Baseball Reels In the Cash : Amateur draft: Those chosen today will be find new rules that limit their ability to command large bonuses.

The 1960s, a decade that would end with free love, began with free spending, at least in terms of professional baseball.

Former Dodger Rick Monday recalls coming within an eyelash of signing with the Dodgers as a free agent out of Santa Monica High in 1963. Of course, things were much simpler then.

Negotiating for the Dodgers was an enthusiastic scout named Tom Lasorda. Representing Monday was his mother. After dollar figures were bandied about, another bargaining chip was tossed on the table.

“If my son signs with you, I’m going to need two things,” Mrs. Monday told Lasorda.

Lasorda assured her that he would do his best to comply.

“I want an autographed picture of Sandy Koufax and an autographed picture of Don Drysdale,” she said, smiling.

Monday didn’t sign. But two years later, after leading Arizona State to a victory in the College World Series as a sophomore, the Kansas City Athletics made Monday the first selection in baseball’s inaugural amateur draft.

Now a broadcaster for the San Diego Padres after a 19-year major league career, Monday says he shares the “excitement, frustration and fear” of this year’s top prospects as the draft begins today and concludes Wednesday.

Monday’s emotions have not changed. But the rules and money involved in the draft have--many times over.

In 1964, when top major league players received salaries of $100,000 and free agents were allowed to bargain openly with any interested team, bonus baby Rick Reichardt received $200,000 to sign with the Angels. The following June, after the draft was instituted, Monday received a $104,000 bonus to sign with the Kansas City A’s.

High school standout Brien Taylor, the first pick of 1991, signed with the New York Yankees last summer for $1.55 million. Again, draft guidelines were revised, this time at a March 5 owners meeting in Chicago. Beginning today, major league teams maintain the rights to drafted players for five years, rather than one.

Representatives of Major League Baseball contend that the rule change encourages players to pursue an education and say that it will benefit college baseball. Parents, agents and college coaches disagree. They say the steady escalation of bonus money is the foremost reason major league owners retooled the draft.

“This isn’t about education,” said Donald Fehr, executive director the Major League Players Assn. “This is about Brien Taylor.”

The players association has filed a grievance with the Player Relations Committee, seeking to overturn the new rules, saying they violate the basic agreement between players and owners. George Nicolau, an independent arbitrator who reviewed the recent major league collusion cases, is expected to hear the case June 10.

There are additional legal problems to consider.

A new “dropout rule” allows college players drafted out of high school to negotiate with their professional team after each season, while players who are undrafted out of high school still must wait until after their junior year.

Former major leaguer Greg Luzinski has been particularly outspoken about the changes, and his reaction to news of the five-year plan is sprinkled with terms such as “collusion” and “antitrust.” Luzinski’s son, Ryan, a catcher at Holy Cross High in Delran, N.J., is a projected first-round pick.

“It’s about money,” the elder Luzinski said.

Player representatives, to no one’s surprise, have called the new rules a smoke screen to drive down bonuses. Scott Boras, a Newport Beach-based agent who represents Taylor and players who received the biggest bonuses in each of the three previous years, likens the new rule to “servitude.”

Complicating the issue is the Supreme Court’s decision in the Curt Flood free agency case of 1972, in which it ruled baseball should remain exempt from federal antitrust laws. The NFL--which might soon abandon its draft altogether--and the NBA have no such exemption.

Baseball is exploiting the unique niche it was handed by the courts, maintain critics of the new draft rules. Boras has said that the five-year rule makes players choose when they “join the chain gang.”

“The difference between Curt Flood and a high school ballplayer is that he agreed to give up his rights the day he signed a professional contract,” Boras said. “Now they’re saying that when a kid wakes up on draft day, he’s handcuffed to a team for five years before he’s been given a dime?”

Some say they have been struck by the hypocrisy of it all. Sacramento-based player agent Steve Caruso and many others say that the new rules were adopted by owners because of an inherent distrust of each other.

“This is the stupidest rule that has ever been passed,” Caruso said. “Because some teams paid what they considered to be bonuses that were too high, they slapped this rule on themselves.”

Three of the top four picks in last year’s draft came out of high schools. Tustin High outfielder Shawn Green, taken second overall by the Toronto Blue Jays, earned a reported bonus of about $700,000. Oxnard Rio Mesa High’s Dmitri Young, the fourth choice overall, received $385,000 from the Cardinals.

