Before free agency, the players’ union, and big contracts, players held out to make more money.
Once upon a time, or in 1966, the defending L.A. Dodgers were looking forward to a repeat. They had arguably the best 1-2 pitching duo in baseball: right-hander Don Drysdale and the great lefty Sandy Koufax.
Sandy and Don didn’t show up, and it was the talk of the spring, as we remember in this article:
The best pitchers on the defending World Series champions were widely viewed as heretics in the context of their time. There was no free agency, no salary arbitration, and no power in the players’ union.
If a player did not like the salary dictated by management, he could stay home. So Koufax and Drysdale did, threatening by their absence to turn the Dodgers from the best team in the National League into an also-ran.
In the end, the pitchers got more money. The Dodgers got back to the World Series. The fans adored their heroes once again.
Within a decade, Marvin Miller had organized baseball’s players into what would become the most powerful union in American sports, breaking free of rules that bound them to their team until the team let them go.
But Miller did not start his job until Koufax and Drysdale were in the second week of their holdout, an event often overlooked in the chronicles of baseball’s labor history.
“We’ve come a very long way,” Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw said. “We owe a lot to our former players that fought for our rights.”
When Kershaw signed for $215 million two years ago, he chose to stay with the Dodgers. Koufax had no choice. The Dodgers aces past and present have become close, and Kershaw was not surprised to learn that the best pitcher in baseball had been willing to retire if necessary, and had stood up for himself before his union could stand up for him.
“He’s the type of guy who knows what’s right and would fight for it,” Kershaw said.
It was Feb. 23, 1966, and The Times splashed the headline across the top of the page: “Koufax, Drysdale Eye $1 Million Pact.”
A million dollars? I remember that spring and those Dodgers who had beaten the Twins in the 1965 World Series. And I recall joking with my parents about Koufax and Drysdale. My father laughed at the idea of a baseball player making that kind of money. I should add that my dad was working two jobs at the time, an office job and hotel bellboy on weekends. My mother said something in Spanish loosely translated to “I hope Koufax can get it because no one can hit the guy.”
As it turned out, they held out for 32 days and signed eventually for $130,000 (Koufax) and $105,000 (Drysdale). Those numbers sound silly now, but that’s how it used to be.
The Dodgers won 97 games and the NL pennant but lost to the Orioles in the 1966 World Series later that year. Koufax, or the guy my mom said no one could hit, was great as usual: 27-9 with a 1.73 ERA & 27 complete games. On the other hand, Drysdale was a bit off form: 13-16 with a 3.42 ERA.
A lot of things have changed, and I hope the current crop of players appreciate what they have today.
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