Players Paid to Play, Not to Wreck Cars

OK, you are doing jury duty today, listening to the case of Philadelphia vs. Dykstra and Daulton.

Lenny Dykstra, outfielder, is driving an automobile in which Darren Daulton, catcher, is a passenger. There is evidence of booze. The car zooms off the road and strikes a tree. Daulton is hurt. Dykstra is hurt worse.

It is ascertained that Dykstra won’t play for at least 60 days. Daulton is out 15, maybe more.

Dykstra is removing from the Phillies close to $3 million a year in wages. The wage of Daulton runs close to $2 million.

Under the circumstances, are the Phillies obligated to pay during that time the two are inoperative?

Technically, you would guess no in the case of Dykstra. But what about Daulton, who wasn’t driving?

And if it is said that athletes under contract are not to be paid for injuries incurred away from the arena, what do the Dodgers do, for instance, with Alfredo Griffin, who bows out with a toe injured at home?

Alfredo’s toe becomes injured because is helping a carpet cleaner move a sofa. The sofa drops on Alfredo’s toe. Alfredo isn’t drinking. Do the Dodgers say to him: “Your blood-alcohol content may be zero, but we are not responsible for falling sofas”?

Countless athletes have been hurt at home using power mowers, lifting crates, slipping in showers. Ladders have such dangerous potential that Steve Garvey, in the midst of his streak that ran 1,207 consecutive games, announced he had given up household repairs.

Said Steve: “I have placed myself in the hands of craftsmen and artisans.”

Which, of course, recalls the time Don Sutton found a clause in his Houston contract forbidding his washing windows. Said his boss, Al Rosen: “Why would rich people want to wash windows anyway?”

The Phillies aren’t telling us whether they will pay Dykstra and Daulton during their incapacitations; rumors are about that they will do it, mainly as a morale gesture, considering the players were hurt.

But we inquire of Fred Claire, executive vice president of the Dodgers, what kind of safeguards his organization inserts into contracts, dealing with noncombat injuries.

Without divulging the name of the player, who earns plenty, Fred reads from the agreement.

It specifies the player is not allowed to ski, sky-dive or engage in organized basketball and volleyball games.

He is not to fly a plane, drive a race car, a snowmobile or a motorcycle. This would preclude what a gentleman wanted to do one time in New York. He proposed, on his motorbike, to leap Wall Street--one rooftop to another.

“What if you miss?” we ask.

He answers: “It will be the biggest crash since ’29.”

Reading from the Dodger contract, Claire continues. The player is not allowed to fence, scuba-dive, surf or chop wood.

It may surprise you, but a ballplayer with a guaranteed contract is not permitted to play ice hockey. Nor can he try ice boating or bobsledding.

He can’t ride in a horse race. He can’t even ride a horse. Nor can he ride in a harness buggy drawn by a horse.

Under no circumstances, can he wrestle a steer or attempt any event connected with rodeo.

And he runs the risk of invalidating the contract if he tries karate, judo, tae kwon do or anything else related to the martial arts.

Bicycle racing? Not on his life. And he doesn’t want to delude himself into believing he is allowed to play jai alai.

According to Claire, the club needn’t pay him if he departs the roster for committing a “criminal or felonious act.”

It needn’t even pay him while he is out on bail.

And, given time in a lockup, he can only hope to get lucky, as Luis Polonia did at Milwaukee. Nailed for having sex with a consenting minor, Luis found a judge who put him away during the off-season.

In today’s piety sweep of baseball, hard liquor is not permitted in clubhouses. Most teams no longer allow beer, leading one to assume they don’t allow an unimportant but friendly wine, either.

And Texas has even kicked out smokeless tobacco.

If you conclude that those entering, say, the Benedictine order have wider latitude in their lifestyle than ballplayers, remember, too, that virtue on the part of the players does have reward, proof of which is, the car Dykstra wraps around a tree cost $93,000.