On July 30, pitcher Sam McDowell walked out on the Cleveland Indians after baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn deleted two bonus clauses from his 1971 contract. The bonus clauses called for McDowell to receive $18,000 for 25 victories and an additional $10,000 for 30 wins.
Given that McDowell’s base salary was $72,000, these figures represented what would have been a significant increase.
One slight problem… at the time of his walk out there were two months left in the season… and McDowell had a record of 10-10. How exactly McDowell figured he was going to win 15 games over the past two months, when he wouldn’t even start 15 more games in 1971, was quite a mystery.