It may be difficult for the current generation to believe, but there was a time when stoking the hot stove was all about the players.
There were daily reports about how they were running in the hills and valleys to strengthen their legs for the season ahead. Or they were en route to the mineral baths to shed a few pounds.
Today there is none of that off-season pap. The owners occupy center stage. The big stories are on how they are divesting themselves of their clubs. Or downsizing, dumping high-salaried players to reduce payroll and enhancing the possibility of a profit.
Minnesota owner Carl Pohlad is in the process of selling the Twins to a North Carolina group that will move the team to the Carolinas. It will be the first franchise relocation since 1972. And Wayne Huizenga is breaking up his newly crowned world champion Florida Marlins, dispersing his best players in an effort to diminish the financial burden of his successor.
Huizenga, an industrialist who founded two Fortune 500 companies, said he lost $34 million last season. He helped provide Florida with its first World Series champion, a joyous occasion for everyone but the owner. For Huizenga, it was an economic disaster.
All of Huizenga’s employees–groundskeepers, secretaries, scouts–all the way up to the star players such as Alex Fernandez, a $7 million pitcher, and Gary Sheffield, a $6.1 million outfielder, performed for a guaranteed wage. Huizenga didn’t make a dime.
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There will be no attempt here to take up a collection for either Huizenga or Pohlad, both of whom have more than an ample supply of worldly goods. But they didn’t make their money by losing money. And so they’re getting out, no longer content to float in an ocean of red ink.
Pohlad, a soft-spoken Minnesota banker and much respected in the baseball community, says he has dropped $87 million since he bought the club in 1984. Pohlad would prefer to see the Twins stay put. If a new stadium were approved, Pohlad agreed to foot part of the costs. The Minnesota lawmakers refused.
Pohlad also signed a contract with the North Carolina group. Now the only way the deal can be negated is if Pohlad’s fellow owners refuse to allow him to sell to out-of-state interests. Pohlad is very influential in American League policy and for many years has been among the principal supporters of acting Commissioner Bud Selig. More than likely, the sale would be approved.
The Twins had a $26 million payroll last season, about average for a small-market operation. Pohlad already has pruned the payout by $2 million with the dispersal of several secondary players. Paul Molitor and Chuck Knoblauch, the Twins’ two best players, are also certain to depart. Their combined 1997 pay was $9.7 million.
Intent on winning a flag, Huizenga opened his purse. Before the 1997 season, he signed a half-dozen players for a total commitment approaching $90 million. The Marlins finished the season with a $53.5 million player payroll. No one held a gun to his head. He should have known he would take a bath.
“He created the situation,” one NL owner said. “Anyone could have reasonably predicted the result.”
The result is that since the World Series, Huizenga has slashed the Marlins’ payroll by nearly $15 million. Gone are outfielders Moises Alou ($4.5 million) and Devon White ($3.4 million), pitcher Rob Nen ($3.1 million) and first baseman Jeff Conine ($2.8 million). Sheffield and third baseman Bobby Bonilla ($5.6 million) also are expected to be sold or traded.
It isn’t the first time a championship club has been cannibalized. Connie Mack broke up two of his clubs, in 1914 and again in the ’30s, during the Depression when the Philadelphia A’s were $500,000 in debt. To survive, Mack, then baseball’s grand old man, had another fire sale: After the ’32 season, Al Simmons, Jimmy Dykes and Mule Haas went to the White Sox for $150,000, huge money in those days.
A year later, Mickey Cochrane. Lefty Grove, Max Bishop and Rube Walberg also went to the highest bidders. Next off-season, Jimmie Foxx went to Boston for $150,000. From 1934 through 1947, the A’s never finished in the first division.
More recently, in June 1976, Charlie Finley, owner of the Oakland A’s, tried to follow suit. Aware free agency was about to kick in, Finley sold outfielder Joe Rudi and pitcher Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox for $1 million each, and pitcher Vida Blue to the Yankees for $1.5 million.
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn voided the deals, claiming Finley was upsetting competitive balance, a mythical phrase invented for the occasion. Finley contended, rightly so, that if he didn’t move these players they would become free agents after the season, that he would lose them without compensation. Finley took Kuhn to court and lost.