*('*'*j^.^-*^V’."'« » * < « *i* »f t ^ tfLftlU‘p'- ♦ •• **•' Have You Ever Asked Yourself— Why Am I Living? What Is Wrong With the World? Who Is Jesus Christ? These questions and more are answered daily at the Baptist Student Center near North Gate. Come and join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12 noon and every Tuesday and Thursday at 11 o’clock. ?• We have sandwiches, chips and tea on Mondays, Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays. Wednesdays, we have a hot home-cooked meal. The food is free, so you are all we need! Pag-e 6 College Station, Texas Wednesday, April 5, 1972 THE BATTALIE John Curylo \OtV Players are right in striking pro baseball trend binder corporation treno SPECIALISTS IN THESES and DISSERTATIONS CUSTOM LOOSE LEAF BINDERS PRESENTATION FOLDERS LOWEST PRICES FAST DELIVERY Our new manufacturing facilities are located at 309 N. Washington Bryan 822-7316 One of the worst possible re sults of the major league base ball strike is that the players will come out of it looking bad and the owners will end up smell ing like roses. This would be a horrible mis representation, since the gripes the players have aired are legi timate. The owners, however, are getting most of the favorable opinions, and this is wrong. Most owners of major league baseball franchises exploit ath letes, with sole interest being in. their money investments. Then, when the players make reason able financial demands for their futures, the owners squawk about them being interested in only money and not the sport. This is a classical example of being hypocritical. With the exception of the es tablished superstars in the six- figure bracket—less than one per team—no player can enjoy se curity and stability. Management has the option to trade, cut or farm out any player in the or ganization. Many times, such con sequences cost the athletes in travel expenses, housing deposits and off-season businesses. In addition, the pdfesibility of injuries is always present. A mis guided pitch, a rock ih the path of a sliding runner or even a bar of soap on the floor of the shower can keep a player out of action. These hazards may even result in his getting out of baseball. Now for a look at the owners’ side of the deal: Management pays good money to good athletes expecting good performances in return. For a number of decades the players played, the fans watched and the owners paid:. Everyone was hap py, or at least not dissatisfied enough to do anything about it. Baseball managers felt that since the athletes were making their livings from baseball, they should be good to baseball and their respective organizations. This means things like being in bed within two hours after the end of a night game. The players’ lives were regimented in other ways. One organization ruled that no player was to be seen in the lobby of the hotel with a female companion other than his wife. This included mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daugh ters. Another popular rule was that players were to be fined for drink ing at the bar of the hotel at which they were staying. They could be seen almost anywhere in town, but not at their own hotel. Too many times the fans suf fered and are suffering from these dictates. It used to be that baseball players were not allowed FOR BEST RESULTS TRY BATTALION CLASSIFIED 1974 COULD FIND YOU JUST ANOTHER COLLEGE GRAD OR A JR. EXEC IN MANAGEMENT. If you’re a young man or woman with 2 academic years remaining either at the undergraduate or graduate level, you can apply for entry in the Air Force’s 2-year ROTC program, offered on college campuses all across the country. If you qualify, you’ll receive a $100 a month, nontaxable subsistence allowance. And on graduating, you’ll receive an officer’s commission in the Air Force. Also, this year, for the first time, the Air Force is offering hundreds of scholarships in the Air Force ROTC 2-year program paying full tuition; lab expenses; incidental fees; a text book allowance and the same $100 each month, tax free. For more information, mail in the coupon today. Or, call 800-631-1972 toll free.* Enroll in the Air Force ROTC, and get your future off the ground. *In New Jersey call 800-962-2803. U.S. AIR FORCE RECRUITING SERVICE DIRECTORATE OF ADVERTISING (APV) RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, TEXAS 78148 Please send me more information on Air Force ROTC 2-year program. Name- -Date of Birth- Address- .i; ' -State- Date of Graduation- . College . I understand there is no obligation. Find yourself a scholarship in Air Force ROTC. to sign autographs while in uni form. This causes ill feeling, since the only way for youngsters to meet the pros was to arrive at the stadium two hours before the game or wait until well after the game was completed. Players let these things ride for many, many years without doing anything about them be sides gripe among themselves. Enter Marvin Miller. Miller organized the baseball players into a union. He takes it on himself to see that every player is represented in any disputes with professional baseball. Some of his accomplishments are increased pensions, helping Curt Flood fight the reserve clause and airing and defending complaints of the athletes. It is Miller who is negotiating with the owners in the strike, and it is Miller who is trying to im prove the lot of the players. What the players are demand ing is an increase in the pensions they are guaranteed as the re sult of a three-year pact agreed upon one year ago. They want the rate of the pension to be changed along with the cost of liv ing. Instead of being the money- hungry villains they are portray ed as, all this means is that the players want the pensions they are working for now to be rea sonable and in line with the cost of living at the time they receive them. A retrospect example serves as an explanation: If a player 25 years ago agreed on a figure which was plenty to live on in those days as a good pension for today, he would be in trouble now, because of the rise in the cost of living. The reason the players look bad in doing this is that no ath letic group has taken such a step before. Professional athletes have remained complacent with their situation. The fact that they are questioning this status causes the owners to accuse them of be ing mercenaries. What makes the owners out raged is that the money the play ers will be getting is the owners’ money. Owners see themselves as investors, financial wizards and capitalists—sort of the mercenar ies of management. Because the major league base ball players and Marvin Miller have struck, the future of baseball is in doubt. Either the owners will give in and treat the players fairly or baseball dies. The fans may find that they dor,| baseball as much asbas4 they do. For the money that plaj ; | and it is good money, I injury, the threat of tradJ ing out. They put a lo; j line, and they deserve the* which is guaranteed in lines of work. It’s about time for thei: (the owners) to start them fairly. San Antonio oldtimers opposed to strike, playerK SAN ANTONIO, Tex. ) — Three former baseball stars liv ing here have no sympathy for the major league players on strike. One says today’s players are acting like spoiled kids. “I think the players are all wrong—they are asking far too much,” said Cal Scheib, who started with the old Philadelphia Athletics at 16 as a pitcher in 1943 and worked 10 seasons as a major leaguer before winding up his career here in the minors. Arthur “Pinky” Whitney, a 13- year veteran with the Philadel phia Phillies and the old Boston Braves, said the modem day play ers “don’t know how lucky they’ve got it.” “They start at something like $20,000 a year and the most I ever made was $14,500. Once I hit something like .340 for the Phillies during the depression and most players accepted cuts so that baseball could survive.” Del Baker, 27 years in the big leagues as a player manager and coach, said both the players and the club owners are at fault, “and I can’t feel any sympathy for either side.” “These players are spoiled and they want everything in sight,” Baker added. “They’ve seen to it, at the expense of others, that they have the best pension plan in the world, but they want Baker, who once made $45,000 a year as manager of the Detroit Tigers, draws $50 a month from the pension fund but said he could be getting nearly monthly “if they hadn’t lot of us oldtimers out of Baker said his pension a on his time as a coach i of a by-laws change voted players that knocked Ahorne years as a player and ma rom, f “They voted us out