Later Years
In December, 1969, Oyler was traded to the Oakland A's with pitcher Diego Segui for infielder Ted Kubiak and pitcher George Lauzerique. Oyler was sold by Oakland in April, 1970 and played his final 24 games with the California Angels, managing a perfect fielding percentage but only a .083 average at the plate. After his major league career ended, Oyler was a player-coach for the Hawaii Islanders and Salt Lake City teams of the Pacific Coast League before retiring in 1973.
After Oyler retired from baseball, he settled in the Seattle area, working for the Safeway supermarket chain, managing a bowling alley in Bellevue, Washington and working at Boeing. ("Seattle Pilots ... Where are they now?" The Seattle Times, July 9, 2006) Oyler played slowpitch softball in Seattle from 1973-1980 and also occasionally pitched batting practice for the Tigers when they were in Seattle playing the Mariners. He suffered a heart attack at his Redmond, Washington home on January 26, 1981, and died at the age of 42. He is buried in an unmarked grave at Sunset Hills Memorial Park, Bellevue, Washington (Gethsemane Section, Grave 85).
In a May 2007 article titled "Baseball, Partying, and Alcohol Abuse," Oyler's former Detroit roommate, Denny McLain claimed that Oyler was "an alcoholic" who "died prematurely." One of the authoritative histories of the team also reports that many of the 1968 Tigers drank "a lot," that Oyler was "later in AA" and that "alcohol may have adversely affected (Oyler's) career." (Patrick Harrigan, "The Detroit Tigers: Club and Community 1945-1995" (Univ. Toronto Press 1997), p. 145.)
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