The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Highpaid Baseball Players

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.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Good evening from Cincinnati, Ohio, where a front page story and this morning Cincinnati Enquire began like this. Nighttime is still dark. Stars still twinkle in the sky. Spring still means love. And Pete Rose is still a Cincinnati red. Technically it was the

opening day of the Major League Baseball season with the Reds going after their third straight world championship. And for the record the Reds won today's opener, five to three over the San Diego Padres. But all of that seems secondary to the saga of Pete Rose, the homegrown superstar third baseman, who threatened the unthinkable to leave the Reds next year unless he was paid $400,000 a year. That disaster was averted with an 11th hour compromise with Reds management last night. For the people of Cincinnati the Rose Sowery story had become a causal upgrade of gigantic proportions. For those elsewhere it came as another sign that baseball as well as all professional sports is entering a new era. And people are asking are the high soweries and the new freedom for the Pete Rose's of this world heading the whole enterprise toward disaster? Or is it merely a long overdue correction of the slave labor aspects of being a professional athlete? Tonight with Pete Rose himself and others, some answers. But first let's set the move. Oh look at that.

Concepcion is safe at third. Here's the first front of the year for Cincinnati. Bill Plummer, singles inner center field and Dave Concepcion control and it is one nothing red. Line to left field and it is a base hit. Grab nicely by posture. Here comes the throw but two runs score. So Gene Tennis comes through with a hot blind drive base hit into left field and the San Diego Padres take the lead. And there's a base hit into right center field that was scored grippy and posture is going around two second and hitting with third. And George Foster winds up at third base. Lowry, it was the truth. Thank you. Pete Rose with a tough hop and he throws out this video. Rose playing in shallow and that's because of the elbow problems

that he has. It enables him to get the ball a little bit sooner and get it off but he doesn't have to zip it over there the way he would if he played deeper. He gets the ball on the second hop right in front of him in the sliding box and makes the play with plenty of time to spare. It had been concerned about Pete's arm. He played last year in pain with it but he'll play in pain if he has to but it's been good this spring. Pete Rose, the season is now begun as the this flamp all this brutal haul over your salary affected in any way your excitement or your feeling about an opening season today and opening game today. Now for some reason we saw last night I thought it was a little hard to spring train you know going through the same questions and things every day for three or four weeks and I'd much rather than talking about the young players who got on our ball club or the veteran players will kind of years expect out of them or what kind of year I expect out of myself and when I look forward to for 1977 for the big red

machine and you know people always want to talk about money they always want to write bad news you know but I just got tired of answering the same questions and it was just one of those things. The only difference in me this year is compared to other years I didn't have to sign a contract this year I have a lot of problems with the same reds in the past or my contract but I always had a sign and go to spring train you couldn't work out unless you had a sign in contract with this year it was a little different and I think it's to the better for both parties. I know as you just said you try to answer in questions about money but I will appreciate it. I know you've been asked this before but how did you go about deciding that you were worth four hundred thousand dollars a year? Well I just try to analyze what other guys were being paid if you if you as it's correct what I read in the paper you know I I take three things in consideration and you have to take your overall number of years and the big leagues your record consistently you know consistency on the field

and your popularity. I don't know those three I don't think I'll back in any category and and I look at it like we draw two and a half million people every year and we got the best players in the best team and the best fans and and you know why should players insist that he I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the ball players were two hundred thousand hundred thousand three hundred thousand four thousand but why should a player on Cincinnati who makes the all-star team every year make two hundred fifty thousand year and teams on the yank every person at the Yankees players on the at the angels and other teams make five or six hundred thousand year it doesn't make sense to me. Well I'm not saying who's right but you know I didn't set the stairs for the high salaries and baseball the owners passed the the free agency draft you know you can play out your office and that's what made the salaries skyrocket in the last two years. There's the owners fall and they're well I guess the owners in the Marvin Miller who runs the part of the association you know they got together and the owner is okay so you know they knew what they were in for. See they have a problem in the big leagues because some owners like George Steinbrenner and Gene Autry and the Ray Crockett and Diego are owner here. It's

