This Day in Chicago Cubs History: Dickie Noles is Traded for Himself

Chicago Cubs reliever Dickie Noles becomes one of four players in MLB history to be traded for themselves.

The concept of trading someone for a "player to be named later" is foreign to every sport but baseball. It provides for utterly unique scenarios and wacky outcomes.

The most common of such strange situations is the player traded for themselves. That happened in 1987 when Chicago Cubs pitcher Dickie Noles was sent to the Detroit Tigers on Sept. 22.

Noles was past his prime at that point, a reliever for a last-place Cubs team at age-30. He had once been a reliable starter, making 96 such starts over the course of his career for a 4.71 ERA.

By 1987 though, he had pitched regularly out of the bullpen for almost four years, sporting a 3.50 ERA that season. Detroit, looking to make a postseason bid, picked up Noles who pitched only two regular season innings and didn't feature at all in their 5-game Championship Series loss.

Just 11 days after they were eliminated, Detroit returned Noles back to Chicago like a VHS to Blockbuster, their rental time had expired.

17 days after that, Noles was granted free agency and never pitched for the Cubs again, his Major League career ending where it began with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1990.

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