The team that traded a Muddy Waters album for a championship

The Greenville Bluesmen were new to the independent Big South League in 1996.

They played their games at tiny Legion Field in the Mississippi Delta -- where the sweltering, suffocating heat and mosquitoes become almost unbearable during long summer nights.

“People would come out, but by the third or fourth inning, they just couldn’t take it anymore," a former team official said.

Still, Greenville baseball fans were psyched to come out and see their new team. And their new manager/general manager/pitching coach was just as happy to lead a new franchise in his home state.

"It was exciting for me to get this opportunity to not only do something in Mississippi, but also to start out as the GM, develop a program and build something from nothing," Lyle Yates, who's worked in baseball almost everywhere and anywhere possible, said in a phone call. "And also, I got to do what I really want to do: be back on the field as the manager and pitching coach at the same time."

Eventually, because being a GM, manager and pitching coach became a bit too much, Yates' duties downsized to just manager and pitching coach.

The Bluesmen, in their inaugural season, got off to a rocky start.

They were 16-19 by the midseason break, fourth in their division and six games back of first place. Yates knew his team needed help and he knew who could help them. A 6-foot-5, 240-pound behemoth of a man from the Meridian Brakemen: First baseman Andre Keene.

Yates had coached against Keene's team in the California League the year before and was astounded by his talent. He could barely get the words out when describing the slugger.

"This guy was a tremendous presence in the lineup," Yates said. "I don't know if you know his background ... how tall this guy is. He's a massive individual. He had power, he had presence and he actually played a good first base. He could move for a guy that big."

Keene's talents had actually been chronicled years before.

The Maryland native was drafted by the Giants in 1990 and dominated the low Minors with speed, power and his adept ability to get on base. At one point, he was the No. 6 prospect in the Giants' system. He led his teams in walks, RBIs and homers on multiple occasions. He became known as Andre the Giant, winning home run derbies by blasting balls through outfield Pepsi signs.

The Washington Post wrote of Keene's prodigious play in an article from 1989. Keene was still just a high schooler, but the way he's described he sounds more like a tall baseball tale come to life.

Earlier this season, in a game against visiting Central, DuVal High School senior first baseman Andre Keene came to the plate, glanced 340 feet to the pole down the right-field line and gave the okay for the pitcher to begin his windup. Seconds later, Keene unleashed his mobile, 6-foot-4, 245-pound frame into the the pitch. The ball rocketed past the fence, over a 50-foot high oak tree, cleared another cluster of trees on its downward flight and finally landed on top of a school bus in the parking lot.

"This guy had mammoth power," Yates told me. "He had what we call light-tower power. That's no joke."

But after an injury forced Keene to miss the entire 1993 season, the Giants let their promising young star go. For some reason, nobody took a chance on him and he ended up in the Big South League. He, of course, dominated that circuit and was named an All-Star in '96 while playing for Meridian.

Yates, who'd gotten to know (and fear) Keene the season before, approached the first baseman to see how things were going at the midsummer event. Keene said he wasn't happy playing for the Brakemen -- one of the worst squads in the six-team league -- and would be up for a trade. Yates immediately approached his GM, Arthur O'Bright, with the idea of adding one of the best players in the Big South. After a back-and-forth where Yates told his boss he and the team really needed Keene to compete in the second half, trade pieces were put together.

Greenville would receive Keene for cash and, well, something near and dear to that part of America. Not technically a person, but a valuable piece of art that kickstarted a musical genre that would spread across the globe: A Muddy Waters album.

"The area there, that's the Delta of the Mississippi," Yates told me. "That's where Blues was born. There's the Blues Highway, that's Highway 61, which is right there. If you're in Greenville, Miss., and you go north, you're right on the Blues Highway. Muddy Waters is, of course, the most famous Blues performer. Because our team was called the Bluesmen and Muddy Waters is from the Delta, that's how it all happened."

Yates isn't too sure why the Meridian GM would give up one of his best players for a piece of music -- but he guesses maybe just because it was something "unique." It would make the news. Independent league teams were known for making these kinds of attention-grabbing deals (Just two years later, Greenville would trade 10 pounds of catfish for a star pitcher.)

When Keene learned he had been traded for a Muddy Waters album, he mostly just laughed it off.

"He just chuckled," Yates told me. "I think he was really happy to be joining us, someone who wanted him. But he got a kick out of [the Muddy Waters] part."

And Keene would prove to be huge for the Bluesmen down the stretch. He finished the season with a league-leading 16 homers. He had 13 RBIs with a .908 OPS in 15 Greenville games.

"He hit some that would've been out anywhere," Yates said, at times wondering why or how this guy was playing in this league. "It was amazing to watch him in action."

Yates recalls a specific blast against Meridian -- Keene's old team.

"I remember one mammoth home run to right field," the coach said. "Everybody stopped and just admired it. I remember all of us on the right side just watching this thing. A thing of beauty."

Maybe off one of those condos way past the outfield fence.

The Bluesmen squeaked into the playoffs as a Wild Card team and Yates knew, with the team he had (including a starting rotation that featured future sidearming Major Leaguer Matt Miller), they would win the whole thing. And they did.

They took out the Pine Bluff Locomotives in the semifinals, 2-1, in a five-game set and topped the Columbia Mules, three games to zero, in a five-game series to take the championship. The biggest contributor to the title? The man they got for a Muddy Waters record.

[Andre] was the key ingredient," Yates told me. "When he came over, I think he found -- not only did we end up winning the whole thing -- but we had a much different atmosphere around our team. Very positive. We had fun playing baseball, and I think he liked that much better."

The Bluesmen won another title in 1997, but without Keene. The fabled first baseman went on to slug for eight different independent teams over the next eight years before disappearing from the game in 2001 at the age of 30.

Yates has fond memories of his team that won it all, much in part to the first transaction involving a player and a Blues album. Still, he wonders what happened to one of the greatest hitters he ever saw in his five decades in baseball.

"I've coached in Japan Major Leagues, South Korea Major Leagues, I was in Mexico last year, and this guy, he was such a great combination of power and speed," Yates said. "He's a guy I've often thought about in terms of, 'What ever happened, why did this happen to Andre? What happened to him ...'"

This story was developed from an excerpt from Tim Hagerty's "Tales From the Dugout"