not out of the Yankees and Autry. They went out to spend a lot of money you know our owners think about spending money. We did not the draft any free agency at all we didn't get in the draft we didn't even want to get into it. We stayed pretty much intact. Well how's all this changing baseball in your opinion? Is it playing? Is it affecting the relationship between players? I don't think the high salaries are going to change it in areas. In fact I think the the long-term contracts are going to make it harder to manage in the big leagues. You know I think there's there's probably a handful of guys you could give a 25-year contract to. And he busts his tail so I speak every day. There's other guys you give a five-year contract he could give a darn less as they play a hundred thirty or forty games. So I think it's going to change in that respect you know but they're again everybody's different. Some guys got more pride in other guys and that's management's job and know every individual as an individual. Well this getting $400,000 or something very close to it must have been very very important to you. I mean was it important because you wanted that money

you needed the money or was there some other element? Oh I'm broke I needed the money. Yeah right right right. Okay moving on to the second part of it. I just felt that that was a fair figure and I just thought it was in my attorney Mr. Cassidy. We felt that after going through this 15 years that we didn't want to go in with a $550,000 figure, a $500,000 figure which has been unfair to the bulk of the issue for that much money and then it's finally happy meeting in between. We thought the figure of $400 was a realistic figure and I you know and that's why we asked for that and that's why we said it was not in the ghost when we asked for it. And they knew that February 3rd. You think the average fan and Cincinnati understands why you held out for $400,000? I don't know about the average fan the average good baseball fan if they read between the lines and know what's happening on the field and read the records you know they pay that they pay it to me. You know if the guy's gonna look at and say I'm trying to hold out for $400,000 it's gonna worry about how much it calls to get in the ball game. You know there were people who got mad at me

Jim when I asked when I told him I was going to be the first player to make $100,000. I used to get a lot of hate mail about making a $100,000. You know I'm on a hate mail on this do. No not not really you know just a lot of people told me to give it a little bit because they're like to see me playing Cincinnati. You know there's some people don't like if you make 50,000 years. Other people don't give a darn if you make it. I have million dollars a year. Well you serious when you threatened to play out your option this year and go somewhere else. Well I get on the airplane and the other day they come to Cincinnati. I was prepared to play opening day without a contract and I had no idea that Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Wagner wanted to meet with me until the airplane door opened in the guy from Dr. Airlines had me a slip. I said call Mr. Cassidy's urgent and I got that message I knew what was up and I went and called him. He said Mr. Wagner like to talk to you at 7.15 and all of us and I said fine I'll be there. You so you know I got to look at it like this if I have time they have a couple minutes. Sure you know I have to look at it like this. You know say I have three or four years left. I looked at it like this and and

Ruben and I thought that if I played out my option now a lot of people think you know if we were talking about $20,000, $25,000 let's say heck whether let's just go play baseball but if I can make 250 in Cincinnati it's $150,000 year in Cincinnati and play three more years at $750,000. Now if I can go to another place and make 500,000 a year instead of playing three years in Cincinnati it's equivalent to playing six years in the big leagues and that's you know if you're talking about the difference of $750,000 over three years span I don't do a darn how much money you got that's a lot of money so you have to give it you know a little bit of consideration and the way we were going to go see it earlier it appeared to us that they didn't care if I were not so that's why we just pursued it. Let's bring in the Ruben you just mentioned Ruben Katz who's the attorney who represented you. Mr. Katz also represents other members of the Cincinnati Reds including Johnny Bench the catcher of the Reds. Mr. Katz what role did you play in these negotiations? Well I advise Pete. Did you guys need to go for $400,000? I helped him come to the

conclusion that that would be a good figure for him to ask for. You know the owners and some sports riders and others who say that this whole salary thing is getting out of hand bling people like you lawyers and agents and they say that once the ballplayers started fooling around with you folks this thing has gone haywire. You mean you? Well that has really I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think the fact that free enterprise has come to baseball is what has changed the salary level. The man has a right to go out and find out what the market will pay him and that is what's raised the salary. The agent I guess there should be a definition of agent and attorney. There seems to be an important point about that. I'm not quite sure what it is. An agent does not have to be an attorney and an attorney may be an agent. If an agent is

defined to someone who gets a percentage of the pay like a theatrical agent that's one thing. But the agent or the attorney or the advisor performs the role of helping the player get the result. Management has a whole team of people but there's the president, the general manager, the board. So this is a natural organization. He needs help. The players need help in negotiating their contracts. It's difficult to do it. It's not their thing to negotiate contract. Is there any danger that all of this may kill the goose that laid the golden egg that could ruin baseball? They're going to run out of money somewhere along the way as a result of what you've negotiated for Mr. Rose and others? Oh, well, I don't think so at all. If there was any indication it might ruin baseball, I don't think they'd be paying those salaries. But it's free enterprise. And that's all it is. And if it turns out that they're not worth that

