Some Contracts Today Need Sanity Clauses

Roger Clemens can’t join a jai-alai game. Will Clark can’t crawl in caves. Wayne Gretzky can’t lift a lacrosse stick. Jose Rijo can’t play polo.

As salaries increase, players’ recreational options dwindle. Teams don’t want their high-priced property getting hurt.

“The risk is so much greater,” said Boston Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman, who stopped outfielder Mike Greenwell from driving a race car. “When you guarantee that contract for two, three, four years, it’s a tremendous risk. By putting in prohibitions, you’re protecting him and the ballclub in the long run.”

In baseball, no-nos are negotiated and specified in each guaranteed deal and go well beyond the prohibitions in the uniform contract. Willie McGee, for instance, is banned from ju-jitsu, karate and white water rafting. Rijo’s $9 million, three-year contract would lose its guarantee if he is hurt hot-air ballooning or hang-gliding.

“They put in, literally anything you can think of,” agent Doug Baldwin said. “If you were to read this literally, you’d come to the conclusion they don’t want these guys doing much of anything in the offseason.”

Thurman Munson, the New York Yankees catcher, was not banned from piloting his aircraft. It was the last negotiating point in the four-year, $1,547,500 contract he signed before the 1978 season. He died in his airplane during a crash on Aug. 2, 1979.

“It was going to be a dealbuster,” Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said. “But I couldn’t afford to lose Thurman. I fought it like a tiger. I said, ‘Thurman, I’m giving you the best advice I can, don’t fly. I know a little bit about airplanes.’ But they insisted. Dick (Moss, Munson’s agent) said Thurman would not sign a contract with that prohibition.”

Accidents happen in the strangest circumstances. Pitcher Danny Frisella, then with the Milwaukee Brewers, was killed in a dune buggy accident on Jan. 1, 1977. Oakland third baseman Carney Lansford has missed the entire 1991 season because of Dec. 31 snow-mobiling accident (an activity not prohibited in his guaranteed, $5.25 million, four-year contract).

“Whenever something bad happens to somebody, some teams want to start to including prohibitions against it in contracts,” agent Tom Reich said. “I can understand it.”

General managers admit they’re cautious because of previous accidents. Clark, the San Francisco Giants’ first baseman, is prohibited from 54 activities, including wood-chopping, ice-boating (not a popular activity in Clark’s hometown of New Orleans) and spelunking, the sport of cave exploration.

“Al Rosen has been known to test the negotiating acumen of agents by flagging spelunking as one of the prohibited activities in a guaranteed baseball contracts,” said Clark’s agent, Jeff Moorad. “Being a veteran cave explorer, I was able to avoid the pitfall.”

Rosen, the Giants’ general manager, said he was serious about the spelunking ban.

“A number of years ago, I read an article about three people who had gotten lost in the Luray caverns in Virginia,” Rosen said. “It just occured to me with all the free time ballplayers have, they might find that to be something they want to do. To me, that has an element of danger to it. Now, the big sport out here is rock climbing, so I’m going to have to include that in the future.”

Clark didn’t seem to mind the restrictions in exchange for the $15 million over four years.

“OK, I won’t go in a cave,” he said.

Football contracts aren’t as detailed. They merely say players shall not “engage in any activity other than football which may involve significant risk or personal injury.”

“What is significant risk?” agent Leigh Steinberg said. “Hang-gliding obviously may be one, but how about basketball, the most common sport players play in the offseason, outside of playing golf?

“Young men in their early twenties believe they will live forever and feel that they’re at the top of their physical form. And since they’ve been able to physically master every activity in the world, there is nothing that has a significant risk of physical injury in any activity they engage in.”

Several Steinberg clients have been hurt playing basketball, including Houston Oilers quarterback Warren Moon.

“I sit at home at night,” Steinberg said, “and wait for that terrible phone call, which always starts, ‘Leigh I don’t know how to tell you this. I was skiing, playing basketball, water skiing, body surfing, skate boarding, playing racquetball and all the rest of it.”’

The NHL and the NBA have standard clauses in most contracts. Hockey players are prohibited from football, basketball, softball, lacrosse, boxing, wrestling or “other athletic sport.”

However, Gretzky likes to play baseball, softball and touch football, so those bans were deleted from his contract. Strangely, there’s no specific prohibition in hockey contracts on skiing, a sport that disrupted the career of former Boston Red Sox pitcher Jim Lonborg following the 1967 season.

“Several members of the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames who live in proximity to the Canadian Rockies have been known to ski during the season. Some with the knowledge of the club, some without,” said Mike Barnett, Gretzky’s agent. “It all depends. If you get hurt, then it’s probably a reasonable risk. If you get down the mountain safely, it’s no problem.”

NBA contracts prohibit professional boxing, wrestling, motorcycling, moped-riding, auto racing, sky-diving and hang-gliding, in addition to baseball, football, hockey and lacrosse. They also specify that golf, tennis, handball, swimming, hiking, softball and volleyball are OK.

In some cases, there are ways to get around the prohibitions. Clark’s guarantee could be ended by a hunting accident, so he took out his own insurance against a hunting injury. As in most cases, the rest of the clauses don’t really apply.

“The main thing I’ve got to worry about is the hunting,” Clark said. “I’m not going to be playing any jai-alai or anything like that.”