One Strike and They’re Out : Four Players on the Fringe of the Majors Struggle Through Uncertain Times During the Baseball Labor Dispute

A pitcher may labor in the late innings, but let’s not confuse that with real work.

Self-absorbed and out of touch, that’s the rap on major league baseball players. The only reason they’ve gotten any sympathy during their strike is the owners are perceived as equally greedy.

About 250 of the 700 major league players make $1 million or more a year. But many aren’t even close.

In Saugus, a landscaper named Roger Salkeld works up a mean sweat four days a week to pay rent on an apartment he shares with his wife and baby daughter.

In Burbank, there is volunteer assistant high school coach Mike Magnante, a newlywed whose wife is a volunteer teaching assistant at a middle school.

Living with his in-laws in Seattle because of the uncertainty is newlywed Jeff Cirillo. He is a volunteer coach at a junior college.

Struggling to make payments on the suburban tract home he bought last year outside of Denver is volunteer high school assistant coach Steve Reed. His wife works and they take turns caring for their 11-month-old son.

The players are four of a kind in a high-stakes poker game between athletes and owners that has produced only losers. They aren’t household names. They only hope to someday join the millionaire club.

Yet they are major league baseball players fully impacted by the strike, getting along as best they can until getting back to what they do best.

ROGER SALKELD

He threw good old country hardball, uncomplicated and all-but-impossible to hit at Saugus High. The Seattle Mariners drafted him in the first round in 1989, cut a bonus check for $225,000 and expected Salkeld to rapidly climb through the farm system.

Arm injuries delayed his progress and here he sits six years later in a Saugus apartment, his head filled with a full count of questions. His ears? They hear the baby crying.

“Money is getting scarce, so I’m working landscaping for my dad. It’s good money,” said Salkeld, whose wife and former high school sweetheart Wendy gave birth to Ashton three months ago.

The bonus money is long gone, “Heck, they took $80,000 out in taxes,” he said, and he is digging into money he was saving for a down payment on a house.

Salkeld, 24, recently attended a union meeting in Los Angeles but came home without answers. “I didn’t understand a lot of it,” he said.

Even more distressing is the uncertainty of his role with the Mariners. Salkeld is coming off a poor season and he needed a strong spring training to convince the club he should get another shot to make the starting rotation.

After missing the entire 1992 season and half of ’93 with shoulder injuries, he came back strong to make his major league debut in September of ’93. He opened last season as the Mariners’ fifth starter but struggled to a 2-5 record with a 7.17 earned-run average in 13 starts and was sent to triple-A Calgary before the strike began.

Good news: The demotion enabled him to pitch--and get paid.

Bad news: He was ineffective, going 3-7 with a 6.15 ERA at Calgary.

“I had a real good spring last year and that’s what earned me a spot in the rotation,” Salkeld said. “I went out early and worked out in Arizona in early February and had a head start. This year, I’m not able to do that.”

His training is done alone at College of the Canyons. Salkeld is left to devise his own regimen, and he is taking a guarded approach.

“I’m taking it slow, not getting ready too fast,” he said. “In another week or so I’ll really start getting into bullpen work.”

MIKE MAGNANTE

Armed with a UCLA degree in applied mathematics, surrounded by loving family, reasonably secure as a four-year major league veteran, this left-handed Kansas City Royals pitcher has avoided an emotional roller coaster while riding out the strike.

“Early in the strike I was obsessed with staying on top of every development,” he said. “But that caused too many ups and downs. It’s easier to just work out and assume the season will start on time.”

Every afternoon, Magnante heads for his alma mater, Burroughs High in Burbank, where he gives as much as he gains.

“I’m more of a coach,” said Magnante, whose parents both are teachers. “This is what I want to do eventually, coach a high school team. I have a good time every day working with these guys.”

Frugal by nature, Magnante, 29, and his wife Jill have enough cash squirreled away to enable them both to volunteer freely--he at Burroughs, she as a teaching assistant at Jordan Middle School in Burbank.

Their mature approach does not mean they are free of stress.

“The first year of marriage is difficult for anybody and to add on top of that the strike, it’s a lot of pressure,” said Jill, a Kansas City native who married Mike last November. “But we’ve been fine. We both come from down-to-earth families.”

Magnante’s role with his second family--the Royals--has him worried. Will be pitch in relief? As a starter? Is his job in jeopardy?

The Royals have a new manager, Bob Boone, whom Magnante said hasn’t seen him pitch. The previous manager, Hal McRae, viewed Magnante strictly as a relief pitcher. Other coaches in the organization are convinced he should be a starter.

