Blame It on the Majors

His team had just won the Southwest conference baseball championship for the 31st time in 42 years, but the University of Texas' Coach August Bibb Falk, 58, sounded like a man who had hot heard the score. "It's a 'five out' team," he snarled around the butt of his cigar. "Five men don't get on base enough to count. Besides that, we don't have any power. Why, we have a shortstop and second baseman hitting .300--that is, they're hitting .150 apiece."

"What about next year?" asked a wellwisher, trying to ease the agony. "The unbeaten freshmen will be coming up; most of this season's varsity will be back in uniform." Bibb almost choked on his bile. "Now how can you tell what we'll have back next year?" he roared. "You never know until after the big leagues raid you."

Bird Dogs & Bargains. Bibb Falk's teams have been winning, and Falk has been bellyaching ever since he took over Texas baseball in 1940. Rival coaches have long since ceased to listen to his plaints. But Bibb spoke for them all last week when he attacked the raiders--the fast-talking big-league "bird dogs" who scout college campuses for the least sign of talent, who use the lure of a pro contract to bargain for an athlete's amateur standing.

Bibb has no objection at all when a college ballplayer is so good that he is assured of a career in the majors. Texas has sent some, including Dodger Innelder Randy Jackson and Boston Manager Pinky Higgins, and Bibb himself went to the Chicago White Sox directly from the Texas campus in 1920. A keg-shaped, hard-hitting outfielder, he stayed in the majors for twelve years, averaged .312 at bat. But today, says Bibb, many boys with too little talent are tempted to sign baseball contracts and quit school. The Kansas City Athletics, for example, have signed 322 collegians since 1955--but igo have already been released, and only 17 are rated as likely prospects. College authorities estimate that, of the students who sign baseball contracts, 75% never go on to get their college degrees. "It's the damned scouts' fault,'' says Bibb. "They paint a rosy picture to the kids, promise 'em anything. The kids don't have sense enough to know any better."

Bush Leagues & Bonuses. All over the country, college coaches echo Bibb's caustic comments. Things were bad enough when the major leagues paid polite lip service to their own rule forbidding dickering with collegians between sophomore year and graduation. But even that rule has been rescinded. Some 35% of the players on today's big-league clubs started their careers on college campuses. Some, like the Chicago Cubs' Moe Drabowsky (Trinity College), skipped the minors and started in the big time. Others, like Milwaukee's Pitcher Gene Conley (Washington State), St. Louis' Shortstop Alvin Dark (Louisiana State), the New York Yankees' First Baseman "Moose" Skowron (Purdue), Philadelphia's Pitcher Robin Roberts (Michigan State) served briefly in the bush leagues.

For all the benefits it reaps from college ball, professional baseball does nothing to foster it, or even to cooperate in keeping it going, complains the American Association of College Baseball Coaches. On the contrary, says the association, "the overwhelming evidence indicates that professional baseball is more interested in retarding the growth and development of the college game." Big-league scouts wave fat bonuses at high-school stars who might otherwise be tempted to take advantage of an athletic scholarship. College crowds, already dwindling for lack of talent in the field, stay home on spring afternoons to watch major-league television. Sooner or later, all the troubles of the college game are blamed on the big leagues.

This week, while he prepared for the regional playoffs with Arizona and a probable trip to the collegiate world series in Omaha, Bibb Falk worried less that he might lose a game than that he might lose most of his team to his mortal enemies. "They say one thing and do something else," he foamed. "They're all for themselves and don't give a damn about minors or colleges. The trouble with general managers is that they never went to college. They cheat on bonuses, cheat on anything. They need another Judge Landis in baseball to clean up the mess."

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