittsburgh Pirates (1976–77), and Boston Red Sox (1977), passed away at the age of 83. He batted 34 HR, 477 RBI, and.269/.300/.342 during his career. Helms was still considered a rookie when he won NL Rookie of the Year in 1966 since he only played in 23 games in 1964–65. He scored 49 RBI, 9 HR, and.284/.315/.380 that year. In addition to winning Gold Gloves in 1970 and 1971, he was named an All-Star in 1967 and 1968.
The major league career of Helms almost died before it began. In 1962, playing for the Reds’ Single-A team in Macon, he hit .340. The 22-year-old, who hit .277 with Topeka in the B league the previous year, thought he deserved a $200 or $300 raise for 1963. That’s $200 or $300 per year, folks. The Reds wanted him in spring training to compete with another young second baseman by the name of Pete Rose. Helms held out, which didn’t endear him to stern, old-school manager Fred Hutchinson. When Helms finally showed up to camp, he was assigned to Triple-A San Diego.
“I was scared of [Hutchinson],” Helms told Roy McHugh of The Pittsburgh Press. “I stayed out of his way. But one day down in Florida, he cornered me. He told me I never should have let a matter of two or three hundred dollars be so important. Holding out didn’t help me any.”
All’s well that ends well, however. Helms won the starting second base job in 1966, pushing Rose to third base. A chain reaction ensued where Hutchinson moved Deron Johnson to left field, the position previously occupied by Frank Robinson. Robinson had been traded for pitcher Milt Pappas and two others before the season. Helms had essentially displaced the future hit king and a future Hall of Famer.
“The Trade”
The term “The Trade” seems appropriate enough. In exchange for Joe Morgan, Ed Armbrister, Jack Billingham, César Gerónimo, and Denis Menke, the Reds sold Helms, slugger Lee May, and Jimmy Stewart to the Astros on November 29, 1971. Both teams’ general managers believed the arrangement would guarantee them the NL West Division title. “May gives us power to go with Jimmy Wynn and Tommy Helms to team with Roger Metzger at short, we may lead the league in double plays,” Houston’s Spec Richardson told United Press International.
“May and Helms were well suited to Crosley Field, our old ball park,” explained Cincinnati’s Bob Howsam. “We need to adjust to Riverfront Stadium, our new home. We needed speed, and Morgan and Gerónimo will give it to us.”
Howsam won the trade. Billingham, Gerónimo, and especially the future Hall of Famer Morgan were key components of the Big Red Machine that won the World Series in 1975 and 1976. Any hope Helms had of playing with a World Series champion died with that trade. The Astros were a second division team during Helms’s time there, although his .269 batting average with Houston was identical to that he put up as a Red.
The Last Word
The Astros traded Helms to the Pirates for Art Howe after the 1975 season. After Helms played a reserve role during the 1976 season for Pittsburgh, he was sold to the Oakland Athletics. However, he never played a regular season game for Oakland, as they traded him back to Pittsburgh in the spring of 1977 in a multi-player deal that sent Phil Garner to the Pirates. Garner was an important piece of the 1979 World Series champion Pirates. Unfortunately, Helms was again part of a trade that brought a team a championship without being around to experience it. After beginning the 1977 season 0-for-14, the Pirates sold Helms to the Red Sox. In his last hurrah, Helms hit a solid .271/.328/.356 in 21 games for a Red Sox team that won 97 games and finished second in the American League East Division.
