Section B·Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Major League Baseball
Tuesday, May 4, 1999
Dodgers deny illegal recruiting charges
The Associated Press
BOSTON — The Los Angeles Doggers denied accusations that they held secret tryouts in Cuba, but two Cuban minor league players say the team scouted them in their homeland, arranged their escapes and then ordered them to lie about it.
First baseman Juan Carlos Diaz, 23, and outfielder Josue Perez, 21, have asked major league baseball to declare them free agents on grounds they were signed illegally and at less than market value. The Boston Globe reported Sunday.
The accusations, if true, violate the league's rules prohibiting scouting in Cuba. They also might violate the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba.
"I understand that nobody should go to Cuba," Ralph Avila,
the Dodgers' senior vice president, told The Globe. "Look, I don't work for the immigration. I don't work for the State Department. I don't work for the police department. If someone went to Cuba, it's not my business."
Pablo Peguero, the scout accused of arranging the defences, said he hadn't been to Cuba in more than 10 years.
Diaz said Peguero approached him in 1995 after a game in Havana and offered a tryout for the next morning. Afterward, Diaz said, Peguero told him the Doggers wanted to bring him to the Dominican Republic. Two months later, Peguero returned with a woman he said was his cousin.
Diaz received a visa after the woman told authorities his family helped her find a Cuban doctor for surgery she needed. She said she had invited Diaz to the
"Look, I don't work for the immigration. I don't work for the State Department. I don't work for the police department. If someone went to Cuba, it's not my business."
Ralph Avila, Dodgers senior vice president
Dominican Republic to show her gratitude and pay all his expenses, Diaz said.
Diaz went to the Dodgers' training academy at Campo Las Palmas outside Santo Domingo, where Vaila signed him to a contract with a $65.00 bonus. Last year, Diaz hit a combined 30 homers at Single A and Double A.
"I don't know if they paid of people or what, but I immediately got my provisional residence papers, which enabled me to sign," Diaz said, adding
Peguero and Avila told him to lie if asked how he escaped to the Dominican Republic.
Perez, who plays for the Dodgers' Single A team in Vero Beach, Fla., told a similar story in a separate interview. He said after a tryout with Peguero in 1996, he was escorted to the Dominican Republic by a young woman he never saw again. Perez was signed to a contract with a $40,000 bonus and also was told to lie about his escape, he said.
The players said they came forward after realizing their signing bonuses were too low.
The commissioner's office has said teams that broke rules against scouting in Cuba faced fines, suspensions or loss of draft choices.
In the only documented case of scouting in Cuba, Miami-based agent Juan Ignacio Hernandez was arrested for trying to persuade players to defect. Hernandez was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Cuban authorities.
If the Dodgers did recruit players from Cuba, they could be in violation of provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act and regulations administered by the Treasury Department, said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York.
Individuals can be fined up to $55,000 for violations, and corporations up to $250,000.
'Magic mud' still takes the shine out of baseball
The Associated Press
SEMINOLE, Fla. — To his neighbors, Burns Bintliff is a retired New Jersey Turnpike maintenance contractor. To major league players, who may not even know his name, he's the supplier of a silky, chocolate pudding-like product known as "magic mud."
Umpires at every major and minor league ballpark in America and Canada use the mud, called Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud, to take the shine off baseballs before game.
Shiny balls, straight out of their plastic wrapping, are no good, professionals said. Pitchers can't get a good grip and hitters are sometimes blinded when the sun or indoor lighting hits the too-
white surface.
Umpires said a little dab of Bintliff's mud removes the shine off balls without scratching or denting the surface.
Bintliff's product was so superior to other muds, professionals said, that in 1969 it was permanently enshrined in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.
"There's something about this mud," retired major league ampire Bill Kinnanon told the St. Petersburg Times for its Monday edition. "I don't know how to explain it. It takes the shine off without getting the ball excessively dark."
According to Bintliff's wife, Doris, Russell Aubrey "Lena" Blackburne was a major league infielder with the Chicago White Sox and, later, a coach for the then Philadelphia Athletics.
At the time, the mid-1930s, teams used a variety of substances to rub baseballs
— tobacco juice, shoe polish, dirt from the baseball field or a combination — but nothing they tried gave the balls the right look or feel.
Blackburne searched for the perfect rubbing compound until one day, according to legend, he found mud he liked in a secret body of water, probably some place in the northeast.
By 1938, he was supplying the mud to all American League teams. Because he was a die-hard American League fan, he refused to sell the mud to National League teams until the mid-1950s. Since then, every major and minor league team has used the product. One container, a little more than 16 ounces, will
"There's a can of it in every umpire's dressing room," said Kinnamon "Before each game, we'd rub up about five dozen balls, more for a doubleheader."
usually last a season.
Before he died, Haas shared the secrets of the mud with Bintliff, including its source. Today, the mud remains a mystery and only a few family members know where it comes from.
Blackbure died in 1968 and left the mud business to his boyhood friend, John Haas, who was the father of Bintliff's first wife.
Buddy Bates, equipment manager for the St. Louis Cardinals, said there was a tub of Bintliff's mud in his locker room. "We get it automatically every spring." Bates said. "It costs $100."
