Philadelphia Daily News - March 8, 1980

Bowa Regrets Rap at Phillies

By Bill Conlin

CLEARWATER – Larry Bowa stepped back from the brink of war yesterday. With Manager Dallas Green looking on from his desk, the Phillies shortstop convened a press conference at Carpenter Complex and said he regretted remarks which expressed a dissatisfaction with his contract.

"The feedback is, I guess, that I said Ruly Carpenter has been unfair with me." said Bowa, who spent several hours on the phone Thursday with the Phillies President. That's untrue. I've been treated fairest of all Phillies players since I've been here.

"RULY DID NOT WANT me to have the press conference. He iust wanted to let it die. But I feel that if I had hurt him then I think I should remedy it. I was wrong in saying mat I should be compensated. I signed a contract and. when I signed it I was the second-highest-paid shortstop in the game. That's the end of that."

Carpenter told Bowa that he was a victim of the times, that he couldn't tear up every contract negotiated in good faith each time an owner set a new world’s record.

"Ruly said I had every right to feel that way about six players at my position being ahead of me. Ruly's stand is, what if I got more money? Why shouldn't Rose get more money, Mike Schmidt get more money? That it would be a snowballing effect on the whole team. From that end, Ruly has no control over what the Cardinal guy wants to pay his shortstop."

Bowa did all the talking. Dallas Green's silence was eloquent. War had been averted. The bayonets were slipped back into their sheaths, unbloodied. There will be peace in our time. Would you believe our March?

PHILUPS – Pitching coach Herm Starrette says he felt sick when rookie righthander Marty Bystrom re-injured an already pulled hamstring when he slipped on the locker room floor Wednesday. Starrette says Bystrom will miss at least three weeks, which will end any slim chance the organization's top pitching prospect will make the club.

Bystrom was considered a hedge against Larry Christenson or Dick Ruthven failing to come back from surgery, but his realistic chance of making the club after a so-so year in Triple A were no better than one in 50... A number of players scoffed at Player Relations Committee statements on the status and merit of current basic agreement negotiations. "There were a lot of angles they didn't go into," said Phillies player rep Larry Bowa.