He’s Looking for a Plan for Those Baseball Forgot

He brought back the mustache to major league baseball in the ‘30s, raced a horse in a 100-yard dash only to lose by a few feet and, when fined $500 for spitting on an umpire, said, “It was more than I expectorated.”

Except for maybe Dizzy Dean, none of his contemporaries had more fun playing baseball than Frenchy Bordagaray.

He played 930 games as an outfielder, third baseman and second baseman during 11 seasons in the major leagues, six with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and finished with a .283 lifetime batting average.

Before the 1946 season, Branch Rickey offered Bordagaray a job as manager of the Dodgers’ farm team in Three Rivers, Canada. Aware that major league baseball was on the verge of establishing a pension plan for players active at the end of that season, he said he preferred to remain with the Dodgers.

Rickey told him that if he managed in Three Rivers for a season, the Dodgers would bring him back as a coach and enable him to qualify for the pension. Bordagaray accepted the job, then waited for the call from the Dodgers that never came.

Bordagaray, 89, who lives in Ventura, still doesn’t have a pension more than half a century later.

There are too many similar stories, about 300 of them according to Pasadena attorney John Puttock. That includes former major league and Negro league players whose careers ended before baseball’s pension plan started and widows.

Puttock, who learned of the problem five years ago from former Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe, founded an organization called the Forgotten Heroes, which has lobbied major league baseball and the players’ union without much success.

“They are very stubborn,” Puttock said.

Major league baseball has a program offering up to $10,000 per year to some former players, but, Puttock said, that doesn’t cover most insurance and medical expenses. Neither are widows included.

Puttock’s organization is doing what it can, including the sponsorship of a golf tournament Monday at Seacliff Country Club in Huntington Beach.

Besides raising funds for the former players, Puttock said the tournament has two other purposes.

One is to attract the attention of a sponsor, perhaps an insurance company, that will help the players defray medical and pharmaceutical bills.

The other is to attract the attention of current players.

“The union’s response has been pitiful,” he said. “But if current players tell the union to get involved, the union will get involved.”

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Los Angeles will be involved in an expansion draft next September, when the Arena Football League team scheduled to begin play in the Staples Center in the summer of 2000 starts collecting players. . . .

Actually, it’s possible the L.A. team will have at least one player before then. . . .

If the NFL exercises its option to buy 49.9% of the AFL, the indoor league might hold its all-star game in Atlanta next year on the Thursday before the Super Bowl is played at the Georgia Dome. . . .

“We’ll definitely have a player in that game, even if it means me suiting up,” said Casey Wasserman, the L.A. owner. . . .

Johnny Gray won the 880-yard race in the meet where Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. . . .

Or maybe it just seems that he was there. Gray, who turns 39 in June, will try to improve his record to 3-0 this year when he runs the 800 meters in the L.A. Invitational indoor meet Saturday night at the Sports Arena. . . .

Gray will try next year at 40 to become the first U.S. male track and field athlete to compete in five Olympics. . . .

Trying to put the great mariachi controversy behind him, promoter Bob Arum imported a kpanlogo band from Ghana--OK, so most of the members live in Compton--to play as Ike Quartey enters the ring in Las Vegas on Saturday night against Oscar De La Hoya. . . .

During a news conference Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, Arum squelched rumors that De La Hoya is jilting him to become his own promoter. . . .

Arum, however, didn’t announce that until the ink had dried on a new contract giving De La Hoya a 50-50 partnership in the fighter’s future promotions. . . .

“Another fight has been added to the undercard, Kevin Malone vs. Kevin Towers,” Malone said after the news conference. . . .

How about Raul Mondesi vs. Butterbean?

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While wondering why professional boxers travel with bodyguards, I was thinking: Nick Van Exel will show tonight if he’s still quick, Brantt Myhres should go to jail for hitting Mattias Norstrom in the face with the butt end of his stick, the LPGA Hall of Fame wasn’t complete without Amy Alcott.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com