Money Makes The Player Go

He said, "I'm going to go to work for a brewery."

I said, "Any special one? I've got some good friends at Rheingold. Maybe I can help you. How much do you think you'll make?"

He said, "Oh, about $55 a week."

So I said, "Fine. Let me help you." I picked up the phone and said, "Operator, get me the Rheingold Brewery, Mr. Al Moore."

Tommy turns white, and he says, "What are you doing?"

I said, "I'm going to get you a job, and it'll pay more than $55 a week. Of course, it won't pay what you're making at Montreal ."

He says, "Put down that phone! I'll sign." He figured that $800 a month for playing ball was better than any amount he could make in a brewery. Knowing Tommy, I think he'd have played baseball for nothing, as long as we kept him fed and replaced the uniforms he was always ripping up.

Ballplayers frequently threaten to quit and go home; Nate Oliver did it this year when I sold him outright to Spokane . He sent back their contract and told the general manager, "If you think I'm playing for that, you're crazy!" A little bit later he called up and asked for a $1,000 advance, and then he signed. Once Kirby Higbe sent his contract back to the front office with an explanation that his father-in-law ran a string of pharmacies in the Carolinas and he regretted leaving the Dodgers but the old gentleman had offered him an excellent position and thank you very much for the contract offer but he was quitting baseball because he could make much more money working for his father-in-law. The letter had a P.S.: "Please send $2,000 advance."

Some ballplayers just don't understand money at all, or they don't stop to figure things out, and if you wanted to you could take advantage of them something frightful. Years ago a real good hitter was playing for me at Montreal . and when I went into the Brooklyn front office I put him on the Brooklyn roster and sent him a contract calling for $900 a month. The major league season lasts six months, and $900 a month for six months is $5,400, right? So he writes back indignantly and points out to me that the major league minimum salary is $5,000 a year and he's not going to sign for a penny less. So I sent him a $5,000 contract, and he wound up signing for $400 less than I had offered. He figured he was a smart fellow; he could count. He was so smart that I sold him for $45,000.

Not long ago we had a similar case. We sent a kid down to Triple-A and offered him $7,500 for the season. That's not a bad salary for a kid, $1,250 a month. But he comes into my office and he explains that he's quitting baseball and that he's going to work for the Los Angeles district attorney in some kind of youth program.