pay, or the sport can't support it, then they pay. Well, come down. That's the system. I think you have to realize anything that might end some of this free agency signing next year. Let's just watch this summer see how the Yankees do or see how the California Angels do or how the San Diego Padres do. You know, the teams who really got into the bidding were heavy and spent a lot of money. You know, if them teams flop, these other teams aren't going to be so, you know, in a hurry to get into that age that bidding more next year. And see, I look at it like this. You know, I think the salaries are going to taper off now. I really do because, you know, it's like the teams I mentioned right there. You know, they're not good. They're not good. They don't have the money to spend next year on free agencies. You know, you guys are the free agents. And also, there's not going to be that many really good name players up for the grand next year. So in other words, there's almost a one shot deal. Is that right? No, you had to make it now. You weren't going to make it. Well, in my age, I did. But you know, you got

other guys like Kenny Griffey just signed a three year contract. He's only 27 or eight years old, false or the same. So, you know, the younger you are, just like David can set you on this, you know, our short stop, you know, he never hit 300. He's a great player though. But he just signed the five year contract with our ball coach for a hefty salary over 200,000 years. So, you know, he because he would, you know, I come to a conclusion over the last month and a half. I really believe this. I might get in trouble when I say this, but I think the player today, the baseball player today or the basketball player today or the football player today. I think, I think he his records, they can care less about his records or what he does on the field. I think you get paid today what you can get out of the owner, what the owner is willing to pay you. Because, you know, because I don't see on anybody could look me in the eye and tell me I'm not worth what I is for. They look at my record over the past 14 years over the last two years. And, you know, just like I said, David is a tremendous career ahead of me. That's why they weren't, they were willing to go out on a limb and give them five year contract. But, you know, the guy who did it all the years, there's

one that has trouble. You understand what I mean? Yeah, I sure do. And it's just what the owners are willing to pay is. What a guy is going to get. Do you agree with that Ruben? Well sure. That's where free enterprise comes in. This is, there's an alternative now. If the team and the player can't get together on the salary, then after under the rules, when he qualifies, he goes someplace else and finds out what the other clubs will pay. All right. You know, you only need to look at pictures of old-time ball baseball players to see how much the look of the game has also changed. This, in fact, is the young Wade Hoyt, signed at the age of 15 by the New York Giants. Hoyt spent 10 years with the New York Yankees and pitched on championship teams that included stars like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehry. Return in 1938, Wade Hoyt was inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1969 for 25 of the intervening years. He was a baseball broadcaster nearly all of it as the voice of the Cincinnati Reds. Mr. Hoyt is Pete Roseworth

for $400,000 for the Cincinnati Reds. Jim, that's one thing that I cannot answer. I believe that the, I believe that the, the money values in the game of baseball followed pretty much the equivalent values in the, in the economy of the United States. The jacket I have on, if I may say so, was exorbitant in price. Almost ten times as much as I paid for a jacket 20 years ago. I could not consider myself that intelligent that I can estimate values of anything, a pound of coffee, a pound of beef or anything else. And ball players to me are in the same category, although I was one myself. Somebody quoted me some rule of ten. I don't know if this is, if this is in keeping with your thinking that every so often the, the money values change and up them, upgrade themselves by

ten. In other words, at Babe Ruth, today would be getting 800,000 a year. He made 80,000 when he was done. That's right. Today would be 800,000. If it, if it reaches that proportion, am I right in something? Sure. Along those lines. So when you come to Pete Rose, I believe that Pete Rose is not only a great ball player Jim, and everything that he says he is, but he is also in this city of Cincinnati as civic asset. I would hate to see Pete Lee would hate to see him leave and I think that he would might have made a mistake. All right, he was willing to leave. He said he was willing to leave. Well, that's probably, I never said I were to leave. He would have been compelled, probably, by his own conscience. I played for the New York Yankees for 10 years without a raise. And why did I do it? I did it because I was playing in my own city with my friends. And of course, it would of course be so much to live in another city, had I been traded or sold, and the expenses

