It is no surprise that former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Scipio Spinks comes from the Windy City of Chicago.
During one memorable contest, Spinks and future Cincinnati Reds hurler Gary Nolan, combined to strike out 37 batters in a Class A Northern League game in 1966.
Though Spinks, who turns 78-years-of age today (July 12), was drafted by and played for the Houston Astros, he also pitched for the Redbirds in 1972 and 1973. For his career, he won seven games and threw seven complete games.
Though he has no regrets about his abbreviated time in the game, Spinks, who once served as a double for the late Louis Gossett, Jr., in a movie about Hall of Famer Satchell Paige entitled Don’t Look Back, is annoyed about one very important thing, namely, that he doesn’t receive a Major League Baseball (MLB) pension.
Spinks is one of 508 retirees being hosed out of pensions by the league and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), which is the union that represents both current players and minor leaguers. All these men receive are yearly non-qualified retirement stipends of $718.75 for every 43 game days on an active MLB roster, up to a maximum payment of $11,500.
Due to vesting changes that averted a strike in 1980, the players’ union was offered the opportunity to give its members the following sweetheart deal: one game day of service credit to buy into the league’s umbrella health insurance plan, and 43 game days of service for a pension. However, the deal forgot to include the men like Spinks, who played prior to 1980.
Other former Cardinals affected by this blight on the national pastime include pitcher Bob Reynolds, outfielder Bob Coluccio and 93-year-old Don Taussig, who played for the Redbirds in 1961 before opening up a squash business in Jupiter, Florida.
Fast forward to the present, and neither MLB nor the MLBPA want to retroactively restore these non-vested men into pension coverage; instead, taxes are taken out of their non-qualified retirement payment, which cannot be passed on to a surviving spouse or designated beneficiary.
So when Spinks dies, the payment he is currently receiving is not passed to any of his loved ones, including his third wife, Jeanette, or his daughter, Terri Lynn.
Meanwhile, the maximum IRS pension a vested retiree can receive is $275,000. And the minimum salary for the 26th man riding the pines this year is $760,000.
Though Spinks may not be looking back at his career with regret, he is focused on getting the MLBPA to right what he feels is a significant wrong, namely, short shifting him out of a retirement benefit.
“SOMETHING needs to be done,” he told me via email recently. “Let’s do something about it, I’m tired of this bullshit with the players’ association.”
With the average MLB salary last year reported to be $5.1 million, and with MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark reportedly receiving a yearly salary of $3.41 million, Spinks contends that the union is forgetting to take care of the men like him, who helped grow the game by enduring labor stoppages and going without paychecks all so free agency could occur. After all, he adds, unions are supposed to help hard working people in this country get a fair shake in life.
Since the league doesn’t have to have negotiate about this matter in collective bargaining, it’s essentially up to the union to go to bat for these men.
What makes this especially reprehensible is that Clark, who received the Negro League Museum’s Jackie Robinson Award in 2016, has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages and having banks foreclose on their homes.
Other persons of color affected include Pablo Torrealba of the Atlantic Braves; George Lauzerique of the Milwaukee Brewers, Joe Gilbert of the Montreal Expos (who wore uniform 42 as a tribute to Robinson) and Aaron Pointer, an NAACP award winner who was the first African-American linesman in the PAC-10.
From where I sit, it’s time the union and, in particular, Clark, stop taking advantage of Spinks and the 507 other men and squash this injustice once and for all.
Douglas J. Gladstone (@GLADSTONEWRITER) is the author of “A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB & the Players’ Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve.”