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March 25, 1979: Twins and MLB player contract news

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Jim Sustacek

By Jim Sustacek

No footage here of Hosken Powell leading the Twins to a 9-4 spring victory over the Astros, such was the state of technology at the time. But in this report from WTCN 11, new contracts for Twins Willie Norwood and Danny Goodwin are juxtaposed with Bob Horner's contract holdout in Atlanta.

Watch the full newscast here.

Presented in partnership with TC Media Now. 

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Otto von Ballpark

Otto von Ballpark 20,320

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    The 1979 Horner holdout was unusual. He had just been drafted in June 1978, went straight to the majors, and won Rookie of the Year based on that half-season performance.

    Braves blog Battery Power does a nice job of describing what happened next:

    Quote

    [Horner] quickly became embroiled in a bitter dispute as to whether or not the bonus he agreed to when he signed with the Braves should be considered his salary for the 1978 season (rather than the $21,000 league minimum the team believed it was paying him).

    [Atlanta owner Ted] Turner offered Horner a contract for 1979 at $100,000, which if Horner’s rookie-year salary was $181,000 (as he and [agent Bucky] Woy believed) would be a larger pay cut than allowed by MLB’s collective bargaining agreement. After an arbitration panel eventually ruled in Horner’s favor, he agreed to a salary of more than $130,000 for 1979, which according to the New York Times was the largest ever given to a second-year player at the time.

    They recap the rest of Horner's interesting career too.

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