were the ball most doubled, you see. Well, when you were playing, let me go, when you were playing ball until, in just the last few years, things have changed. With the owners always seem to have the upper hand. All we see up a hand, I was told in St. Petersburg, Florida, Jim, when I was holding out in 1928. And they said, if you make us give you this, if you make us give you this money, when we don't need you anymore, you are through with us, and so it developed. And they also told me in relation what Pete says about his tenure as a Cincinnati Red, I was told at the same time, I see. It was considered unethical in our day to mention the Sally of any other ballplayer, or your contemporary. And as a consequence, I did break the ethics that time, and I said, why is this man, this other pitcher on the ball club, who was not doing the work I'm doing, because I led the league at that time, why is he being paid more than I'm being paid, when I have done these things for you? And you know what they said, told me, they said,

because he was been with us longer than you, he's given more service to the Yankees, and he has seen more people come through the turnstiles. And so there must be some equivalent there. That's essentially what you told the Cincinnati Red, too, isn't it, Pete? Well, you know, I didn't try to, I didn't use Joe Morgan's salary as a yardstick. I don't know, I did with Joe Morgan. There's none of my business. He asked him, you know, I didn't ask him what he but the principal was the same, right? All I told him is, as I've been here the longest, I got more hits. I lead in every offensive category. I haven't missed a game now in three and a half years. I only missed seven, seven games in seven years. I went from second base to left field to right field to center field back to left field in the third base. Made the All-Star game in every position I played. And you know, everything I did on the baseball field was to help the Cincinnati Reds win. Jim, if I may, if I may say something here in reference to that, I was holding out, as I say, in 28. And Dazzie Vance, an

old pitcher, I was holding out on the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was probably the finest pitcher in the business. No pitcher up until that time had ever been to pay $25,000 a year. He was holding out for $25,000. I was holding out for $20,000. I gave out a statement, the public statement, to the press, that the baddest, the hitters were getting the money. They were getting $35,000, $40,000, the pitchers were getting $22,000 if they got that. That's fair. That's fair, isn't it? And I'll just get it. You know, wait, you'll go ahead and get it, get it, get it, get it, get it. So I got a telephone call that would appear in the paper like that headline you just held up. I received a telephone call from Ed Bower, the business manager of the New York Yankees. The next morning, he said, how dare you give out a statement of the press? He said, after this, we'll give out the statements. You keep quiet. And this is the dominance you ask me about of the club owners in the old days.

All right. Now, let me pose this question to you. What I was really getting to, let me pose this to you, Mr. Cash, has the pendulum now swung to where the players are calling the shots? No. Of course not. If the players were calling the shots, then there would not have been a compromise last night. It would have, right. We wouldn't have had to fight from February 3rd to April the 5th. You wouldn't have been all seven pounds, right? But in the end, the Reds had to give in, didn't they? Well, both sides gave some. We don't look like the Reds gave in. We weren't looking for the Reds to give in. He must remember this, though. In the old days, we weren't the Reds to be happy. When the old days, if we didn't sign by March 1st, we weren't allowed to go to spring training. We weren't allowed to put on a uniform. They wouldn't receive us in camp. Well, you have to remember, you know, he talked about holdouts and things like that up to this year. In the history of baseball, I think, the only one guy ever held out a whole year of that he roused, right? And Mike Donlon, two guys held out for a whole

year. So the odds are pretty good at the guys signing a contract up to this year. This year, you're allowed to go to spring training with a non-sign contract, but this is the first year you could do that. So, you know, the owner sort of had, they knew that a player was going to sign eventually in the past. And they just, you know, a lot of owners would just take stands with me. You know, they knew I loved baseball and knew I didn't like spring training along spring training. So they just let me go and be a week late to report in the spring training. They know I'm going to come around. So, you know, that's, get them crap from knowing they're a person now. But, you know, what he just, what he just talked about a minute ago is interesting about how the picture was asking for money and things like that, because you know, they have a big serious holdout in New York right now, Dave Kingman. And he was telling me that a similar thing there, a night down in St. Petersburg, that the Mets as an organization, they don't want to pay anybody but pitchers. You know, we're an offensive organization since the netty. We have offensive players. And he said that he was having a little trouble