The large bonuses reflect the pressure felt by franchises to sign their top picks--even untested high school players.

“It’s one thing to pay millions to (basketball stars) Shaquille O’Neal or Larry Johnson out of college,” said Louis Melendez, associate counsel for baseball’s Player Relations Committee. “But to pay that kind of money to a 17-year-old kid is getting a little ridiculous.”

Monday points out that there are two sides to that coin.

“I have people ask me all the time, all the time , why players get the money that they do,” Monday said. “I say, ‘What are players supposed to do, give it back?’

“Did Brien Taylor deserve the money he got? Well, they gave it to him, didn’t they?”

Major league representatives steadfastly defend the rule modifications and insist that players--and baseball--will come out for the better in the long run.

“The commissioner and baseball operations committee felt the signing rules we had did not encourage qualified student-athletes to pursue their education,” said Bill Murray, the Major League Baseball director of baseball operations.

Steve Greenberg, deputy commissioner of baseball, said impetus for the rule change was provided by the late A. Bartlett Giamatti, who served as baseball commissioner for five months before his death in 1989.

Giamatti, a past president of Yale, was “appalled by baseball’s tendency to discourage talented student-athletes from pursuing education,” Greenberg said.

“I think the industry is doing a tremendous service in attempting to guide players to college, where they can get an education while also continuing to refine their skills.

“We are trying to create a system of incentives for high school players to go to college. It’s an even-handed, well-intended attempt to compromise competing interests.”

The Major League Players Assn. is serving as front man in an effort to overturn the new rules, which Fehr suggests are a veiled attempt to “gain leverage on 18-year-olds.”

“Really, I thought that these multimillionaires probably already had enough leverage, but I guess not,” Fehr said.

The MLPA has filed its grievance, claiming that alterations of existing draft guidelines should have been collectively bargained before they were implemented.

The union does not represent amateur players, but Fehr said the players association is challenging the changes based on the draft’s potential effect on major league roster spots and the value of free-agent draft pick compensation.

Few outside the baseball infrastructure believe that the changes were anything other than economically motivated. Derek Jeter, a shortstop at Central High in Kalamazoo, Mich., has been projected as the probable first high school player taken in today’s draft.

“I don’t think that, under the new rules, there will be as much money,” said Charles Jeter, Derek’s father. “That’s just being realistic. That’s what the rule’s about.

“Representatives from Major League Baseball have stated that they can’t continue to pay that kind of money to guys like Brien Taylor or (1990 draft pick) Todd Van Poppel, so it doesn’t take a real genius to figure out why it was done.”

For the past few weeks, as draft day loomed, confusion reigned. Many in the game don’t understand the nuances of the rule changes and have stopped trying.

“It’s all kind of hazy to me,” said a veteran San Fernando Valley-area scout. “I’m just going to do what I’ve always done.”

There is even disagreement at the highest level regarding whether the change could result in more high school players being selected than in the past.

“If the rule sticks, and our attorneys tell us it will, then you will see more high school kids drafted,” said Terry Reynolds, the Dodger scouting director.

An organization that goes hot and heavy after high school players could pay a price, however.

If the rule is overturned, a club that drafts under the new rule could feel the effect.

Some clubs are prepared to take the middle ground. Pat Gillick, executive vice president of the Toronto Blue Jays, said his organization plans to draft as it has in the past by selecting the best available player--college or high school.

But with changes still dangling in legal limbo, potential draftees have been left in the lurch.

“It’s a shame that a change this radical has to come during the year that my son is a senior,” said Alan Landaker, whose son, Dave, a senior shortstop at Simi Valley Royal, is one of the top high school prospects in the country.

“There are a lot of ramifications, and it may take a while to sort itself out. It’s like poker: We’ll see what cards we’re dealt and go from there.”

In the past, blue-chip high school players used NCAA Division I scholarships as leverage to boost their signing bonuses. Players had to be bought out of a four-year scholarship, a pricey proposition for a major league team.

Luzinski (Miami), Jeter (Michigan) and Landaker (Nevada) have signed national letters of intent. Once a player enrolls in college, under the new changes, matters get even more complicated.

Previously, organizations had until a drafted player began classes at a four-year college to persuade him to sign a professional contract. After his freshman year in school started, a player was not eligible to be drafted again until after his junior season.

