Every so often, in those years when the money flies around baseball as it does now, when contracts are handed out that make people gasp — when contracts are turned down that can make you hyperventilate — I always find it amusing to ponder what baseball might have looked like if an idea floated at the advent of free agency ever had gotten traction.
Not surprisingly, it was Charley O. Finley — he of the ideas for orange baseballs, mascot mules, neon uniforms and between-inning waitress service for umpires, among others — who saw what was happening to the game before anyone else.
Finley had assembled the last reserve-clause dynasty, stockpiling stars in Oakland who may have wanted to test waters elsewhere but were bound by baseball’s ancient tethering rules to the A’s. They won three championships in a row from 1972-74, battled each other as much as the opponent, and might have won a few more except free agency arrived and shattered the core to smithereens.
Finley saw that coming, knew he couldn’t pay everyone (or anyone, as it turned out), tried to sell his assets off like a baseball garage sale, was rebuffed in those efforts by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, ultimately sold the A’s, and that was that. But before he did, with free agency imminent and with it the end of the system the owners had used — and grown fat off — for more than a century, he had a modest proposal for his fellow owners.
Look, he told them. This is coming. So if what the players want is to be free, let’s give it to them. In its entirety. Trash the reserve system (which bound a player to his original team in perpetuity) before an arbiter does, and offer the players this: one-year, non-renewable contracts. Essentially every major league player, at the end of every year, would be a free agent, able to earn whatever the market allowed, able to work wherever he pleased.
Marvin Miller would acknowledge the genius in that plan later in his life. The Players Association legend knew that wouldn’t be a great deal for his constituents — even if he might never have envisioned 10-year, $240 million contracts 40 years ago, he knew multi-year, guaranteed deals were a boon to players — but he also knew this: After chafing under the reserve clause since 1869, it would be hard for the union to reasonably turn down unfettered freedom.
“It would have been better for the players than it was, and not nearly as good as it turned out,” Miller told me a few years before he died. “And I think if the owners could turn back the clock, look at this with a clear eye, they might see things different, too. Thankfully they didn’t.”
But what the owners saw was a crackpot named Finley with his mike and his orange baseballs and his green and yellow uniforms who they had been hoping to exile for years. They never came close to agreeing. They wound up having free agency in its present state forced down their throats. And here we are.
But what if an owner with across-the-board respect and gravitas like Walter O’Malley had come up with the idea? And what if it had been the law of the land these past 35 years, essentially rendering every hot stove month into a playground pickup game?
Well, after a while, you have to believe the MLBPA would have moved to strike it, because one-year deals simply are bad business for the players in a sport where a beaning or a torn knee can turn a star into a scrub in a heartbeat. And you can only imagine what the yearly pursuits of, say, Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter might have looked like. The Winter Meetings would garner higher ratings than the World Series. Probably would have been chaotic.
But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been fun to watch.
Vac’s whacks
You have to figure it didn’t hurt the Mets’ bargaining position when Bartolo Colon learned about Shake Shack, Blue Smoke and Pat LaFrieda’s, right?
Pretty funny to hear Brad Benson’s commercials killing Robinson Cano’s free agency move to Seattle when Benson himself took part in two devastating NFL player strikes that were essentially called to help create … free agency.
It’s worth your while to catch up with TNT’s “Mob City” before this Wednesday’s finale, if you aren’t caught up already.
Only one man I can think of to restore Texas football to its full glory: Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose, right Coach Taylor?
Whack back at Vac
Bill Fleming: In typical Mets timing, they had Joe Torre too late as a player, and too early as a manager.
Vac: It was just right for me: first-ever autograph, 1974 West Hempstead Little League dinner. When I told him that years later, he liked every part except the one where I was 7 years old at the time.
Bob Leise: The Knicks defense often resembles a layup drill. Maybe they should try scheduling the Washington Generals.
Vac: Well, if ever a team were in position to end another team’s 42-year losing streak …
@robertahern3: I’m happy to see the Mets spending again. However, the best three-year stretch in team history was 1986-88, not 2006-08 as you wrote.
@MikeVacc: I tend to undervalue ’87 because of how bad the defending champs started and how they gagged at the end, but this is probably right.
Mike Gijanto: I know we’re all numb — tens and hundreds of millions of dollars are just numbers now — but doesn’t
it seem funny that the only two players the Yanks chose to go to the mat with over salary are Jeter and Cano? I don’t get it.
Vac: The Yankees are known for two things in their history: inarguable success on the field, and being fairly cold-blooded and calculating off it.