IN THE NEWS: Club owners approve a new 5-year player pension plan, effective April 1st. It offers more liberal benefits and includes all players, coaches, and trainers eligible for the 1947 plan. The owners reject the players' request to raise the minimum salary from $6,000 to $7,500.
IN THE NEWS: The Georgia Senate unanimously approves Senator Leon Butts' bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites. Religious gatherings are the only exceptions to this bill.
IN THE NEWS: A Boston newspaper claims that Ted Williams never paid his $5,000 fine for spitting at the crowd. It refers to him mockingly as the "Splendid Spitter."
IN THE NEWS: The Kansas City Athletics ship pitchers Art Ditmar, Bobby Shantz, and Jack McMahan, and infielders Clete Boyer, Curt Roberts and Wayne Belardi to the Yankees. In return they receive pitchers Maury McDermott, Tom Morgan, Gary Coleman, and Jack Urban, OF Irv Noren, plus infielders Billy Hunter and Milt Graff. Roberts didn't go to NYC till May 4, while Boyer went a month later. Hunter and Urban don't switch until April 5. The veteran Shantz and Boyer will be valuable pickups for New York, with Shantz leading the American League in ERA this year, and Boyer a tough defensive 3B for eight years in pinstripes. The A's will eventually admit that when they signed Boyer for a $40,000 bonus in 1955, it was on behalf of the Yankees, with the understanding that they'd later ship him to NY.
IN THE NEWS: In an ominous development for Brooklyn, Walter O'Malley "trades" minor league franchises with Phil Wrigley of the Cubs, giving up the Dodgers' Ft. Worth (Texas) club in return for the Cubs' Los Angeles Angels (PCL).
IN THE NEWS: The U.S. Supreme Court decides 6-3 that baseball is the only professional sport exempt from antitrust laws. The issue arises when pro football seeks similar protection from the laws.
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