Swoboda more mature but still worries; says contracts pay for man, not averages
By MILT RICHMAN UPI Sports Writer
NEW YORK — Ron Swoboda worries too much.
Remember how he was so ashamed of what he did he couldn't go back and face his wife? That's what he said anyway.
Ron Swoboda worried needlessly. There was no domestic crisis at all. When he got back home that day after signing for $40,000
instead of $50,000 his wife, Cecili,
told him to relax and stop worrying.
The world was going to go on. Swoboda's wife said whatever
he did was perfectly all right
with her.
"She said I shouldn't push things, but no matter what, she'd never be disappointed in me," says the Mets' sometimes lambasted, sometimes lionized right fielder.
Swoboda, more mature now approaching 26 than he was when he first came with the Mets five years ago, still feels he gave in too easily at contract time. He is completely familiar with his figures last year—a .235 batting average, 52 RBI's and nine homers—and is aware that when he said what he did about his $40,000 contract some people wondered what right he had to kick.
"They don't understand," he
says about those people. "If you go by their standards and only look at the numbers, I'm overpaid. But if you don't realize what the numbers represent then you can't really understand my argument."
Okay, what do they represent?
Okay, what do they represent?
"They represent wins and they represent the man behind the numbers," Swoboda says.
I think I understand what Ron
Dimaggio uncertain about baseball
Swoboda is trying to say and it reminds me of a former Dodger player who fought for a raise one year even though he hadn't played too many games for the club the year previous.
TOPEKA (UPI) — Baseball great Joe Dimaggio, who just ended a spring coaching stint with the Oakland Athletics, said Tuesday he has no current plans to get back in baseball in the near future.
"The Yankee clapper" was in the Kansas capital for the grand opening Wednesday of "Joe Dimaggio's," the first in an Italian restaurant franchise named after the baseball hall-of-famer.
Dimaggio said in an interview he currently has no plans to get back in baseball in "the real, close future," although he said just before spring training this year baseball commissioner Bowie
Kuhn offered him a job as a representative of his office.
The former New York Yankee slugger said he turned Kuhn down, "but he (Kuhn) left the door open by saying if I did consider it in the future and he was still receptable of having me back, why, we could at that time discuss it."
Dimaggio, who now lives in San Francisco, said he had no problems with the colorful owner of the Athletics, Charles Finley, during his coaching years with the team.
"My association with him was very good. He didn't bother me, and I just went ahead with my
job," he remarked. It's something he's always asked about (Finley) when in the Kansas City area.
Finley caught the wrath of many A's fans when the team was in Kansas City, prior to moving to Oakland.
"I can't take it as well as I used to," said the 55-year-old sports great. "It's not only the traveling, though, it's everything that's connected with it."
Dimaggio, who ended his contract with the A's following spring training, said he currently has no plans to re-enter baseball, partly because of the regimentation of the travel required.
Dimaggio said it gets to be too much with night ball games, and trying to find eating places after the night games. "I don't have that kind of stomach any more. I've got to put sandwiches in my belly," he said.
Although Dimaggio was voted most valuable player three times in the American League and set many batting records, the only one still standing is hits in 56 consecutive ball games. He said it will probably be bettered.
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NCAA says 'no'
220 Strong
FORT LAUDERDALE (UPI) The policy-making body of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), still is in no mood to add new college football bowl games.
The 18-man NCAA Council Monday turned down bids from
six cities wanting to stage postseason games. They were the Cactus Bowl in Phoenix, the West Coast Bowl in Tampa, Fla., the Blues Bowl in Memphis, the Carnation Bowl in San Diego (Calif.), the Copper Bowl in Tucson and the Charity Bowl in Lake Charles, La.
16 KANSAN Apr.29 1970
It was the third consecutive year the council has turned thumbs down on new bowls.
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