Bucking Arbitration Odds a Tough Task

Ruben Sierra is a gentleman of 24, employed gainfully in the outfield of the Texas Rangers.

At 17, Ruben rolls in from his village in Puerto Rico to play American baseball and, the next thing society knows, he is smashing, in order, 30, 23 and 29 home runs, all in behalf of Texas.

Last year, Ruben bats .306 and drives in 119 runs, leading to two requests, one from Ruben that Texas pay him $1.9 million, and the other from Bo Jackson that Kansas City pay Bo a dollar more.

How Jackson relates to Ruben Sierra isn’t known. He doesn’t even relate to High Sierra. He bats but .254 last year, drives in 14 fewer runs than Sierra, appears at the plate 119 fewer times and doesn’t play the field as well.

But always moving in a mysterious orbit, Jackson asks the arbitrator for $1.9 million, not aware he is making a farce of the arbitration process, and he comes away with only $1 million, or less than he deserves in the lunacy of today’s market.

Arbitrators occupy a fascinating role in the everyday give-and-take of baseball. To settle disagreements involving millions, they are paid sums ranging maybe from $500 to $1,000, plus expenses.

In many cases, they hold court in a room at an airport hotel. They fly in, listen to the arguments and fly out.

Deluged by statistics unfurled by agents and team lawyers, arbitrators, understandably, have been known to doze.

When a ballplayer comes to a hearing announcing he wants $1 more than Ruben Sierra, we see an arbitrator saying to himself, “This has to be some kind of wise guy. That extra buck is too cutesy.”

And the arbitrator votes in behalf of the club.

Obviously, we aren’t able to document what thoughts pervaded the cerebral turbine of the arbitrator listening to the Jackson-Kansas City case, but we picture a lot of arbitrators turning down Bo on such a caper.

Now you hear interesting discussions in connection with Jackson’s future, some guessing that, asked to play baseball for only $1 million, he may switch full time to football.

It wasn’t long ago that folks were guessing he would switch full time to baseball.

What the Raiders would pay Ruben Sierra hasn’t yet been disclosed, but what they did with Bo Jackson, before salaries began to escalate, was make him a deal whereby they would give him sums ranging from roughly $600,000 to $800,000 a season for reporting in October.

If he did this for five seasons, a balloon payment would await him at the end, worth possibly $2 million.

Since no kid can resist balloons, you see Jackson playing football two more years to complete this little heist.

The unconventional package isn’t new to the Raiders. They made a three-way deal one time involving themselves, a halfback named Napoleon McCallum and the U.S. Navy.

The Navy would station Napoleon on a ship at Long Beach and work him from 4 in the morning until noon, at which time a driver from the Raiders would pick him up and speed him to practice.

It was a nice arrangement until mothers of other sailors began to holler favoritism, and the Navy moved McCallum out in what the Raiders saw as an un-American act.

We had a talk about Jackson last season with John Wathan, manager of the Royals, who submitted that Jackson would be a better baseball player if he gave up football.

“Our season is 162 games, plus 30 exhibitions,” Wathan said. “The physical and mental strains are big. If Bo rested after baseball season and did light work in the instructional league, instead of rushing off to football, it would be better for him.”

He might even pick up a buck more than Ruben Sierra, who doesn’t know a nickel defense from a fifth of Bacardi.

In view of his arbitration setback in baseball, will Bo Jackson discuss football? Not exactly. It is his policy during baseball season, he says, to talk only about baseball and fishing.

During football season, he talks only about football and hunting.

This poses a problem for those who, during football season, might like to talk about fishing.