getting the money he thought, because if they gave it to him, then they got to give it all the pitchers. And, you know, that's what he told me. He said, he said, they're strictly a defensive and a pitching organization. He said, you know, they don't even have, they don't even have batting cages down in spring training. Everything is, is pitching mounds and for the pitchers to work. And he really told me that and this struck me kind of funny. Let me ask you a question about baseball, obviously, as a team sport and all this thing though in the last several years, endorsements, which you do a lot of, the salary thing is that, is it this going to destroy the team aspect with all these guys jumping around from one team to the other and all that sort of thing? Or is it, is it never really been a lightning? I like to think I can only talk about one team that's Cincinnati, but just like I told you a minute ago with the exception of Tony Perez, who ruined, helped go to Montreal because he didn't want to be a platoon player here and they indicated he wouldn't play every day and he's got to play every day to help a ball club. He's a tremendous player. Every other position is intact with the 75 and 76 world championship teams of Cincinnati.

So, you know, every team hasn't lost a lot of players. We've all gone and we've all passed Perez in the trade and go in the free agency dress. So, you know, if you work at it in the right way, you won't lose your players. And here's a guy, Mr. Housing, Mr. Wagner, two guys that run our balls. These are the officials over some center. Well, once president, once general manager, he negotiates a contract. No, a lot of people would never believe that he would have everybody signed up going into opening day from two world series to the teams with the talent he has. You know, when you got conceptions and griffies and fosters and morgants and benches and people like that, you know, and so they went out and they signed the players up and they didn't spend all this money buying players in the draft. That's why you asked a question about the end result, the possible end result of all this. Personally, I don't think that any of us can judge what the end result will be. This is my belief. We happen to be sitting in this city of Cincinnati, which happens to be the apex of all baseball right at this particular time. The horn

of plenty is right here, right now. And we are overcome with the success of the Cincinnati Reds in this city. If we were in some town, some other city that wasn't doing well in the matter of gate receipts and couldn't pay the money to these fellows, I don't know what would happen or what will happen in two years from now. And I don't think the answer is it was going to become evident for a long, long time. Well, that's what you thought about you. We woke up this morning. You were here. And we had four inches of snow on the ground. I noticed that. We didn't have a ground, but we had four inches of snow from eight o'clock in the morning till 11 o'clock in the morning. And we played a game of two 30 and there was 51,987 people at the ballpark. And it was still cold when y'all were playing. It was cold. This is where baseball was originated in 1869. This was where the first night game was played in 1937. And this is where the world can't be a flag, you cannot answer. You cannot answer the man in the street. Jim, I meet them every day, every day. And the fellow stops me and said, wait, I can't afford to take my family to the ball game.

It cost me $30, some $30 and it's $40 to take my wife and two children to the ball game when they, by the time they get through the tickets, parking, hot dogs and other things at the ballpark. And I say, well, that's too bad. But there are 51,000 people there the next Sunday. Now, the whole one you make, though, is a very good one. There are a lot of people that are maybe in other cities. I know for a fact, they're very turned off about all this. Well, I don't care. All players like Pete, how you make 200,000 dollars. I'll try you look around or what you try to do. Baseball has got to be the best partner sports today. I mean, if you compare baseball prices with, with basketball prices and football prices and hockey prices, you know, the tickets are, are most expensive seats. What, 450, Ruben? 550. But Pete, go to a basketball game. They cost you $8. You go to a hockey game. It costs you 750. You go to the bangle or the football games. It costs you $10. And I go to them. I'm not a guest. And baseball, you can see 81 games. But what, what happened, the really tough prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that baseball

really is never no longer a game. If and ever was one, it is big business. Oh, it is definitely big business. But I think we're the baseball people spend the money. You know, it's not the salaries. You know, I don't think it's in the salaries. Take our organization, for instance. We spend our money in developing players. You know, football and basketball, they don't have minor leagues. They're minor leagues or colleges. They get their players from colleges. We have to put tons and tons of money into the, into the minor league system. We have seven minor league teams with 20 players per team. And they have to develop those players. They have to sign them out of high school, sign them out of college. And they have to put them into minor leagues. They have to pay their way up. They got a family salary. And they got to develop it. And that's for all their money. We have, we have 18 territorial scouts working for the Cincinnati Reds. They don't work for nothing. Yeah. So, you know, that's big business to develop in players. And the reason he puts them in my ear and develop players to keep the game number one in Cincinnati. I got to develop a way to say good night. Good night, Pete Rose. Mr. Cass. Mr. Hoyt. I thank you all very much. I'm Jim Lara. Thank you. And good night.

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