Players like the Mets’ Dave Schneck paved the way for today’s MLB free agents.
It isn’t enough that Bryce Harper is off to a fast start with the Philadelphia Phillies after signing his $330 million, 13-year contract to play with the club. Now he might be tempted to be the top National League vote-getter in the All-Star Game.
According to a recent report, each top vote-getter will get an extra $15,000 for playing in what is, let’s face it, an exhibition game.
Courtesy Historyforsale.com
As a fan, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. Baseball is hemorrhaging money, yet it doesn’t have the funds or the moral conscience, to do right by former New York Mets outfielder Dave Schneck, the Allentown native who was famously traded to the Phillies in the 1974 deal that landed the club the late Tug McGraw.
Schneck, who spent 14 months in the armed forces as a result of the Vietnam War, is one of the 634 retirees who doesn’t receive an MLB pension. Other famous Pennsylvania men affected include Somerset’s Tom “Money Bags” Qualters, Phillies reliever Mac Scarce, and Philly native Peter Cimino, who set the all-time high school basketball scoring record in the state before switching to baseball.
Ever since April 2011, all these men have been receiving the princely payment of $625 for every 43 game days of service they were on an active MLB roster. Players like Schneck needed four years of service before 1980 to receive a pension but, if you played after 1980 when the vesting rules changed, all you’ve needed is 43 game days.
According to the IRS, a current MLB retiree can receive a pension of up to $220,000. Even a post-1980 player who only has 43 game days of service credit receives a minimum pension of $3,589 at the age of 62–assuming he is called up to the majors and stays on the active roster from August 15 to October 1.
And now, if you’re the top vote-getter in either the American or National League, you’ll get $15,000.
Dave Schneck today (photo, Northhampton Press)
Schneck has run a family-owned waterproofing business in Slatington for more than three decades. He attended Whitehall High School and appeared in 143 games over parts of three seasons. His best season was in 1974 when he hit one triple, 11 doubles, and homered five times in only 254 at-bats.
Want to know what his top salary was in The Show? A whopping $20,000.
MLB recently announced that its revenue was up 325 percent from 1992 and that it has made $500 million since 2015. What’s more, the average value of each of the 30 clubs is up 19 percent from 2016 to $1.54 billion. And the 30 club owners recently wrote a $10 million check to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
What’s more, the union representing today’s players, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) has been loath to divvy up any more of the collective pie.
Even though the players’ welfare and benefits fund is worth more than $3.5 billion, MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages, having banks foreclose on their homes and are so sickly and poor that they cannot afford adequate health care coverage.
Considering that Schneck went to war to defend our freedoms and liberties–not to mention endured labor stoppages and picket lines so that men such as Harper could reap the benefits of free agency–it is anathema to me why the union doesn’t do more for men like him.