If the five-year plan sticks, college ballplayers will be able to sign a professional contract at the conclusion of any school year. The changes do not sit well with major college coaches, who could be left holding the bag if a player suddenly reneges on a scholarship to turn professional.

USC Coach Mike Gillespie, whose program annually wages war with professional teams for top high school prospects, said he finds few redeeming qualities among the new rules.

“This is the biggest hoax ever perpetuated on college athletics,” Gillespie said. “If better education is the party line on this thing, I think that’s baloney. As it is now, the rule favors one group: the major league teams.”

Caruso, who is advising two potential first-round high school picks, predicted players who perform well during their first college season would be cornered on three sides: by agents, the clubs that own their rights and their own college coaches. Caruso used USC’s Aaron Boone and Arizona State’s Antone Williamson, both highly regarded freshman infielders, as examples.

“If anything, it puts more pressure on a kid,” he said. “They will be hounded.”

Cal State Northridge Coach Bill Kernen said college coaches will be forced to “re-recruit” their teams each season.

“I don’t understand how they’re supposed to drop out and then negotiate (with the team that owns their rights), either,” Kernen added. “If you do that, then what negotiating power do you have with anyone?”

Caruso, who has represented baseball players for three seasons, believes he knows the reason behind the changes.

“The bottom line of it all is Major League Baseball wants to control its top picks,” Caruso said. “They don’t trust the colleges to develop players, especially the pitchers, because of all the stories you hear about college baseball coaches ruining pitchers.

“They believe they are the only ones who can do it right. The question is, how much is that control worth to them?”

UCLA pitcher Pete Janicki serves as a good example, Caruso said. Janicki, a junior right-hander, pitched 19 innings in four days during the NCAA Division I regionals.

“If you look at that from the standpoint of Major League Baseball you say, ‘My God, they could have ruined this kid,’ ” Caruso said.

With the rules as they stand, a major league team maintains the right to sign a developing player like Janicki at any time. The clubs also may relinquish the rights to any player who no longer interests them.

A player’s worst-case scenario: A senior who has been unable to negotiate with any other team during his collegiate tenure is injured and is released by his professional club--before he ever received a paycheck.

Unless the new rules are overturned in grievance proceedings, one or more of this year’s top draft picks is expected to challenge the edicts legally.

“I think what you’ll see is, if the rule sticks, some kid with a Division I ride to Stanford or wherever will go to school and test this thing in court,” said one Los Angeles scout. “I can’t see how he can lose, because we all know what this is really about.”

Some lawyers discussed taking similar action with Rick Monday in 1965.

“I asked them how long it would take, a year, two years, five years?” Monday said. “They said it could take a long time to settle.

“I said, ‘No thanks.’ I wanted to reach out and chase a dream.”

Before and After

A look at rule revisions governing the amateur baseball draft as set forth by major league owners March 5. Changes apply to this year’s draft, which runs today through Wednesday:

OLD RULES

* A franchise had until a high school draft pick attended his first day of college classes to sign that player to a contract, otherwise the team lost its exclusive rights. Once the player started courses at a four-year college, he could not be drafted again until after his junior year.

* However, if a player turned 21 before the opening day of the draft and before he completed his junior year, he was eligible to be re-drafted.

* A player attending a junior college was eligible to be drafted after his sophomore year. If a team drafted a junior college player out of high school, the club had until one week before the next draft (51 weeks) to sign the player, even if he attended classes.

NEW RULES

* Players drafted out of high school are bound to that team for five years. Franchises no longer lose rights when a player enrolls in a four-year college.

* Players drafted out of high school may drop out of college at the end of any scholastic year and negotiate with the team that owns their rights. Players who were not drafted out of high school must wait until after their junior year of college to sign.

* The draft will consist of 50 rounds this year, 45 in 1993 and 40 in 1994. The 1991 draft lasted 96 rounds. Teams also may surrender the rights to any player in whom they have lost interest.

* In a provision dubbed the “grandfather clause,” players who were drafted in 1991 or earlier are governed by the old rules. If these players are again selected in 1992 or thereafter, they will retain their rights under the previous draft guidelines.

* So-called “sandwich picks” awarded to teams that were unable to sign their first-round selections (Houston and Milwaukee failed in 1991) have been eliminated.

* Supplemental first-round picks awarded as compensation for free-agent signings remain unaffected.