Sic Transit Tradition

BASEBALL Sic Transit Tradition

"Baseball is an old-fashioned game with old-fashioned traditions," says Walter O'Malley, owner of the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers -- and one of O'Malley's favorite traditions is that players take whatever salary he offers them and say thank you. Between them, Dodger Pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale won 49 games last year, so obviously they were in line for some sort of raise. O'Malley offered Koufax $105,000 (up $35,000) for 1966, Drysdale $95,000 (up $20,000).

The lads did not say thank you; they said no thanks, or rather their lawyer, a hard-case Hollywood type named J. William Hayes said it for them. Hayes informed O'Malley that the two pitchers wanted three-year contracts at $167,000 each per year. O'Malley was shocked.

He was even more shocked when Koufax and Drysdale stayed away from spring training and thereby proved to all the world how much the Dodgers needed them: in the preseason Grapefruit League, Los Angeles won only six games, lost twelve, ranked 18th out of 20 teams-- five games behind the New York Mets, nine behind the leading Chicago White Sox. O'Malley grudgingly raised his total offer to $210,000. That, he said, was a "final" figure. Koufax and Drysdale looked elsewhere for work. They signed TV and movie contracts, showed up for rehearsals of a thriller called Warning Shot. There was talk of a barnstorming tour of Japan.

Last week, with the opening of the 1966 season only 13 days away, O'Malley finally capitulated. The pitchers did not get three-year contracts, but they did get $245,000--$130,000 for Koufax, $115,000 for Drysdale. Then they set about getting themselves in shape to play. Drysdale had been working out, but Koufax had done nothing more strenuous all spring than play a round of golf--and it was a good bet that neither would be ready to pitch nine innings before the season was two weeks old. "Our main concern," said Dodger Manager Walter Alston, "is to make sure they don't overtax their arms and injure them." Naturally, at those prices.

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