L.A. Dodgers get highest luxury tax projection for year
NEW YORK — Major league teams finally received their estimated luxury tax bills yesterday, and the Los Angeles Dodgers had the highest projected payment at $5.15 million.
The Associated Press
The New York Yankees were No. 2 at $4.25 million,
followed by Baltimore at $4.07 million, Atlanta at
$772,000 and the New York Mets at $525,000.
Projections were based on opening-day payrolls and already have changed significantly.
Atlanta cut its bill to zero that same day by trading Mark Wohlers to Cincinnati for John Hudek, a deal that pushed the Boston Red Sox into tax territory.
The luxury tax, agreed to in the settlement of the 1994-95 strike and scheduled to go out of existence after this season, was designed to slow spending by the high-revenue teams but has had only a slight effect, prompting renewed calls for a salary cap by some low- and mid-revenue teams.
Los Angeles cut its tax by about $1.84 million with the April 16 trade of Dave Mlicki and Mel Rojas to Détroit for three minor league pitchers.
Tax is assessed on the teams with the five highest payrolls at a rate of 34 percent on the amount above the midpoint between payrolls Nos.5 and 6.
Based on opening-day rosters, the threshold for the tax taking effect was $81,898,568, up more than $11 million from last year's threshold of $70,501,185. Owners originally hoped the threshold would be $55 million last year and $58.9 million this season.
"The reason why we didn't appeal was I wanted to get this behind us," Moehler said before
Last year, Baltimore had the highest tax ($3,138,621), followed by Boston ($2,184,734), the Yankees ($684,390), Atlanta ($495,625) and Los Angeles ($49,593).
In 1997, the first year of the tax, the Yankees made the highest payment ($4,431,180), followed by Baltimore ($4,030,228), Cleveland ($2,065,496), Atlanta ($1,299,957) and Florida ($139,607).
"It is tough for me because I'm a competitor, and I want to pitch," Moehler said. "I want to be out
It is estimated teams will pay $14.8 million in tax this year, up from $6,293,963 last year and $11,966,468 in 1997.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Brian Moehler isn't even bothering to appeal his automatic 10-day suspension for scuffing baseballs.
Unlike conventional payrolls, luxury tax figures are computed by using the average annual value of contracts instead of salaries for single seasons. They also include the entire 40-man roster plus $5,737,269 per team in benefits paid to players, up 2.9 percent from $5,576,415 last year.
The Associated Press
American League suspends Tiger pitcher for sanding baseballs
The Detroit Tigers pitcher was notified of the penalty by American League president Gene Budig yesterday, two days after Moehler was ejected from a game against Tampa Bay by ampire Larry Barnett, who said the right-hander doctored baseballs with sandpaper.
The actual luxury tax will be based on final payrolls computed in December, with the payments due by Jan. 31. The money goes to baseball's industry growth fund.
the Tigers' game last night at Tampa Bay. "Whether we appeal or don't appeal, people have their own opinions. It comes down to me wanting to pitch and soon. I think that's the best thing to do and just move on."
Moehler, 27, said it wasn't sandpaper, merely dirt but said he didn't protest his ejection during a 4-3 loss because it's not his nature "to argue until I'm blue in the face." True to his nature, he notified the players' association not to appeal Budig's decision.
there pitching. The toughest part is, you don't feel like you're contributing to the team. I just have to keep my head up and go out there and get my work done."
Barnett, the plate umpire, said he found a small piece of sandpaper attached to the pitcher's left thumb after the Devil Rays complained he appeared to be scuffing the ball.
Moehler yielded three runs on four hits in the first two innings, then allowed just one hit during a four-inning stretch. Tampa Bay players said the velocity and movement of Moehler's pitches changed dramatically.
day. "But I'm going to stand up for what these players need, and that's a level playing field."
Detroit manager Larry Parrish countered that
"I don't derive any satisfaction out of getting somebody thrown out of the game," Devil Rays manager Larry Rothschild said Sun
scuffing was part of baseball, characterizing Tampa Bay's complaints — as well as the decision to ask Barnett to check Moehler — as "bootleg."
"There's not a pitching staff in baseball that doesn't have a guy who defaces the ball. If the umpires want to check things like that, I think half to three-quarters of the league would be suspended, including some Tampa Bay Devil Rays." Parrish said.
Moehler is prepared for the attention he will likely receive from fans around the American League.
"Every city I go into this year, I'm going to hear something from somebody," Moehler said. "It's going to happen. I'm prepared for it. You have leather skin, and you keep moving on."
Section 3.02 of the Official Baseball Rules calls for the 10-day suspension.
In 1987, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Kevin Gross was suspended for 10 days by NL president A. Bartlett Giamatti after Gross was caught with sandpaper in his glove. That same year, AL president Bobby Brown suspended Minnesota pitcher Joe Niekro for 10 days for carrying an emery board and sandpaper in his back pocket
A 14-game winner in 1998, Moehler is 3-3 with a 4.23 ERA this season. The Devil Rays scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly, two batters after he was ejected Saturday night.
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