No ON SiCRET PAY

Judge Landis Rules Against |
Club Pay to Promising
College Athletes

Chicago, Mar. 7. (#)—Secret
baseball contracts—the kind in
which a college baseball player
usually gets. financial assistance
for promising to join the paying
club after graduation, are legally
worthless, says Commissioner K.
M. . Landis. :

Landis made the ruling in a case
involving Anthony Ravich and the
New York Yankees of the Ameri-
can league. ;

In a statement accompanying the
rule, Landis said all club officials
know such pacts have no standing
in court but he wondered if the
college players knew it.

“However, there is and can be
no question whatsoever, that these
legally worthless documents do
serve a purpose—First, of delud-
ing many of the players signing
them into an erroneous belief that |
they are obligated and second, of |
establishing a moral obligation to |
go thru with the agreement,” Lan-
dis’ statement read.

The commissioner quoted George
| Weiss, vice president of the New|
York club and general manager of
its farm system, as saying that the
/agreement with Ravich was not,
certified to the commissioner’s of-
fice within 20 days as prescribed
| by baseball-law because of the “ef-
fect it would have on his college
athletic career.”

Players, publicly receiving such |
financial aid either directly or by
their parents, customarily are de-
clared ineligible for further college
competition as was Lou Boudreau,
now manager of the Cleveland In-
dians by the University of Illinois
in 1988.

Landis pointed out that sub-rosa
pacts made it impossible for his
office to check the number of play-
ers controlled: by the clubs and
often enabled those clubs to violate
the player limit. —

The commissioner sai." there had
been suggestions that such secret
documents as the scout’s agree-
ment to pay’ Ravich $1,000 for his
promise to sign a Yankee farm
contract upon graduation be filed
confidentially with his office to
enable the student to continue jis
collegiate career. '

“Thaat, of course, is inconceiv-
able,” Landis added, “As it would |
include the entire baseball organi- |
zation in the false pretense, in
which the player and the club have
engaged, that the player is honest- |
ly complying with college athletic
eligibility rules, which in fact are
being deliberately violated.

5 “The obvious impropriety of that.
situation is in no wise diminished
by the fact that college athletic
officials often are fully cognizant
of that violation and are partici-
pants in them.”

_ The commissioner declared that
in the future clubs and affiliates
which signed undergraduates to
secret contracts would be denied the
chance to re-sign them after the
players had been declared free
agents and that in addition the].
clubs and officers involved would
be fined. i