One Angry Bark, and Salary Walls Came Tumbling Down

Demands for renegotiated contracts and threats of bolting for free agency reverberated through minor league baseball as well as the major leagues this spring.

Jericho the Miracle Dog, the ball-toting mascot of the Class-A Florida Miracle, almost became baseball’s first four-legged free-agent when his representatives asked for a new deal.

Jericho, a golden retriever, worked 60 Miracle home games at Pompano Beach last season for $50 a game. Wearing a team uniform and sunglasses, Jericho delivered balls and towels to umpires and rode a skateboard through the stands.

This season, the Miracle moved to Ft. Myers and Jericho’s agent wanted $500 for opening day and $100 per game for 30 games.

“They had a list of things they needed,” Miracle president Mike Veeck told Dean Gyorgy of Baseball America magazine. “We went from being a minor league club to the Ed Sullivan Show. The sticking point was, as usual, dog bones. ‘How many dog bones am I worth?’ ”

The two sides finally settled on $100 per game for 35 games when a dog-food manufacturer agreed to pick up the tab by signing Jericho to an endorsement deal.

Said Veeck: “After Ryne Sandberg, everything changed.”

Drop shot: Mark Preston, associate editor of Tennis magazine, thinks it is about time the sport aced human officials and replaced them with electronic line-calling devices.

“No other sport has done so little in so much time to improve the quality of its officiating,” Preston writes. “You could take these same people and lock them away in a linespersons’ biosphere for a year, train them every day and force them to watch 2 million balls bounce by, and then brand them officials. They’d be no better than they are now.”

Trivia time: Among active major league players, who has started the most consecutive opening-day games?

Color of money: The Atlanta Braves and the Minnesota Twins made incredible turnarounds on the field last season, but the Chicago White Sox dominated at the souvenir stand.

In 1990, the White Sox accounted for less than 2% of the items sold by Major League Baseball. Last year, they were No. 1 in merchandising with more than 10% of the market. Analysts say the biggest factor was changing the team’s colors to silver and black like the Raiders, Kings and San Antonio Spurs.

Crude suggestion: A fund-raiser to benefit charities sponsored by Coach Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins drew 2,700 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, including Kuwaiti ambassador Saud Nasir Al-Sabah.

Gibbs told the ambassador that Redskin owner Jack Kent Cooke wanted to recruit him to sign quarterback Mark Rypien to a new contract. “You think you’ve faced some tough guys in tough countries?” Gibbs said, “Hey, wait until you see one of these NFL agents.”

Reluctant Bambino: Actor John Goodman, who portrays Babe Ruth in the upcoming movie, “The Babe,” was daunted by putting on the Yankee pinstripes and playing the legendary slugger.

“It was very intimidating,” Goodman told US magazine. “I thought, ‘Get somebody else to do it . . . get another fat guy.’ ”

Add Goodman: Sandlot football was the actor’s passion while he was growing up in St. Louis.

“They were just bone-crush games,” Goodman said. “People got their faces laid open and stuff. But we had a ball.”

Trivia answer: Eddie Murray, the former Dodger first baseman now with the New York Mets, has started 15 consecutive opening-day games. Dale Murphy of the Phillies has started 14.

Quotebook: Jimmy Rodgers, coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, after his team dropped to 11-60 with a loss to the Sacramento Kings: “We put it all together. Unfortunately, everything was bad.”