Shaikin: 50 years ago, Koufax and Drysdale’s holdout changed baseball forever
From Bill Shaikin at the Los Angeles Times on March 29, 2016:
Fiffty years ago this week, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale reported to spring training. The rest of the Dodgers had already been there for a month.
The best pitchers on the defending World Series champions were widely viewed as heretics in the context of their time. There was no free agency, no salary arbitration, and no power in the players’ union.
If a player did not like the salary dictated by management, he could stay home. So Koufax and Drysdale did, threatening by their absence to turn the Dodgers from the best team in the National League into an also-ran.
Read the full article here: http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-koufax-drysdale-holdout-20160329-story.html
Originally published: March 29, 2016. Last Updated: March 29, 2016.