All's fair in love and baseball. Being a pro baseball player may seem like fun and games from the outside, but many athletes are traded by their teams for surprising reasons.

Lefty Grove

Long before Grove was inducted into the Hall of Fame after winning 300 career games, the Martinsburg Mountaineers traded him in order to fix an outfield fence. The fence had been destroyed in a storm.

Cliff Dapper

This L.A. Dodgers catcher was traded in 1948 for Ernie Harwell, who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Harwell is a Hall of Fame broadcaster, not a player, so Dapper was traded for an announcer.

John Odom

Odom was traded due to immigration status issues, but he wasn't traded for another player – he was traded for 10 baseball bats. The Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League swapped Odom for a bag of Prairie Sticks Maple Bats, which they later auctioned off for charity for just $10,000.

Dave Winfield

Near the end of his long career, Winfield was traded from the Minnesota Twins to the Cleveland Indians for a player who was to be determined later. The 1994 MLB Strike, however, prevented Winfield from ever playing for the Indians. In the end, Cleveland settled the debt by picking up the tab for a $100 meal.

Brad Mills

Mills, a veteran pitcher, was sent from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Oakland A's for just one dollar. The trade was especially surprising given Mills' five seasons of pitching in the majors.