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Squabbling over telephones and airplanes is, in fact, only preliminary skirmishing for Finley and his employees. Despite occasional outbursts of generosity—this year he impulsively gave Claudell Washington a midseason $10,000 raise for his hitting—thrifty is the word for Finley. The big annual battles center on money. Since baseball adopted arbitration for salary disputes two years ago, an astonishing one-third of the 46 players who have tried that tactic have been A's. In 1974 three won major victories: Jackson's salary soared from $75,000 to $135,000, Bando's from $60,000 to $100,000, Holtzman's from $66,500 to $93,0000. This year Bando and Holtzman took a beating. Bando, who thought he had earned a raise by knocking in 103 runs and producing 24 game-winning hits in 1974, got no increase. Holtzman won 19 games and pitched one World Series victory, and also got nothing.
Finley, whose $1.4 million player payroll is among baseball's highest, could not care less. "Sure, Bando had some clutch hits," he says. "Don't I deserve something for $100,000? As for Holtzman —hell, he won 21 games in 1973. What am I supposed to do, give him a raise for having a worse year? These guys are just bad losers."
Perhaps. But even the losers agree that arbitration is better than the long, bitter salary disputes of other years. Reggie Jackson held out for higher pay in 1970, Vida Blue in '72, and both say Finley humiliated them by publicly ridiculing their ability and their salary demands. Says Jackson, who was only 23 at the time: "Charlie wanted to make me bend. He wanted to show me who was boss." Finley showed him. Late that season, his rancor still running strong, Jackson hit a grand-slam home run. While crossing home plate he looked up and raised a fist of defiance to the watching Finley. The next day, in front of then Manager John McNamara, four coaches and Team Captain Sal Bando, Finley ordered Jackson to sign a written apology. Jackson finally did—in tears.
What Finley did to Mike Andrews is something the A's will not soon forget. After Andrews made two costly errors in the second game of the 1973 World Series against the New York Mets, Finley announced that the team physician had found the second baseman unfit to play because of a sore arm. Bent on making room for another player to strengthen his roster, Finley dropped Andrews from the team. In protest, the A's wore his No. 17 on their sleeves at a workout before the third game. To a man, they insist that Finley ordered the doctor to fabricate a reason for dumping Andrews. Finley says otherwise. "Mike was injured," he insists. "If he had played again and become disabled, he could have sued me for the franchise—and won." Finley, who had given the players $3,000 diamond rings after the 1972 Series, left the expensive jewels off the 1973 and 1974 rings because of the Andrews row.
If Finley's handling of players is controversial, the rate at which he eats up managers is positively incredible—12 in 15 years. "I'm not one of these guys who's afraid to admit a mistake," Finley says. "I've gotten rid of so many because they weren't worth a damn."