“The money these guys are making playing today, if they had half a brain they’d never need a pension.”
– Former major league ballplayer Carmen Fanzone
This isn’t about the money. It’s about principle, loyalty, and just doing the right thing. It’s about…
OK, it’s about the money.
More than 75 percent of retirees in the United States today have pensions, with 42 percent of those relying on those pensions for more than half their income, according to statistics from the Insured Retirement Institute.
Carmen Fanzone, 78, doesn’t have a pension from his old job. He should have one, most of the guys who worked for the same company — Major League Baseball – do.
But to get it, he needed four years of service in the majors. He got 3 ½ years playing for the Chicago Cubs who cut him midway through the 1975 season. Those were the ground rules between 1947 and 1979. Four years or no pension.
Then, in 1980, it all changed. Big time. It went from four years to 43 days in the majors to be eligible for the Players Association pension plan. It was a slap in the face to the 1,400, pre-1980 ballplayers who were getting nothing for years of playing, not days.
Out of fairness, the Player’s Association could have grandfathered them into the new pension requirements, and said “Hey, guys, we know you were utility players and weren’t making much, we’ll take care of you when you turn 62.”
But, they didn’t. Fanzone turned 62 and got bupkus, nothing. Not even a card. None of the 1,400 guys did when they turned 62. Almost 800 players have died since then, the latest 97-year-old George Yankowski in February.
He played parts of two seasons in the majors in the 1940s, and could have played more, but he had to go fight for his country at the Battle of the Bulge, where he earned a Bronze Star for Bravery, but he couldn’t earn a pension check from his own players union.
The most Fanzone, who lives in Sherman Oaks, made in a year playing baseball was $32,500. Today, a utility guy riding the bench with numbers not nearly as good as the ones he put up is making a million or more, easy.
If the guy lasts just 43 days, he’ll get a yearly pension of almost $4,000 at age 62, which keeps going up for every 43 more days he stays in the majors to a maximum $230,000 a year.
For a little icing on the cake, after only one game day on the roster — ONE game — he’s eligible to buy into Major League Baseball’s health care umbrella coverage plan – something Fanzone with 237 games played was never able to do.
“That’s hard to swallow,” he says. “Guys like myself and the others, we never made any money. We need a pension. The money these guys are making today, if they had half a brain they’d never need a pension.
“I have wonderful memories of baseball, but this isn’t one of them.”
It took a 2010 book – “A Bitter Cup of Coffee” – by local author Douglas Gladstone to embarrass the players union into at least throwing a bone to the pre-1980 players.
As of 2011, for every 43 days they played in the majors, they get $625, up to a maximum $10,000 a year. Fanzone’s been getting $6,500 a year after taxes. But, unlike a pension, the player’s widow will not get a dime from the union after he dies, and there is still no health care coverage for a lot of these guys who need it.
“The money dies with me,” Fanzone says. “My wife will get nothing. I don’t think today’s players realize this is happening to us. If they did, they wouldn’t sleep at night.”
I tried to ask Justin Turner, the Dodger’s player rep, but was told by the club to talk to the Players Association, which is kind of busy right now making sure its players today don’t get shortchanged — like the association shortchanged their own pre-1980 players 40 years ago.
These are the guys staying up at night, worrying about how their wives are going to make ends meet after the money dies with them
“While there’s no legal obligation to help them, there’s a moral obligation,” Gladstone says. That’s an argument he’s made so often with the leaders of the Players Association that they’ve blocked his emails.
What they can’t block are the facts. Carmen Fanzone played in 237 career games, got 132 hits, 27 doubles, 20 home runs, drove in 94 runs. He paid his union dues, and even played “The Star-Spangled Banner” on his flugelhorn in full uniform before a game at Wrigley Field in 1972.
He put his own career in jeopardy by going on strike at the start of the 1972 season to support the Players Association’s demand from the owners for, ironically, an increase in pension benefits he’d never see.
Just on that alone, you’d think…Nah.
Because this is not about principle, loyalty, or just doing the right thing.
It’s about the money. It always is.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.
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