A Thanksgiving hunting accident cost a heavily scouted teenager a toe and, seemingly, his future, until eccentric owner Charlie Finley signed the injured farm boy and rehabbed him on his own Indiana farm. This deep dive follows James Catfish Hunter from that fabricated nickname to a perfect game and, accidentally, a labor revolution that upended the economics of professional sports.

We trace how a paternalistic bond curdled into betrayal when Finley refused a $50,000 annuity payment over a tax bill. An arbitrator's ruling voided the contract, making Hunter baseball's first true big-money free agent and cracking the reserve clause. We also examine the workload that broke his arm and a life ended too soon by ALS.

• Why Finley invented the folksy Catfish nickname as a marketing persona in 1965
• The 1968 perfect game where Hunte ...