He was the only sports figure in history that I can remember, that turned down a raise. He felt he did not deserve it by his own performance expectations. They forced him to take pay raises in the early years, No man ever loved to play the game of baseball more than Al Kaline. RIP Mr Baseball.
Those days are gone. Played for the love of the game, not a premadonna like the majority today.
Did you know Alan Trammell never had an agent? I remember reading, when his contract was expiring, he would walk into the office, and ten minutes later he'd have a new contract. Another true gentleman.
Last night I watched Game 1 of the 1984 World Series (tonight I'll watch 2), and a couple things I immediately recalled; The lack of advertisements plastered all over the stadium necessary to pay the bloated salaries in today's game. Just a nice clean baseball stadium. Next is the players looking uniform, hence the expression uniform. Nowadays, everyone has to do something with their uniform, hair, tatts, piercings, whatever, to stand out and look "cool" in their eyes. Then they have to figure out a way to flip the bat, dance around the bags, congratulate themselves after a homerun, and all kinds of other circus b.s. To me they look like jackasses. It's such a me me me attitude now. We need more Al Kalines and Alan Trammells.
