Posted on 01/05/2019 10:37:43 PM PST by scrabblehack
Ted Turner, owner of the Atlanta Braves, has been suspended by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn for tampering while trying to obtain the services of former San Francisco outfielder Gary Mathews.
A spokesman for the commissioner said today the Atlanta owner would be suspended for one year, but no date has yet been set for the start of the suspension.
Mathews was the Braves' first choice in the Nov. 4 re-entry draft, and he has signed a contract with the team. Turner, 38, reached in Atlanta, said he had been notified that the Braves must fortfeit their first round choice in the June baseball draft.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Now, the culture has coarsened in the last 41 years, and a player is not an owner. Also I have gathered that other players have engaged in the same sort of lobbying. However it does strike me as improper. At the same time, I shall admit that Roger Goodell is reluctant to punish such behavior.
I have no idea if there are any "anti-tampering" clauses in player contracts or in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Turner was involved in at least two other scrapes with the commissioners office. One involved him naming himself manager despite a lack of baseball experience. He lasted one day.
When WTBS was a local Atlanta UHF channel, he signed a pitcher to a free agent contract to pitch for the Braves. Given the number 17, Turner decided to give him a nickname and place the nickname on the back of his jersey instead of the pitcher’s real surname.
The nickname was “Channel”. Channel 17 just by mere coincidence happened to be the frequency for WTBS. Once again, baseball’s top brass told Turner to knock it off and put the real surname on the back of the jersey.
Yes, before he went leftwing kook, Ted Turner was actually a gadfly baseball owner in the likeness of Bill Veeck. Got to give him credit, though, for building a single UHF channel into a broadcasting empire. I wonder what he thinks of CNN now or if he even cares. But he was quite the innovator and entrepreneur - actually like Trump in many ways. Eccentric and never afraid to stir things up.
The article cites Ted Turner as being 38 years old...?
Try 83. God journalists are morons.
The article is from 1977.
You might want to read the story. Ted hasn’t owned the Braves for years. Ted is 80 and Bowie is worm food.
When I read Bowie Kuhn I thought, man, that SOB is still around??
Oh good grief.
That pitcher was ex-Dodger Andy Messersmith.
Check the date on the story.
Now who is the moron?
Turner was a leftwing kook, but he was also a southern nationalist. Interesting guy.
That one game was against the Pittsburgh Pirates...yes, I remember it.
I was doing people a favor by not posting the Jarvis Landry story - it had much more web junk on it.
Did Vida Blue get an exception? He had his first name on his jersey instead.
Then of course there was Carlos May who wore his birthday on his jersey....coincidentally enough, May 17.
Bobby Bonds wore 00 for a while, a reference to the James Bond series.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.