Rolling A 7

Ryne Sandberg is a shy, unassuming guy who is a lock for the Hall of Fame. He doesn't drink, test positive, ram his wife's car, kick the dog, walk out of camp or say dumb things to the press. The most controversial thing he does is boot a grounder every 25 games or so.

Yet it was Sandberg, the elegant second baseman of the Chicago Cubs, who disturbed the peace of spring training last week. On March 2 he became baseball's first $7 million man by signing a four-year, $28.4 million contract extension that he called "pretty comfortable." Said the 32-year-old Sandberg at the press conference announcing the deal, "My face will be sore today from the smile."

Not smiling, however, are baseball's owners and general managers. "I've said for years that we're headed for Armageddon," says Al Rosen, G.M. of the San Francisco Giants. "But now we're past the gates. To the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—Famine, Pestilence, Death and War—we have added a fifth: Unmitigated Greed. It's going to do us all in. I can't see baseball surviving this."

Taking a somewhat lighter approach, Cub minor league batting instructor Richie Zisk said of the signing, "I heard the first call [Ryne] got was from George Bush to bail out the savings and loans."

The players were truly staggered—and delighted—by the contract. "Oooooh, what a deal!" said Oakland A's pitcher Dave Stewart, who makes a mere $3.55 million now but can be a free agent after the season. "Seven million, oh, man. A couple of years ago I never thought it would go that high. I figured it would get to five million and stop. Then I figured six million would be the end. But now there's no end in sight. The end is when the owners run out of money."

Stewart was being facetious, but the notion of owners running out of money is not farfetched. Should that happen, have no sympathy for baseball's moguls. They have only themselves to blame. Since Minnesota Twins centerfielder Kirby Puckett became baseball's first $3 million player, in 1989, the owners have played a risky game of leapfrog with the No. 1 salary. Only two years passed before Puckett's annual pay was nearly doubled by outfielder Bobby Bonilla, who became baseball's top-paid player when he signed a five-year, $29 million contract ($5.8 million per season) as a free agent with the New York Mets in December. Baseball knew that it wouldn't be long before it had a $6 million man. What it didn't know was that it would skip right over the $6 million barrier on its way to a $7-million-a-year salary.

And the guy who got it wasn't even eligible for free agency until after the upcoming season. Because Sandberg didn't want negotiations to interfere with his play, he and his agent, Jim Turner, imposed a signing deadline of March 1 on the Tribune Company, which owns the Cubs. If the deadline was not met, Sandberg promised to become a free agent in October. Obviously the threat worked, and Sandberg got what he wanted. So baseball executives are angered not only by the dollar amount of the contract but also by Turner's strategy. In other words, there's madness to the method.

"My three-year-old son could have made that deal [with Sandberg]," says Minnesota Twins general manager Andy MacPhail. "To jump from 5.8 to 7.1! That was absolutely stupid a year ahead of free agency. That's stupidity and timidity. Sandberg sets an artificial deadline and gets away with it! It's a terrible deal. We're going to spend ourselves into oblivion. I don't blame the players. It's the owners' fault. We keep giving it to them."

What also disturbs baseball people is that Cub general manager Larry Himes, a baseball man, wasn't a factor in the negotiations. When Chicago's top negotiator, Dennis Homerin, a lawyer for the Tribune Company, failed to close the deal in Mesa, Ariz., the Cubs' spring training base, by the anointed hour, the team's board chairman, Stanton Cook, another nonbaseball man, intervened at Sandberg's request. Cook wrapped up the negotiations in a matter of hours on March 2. "It's more money than you'd like to spend," says Cook, "but Ryne's a great athlete in great condition with a great history in Chicago. Value is in the eyes of the beholder. We felt we paid a fair amount for a player of his stature in today's market. If other teams felt differently, they wouldn't have signed him."

Besides, say the Cubs, the deal isn't really for $7.1 million a year. A $3.5 million signing bonus, payable in December, will be added to Sandberg's 1992 salary of $2.1 million—making 1992 worth $5.6 million. In '93, '94 and '95, Sandberg will make $5.1 million a year. In '96 he will make $7.1 million. There's an option clause for '97 worth $5.9 million; if Chicago decides not to exercise that option, it must buy out Sandberg for $2.5 million. There are bonuses built into the deal that could total $1.65 million over the life of the contract. The $28.4 million is arrived at by adding the guaranteed money in the four-year extension of Sandberg's contract, 1993 through '96, plus the signing bonus and the buyout. "They're kidding themselves saying it's not worth $7.1 million," says MacPhail.