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Pag-e 6
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, April 5, 1972
THE BATTALIE
John Curylo
\OtV
Players are right in striking pro baseball
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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
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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-
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. 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