Last season, Magnante’s only start in 36 appearances was disastrous, ballooning his ERA from 2.85 to 4.60. In 1993, six of seven appearances were starts, but he spent much of the season with triple-A Omaha.

He made 12 starts in 49 appearances in ‘92, going 4-9 with a 4.94 ERA. As a rookie in ‘91, he appeared in 38 games in relief and posted a 2.45 ERA.

“Jill and I are very aware of the situation and try not to live extravagantly,” he said. “I am back to thinking like I did in the minor leagues. I want to have a nest egg so that when we begin teaching we can buy a house and start off ahead.”

JEFF CIRILLO

They aren’t acquainted, but Cirillo and Magnante are in similar circumstances.

Cirillo, 25, and his wife Nancy were married last October. They are USC graduates who met in college. Their families are uncommonly supportive. Cirillo’s role with his team is unclear.

Until the strike, Cirillo’s standing with the Milwaukee Brewers was strong. He made his major league debut last summer after opening the season by batting .309 in triple A.

That came on the heels of a ’93 season in which the former Providence High standout led all Brewer minor leaguers with 148 hits and a .319 batting average.

After a slow start with Milwaukee, Cirillo settled in and was batting .238 with three home runs and nine doubles in 39 games when play stopped. He was named to Baseball Digest’s all-rookie team.

“I got short-changed because of the strike,” he said. That proved true in more ways than one: He was paid a prorated share of the league minimum salary of $109,000--about $75,000.

“He misses spring training because it’s a chance for him to win a job,” said Bob Hughes, a Brewer scout and the father of Bobby Hughes, a Brewer minor leaguer and a close friend of Cirillo’s. “These are small windows that open and they close fast.”

The abrupt end to the season forced Cirillo and his wife to move in with her parents in Seattle. It also influenced his decision to play in the Venezuelan winter league, a decision he regrets.

Cirillo played in 30 games before becoming violently ill with a colon infection. He was sick for a month, lost 10 pounds, and contracted viral meningitis upon his return to Seattle on Dec. 30.

Cirillo’s latest hurdle has been training adequately in the rainy Northwest. He is helping out and working out at Edmonds Community College, but he plans to visit Southern California this week to step up the pace and renew contacts.

Cirillo, whose parents live in Moorpark, is looking forward to working out at USC and getting a batting tuneup from Bo Hughes, his boyhood instructor and the brother of Bob Hughes.

Given his difficulties of the past six months, Cirillo boils when he hears ballplayers being characterized as rich, pampered whiners.

“I thought I had it tough in the minor leagues,” he said. “I had that dream of playing in the major leagues, but so far nothing is easier.”

STEVE REED

During sleepless nights in his new home, the one with the hefty mortgage, the Colorado Rockies’ right-hander has searched for positives.

He spends quality time with his wife Terry and their 11-month-old son, Dylan. He has made improvements on their home in Arvada, a suburb of Denver. He knows he has a major league job when play resumes.

“It’s getting real old going to the bank taking money out and never putting it in,” said Reed, who played at Chatsworth High. “But I keep in mind that this thing will end. And for the first time, the job is mine and somebody is going to have to take it from me.”

Reed, 29, emerged as one of the few reliable pitchers for the second-year Rockies. He led the staff with 61 appearances last season and posted its third-lowest ERA at 3.94. In 1993, he was 9-4 with a 4.48 ERA in 64 games.

There is no reason to believe his role will change, and he is proceeding accordingly. Reed is a volunteer coach at Arvada High and works out both at the school and with teammates David Nied and Eric Young.

“The reality of it is there is going to be a three-week spring training,” he said. “So I had better be ready with a good breaking ball. There’s gonna be no excuses.”

Reed is uncommonly focused on preparation. Spending nearly a decade bouncing on buses through minor league towns has a way of increasing appreciation for the big-league lifestyle.

“I worked way too long playing in the minors, in Mexico and in Canada,” he said. “I finally got here and I plan on doing what it takes to stay.”

Licensing money from the union’s strike fund is something else he appreciates. Last August and September, every major leaguer received three payments of up to $10,000, depending on time of service. It has been the only supplement to Reed’s salary.

Terry is launching a nonprofit business out of their home, an enterprise tailored around her desire to avoid placing Dylan in child care.

Far from being spoiled and self-centered, the Reeds are a typical suburban couple gaining footholds in business and family life.

The same is true for the Salkelds, Magnantes and Cirillos. The strike has interrupted a long, bumpy journey. Their dues have been paid, but their dream is on hold.