No Sale

Judged by the attention they pay him, 17-year-old Dick Joyce's best friends are big-league baseball scouts. They send Christmas cards and frequent, familiar letters. They take his family to dinner. They rarely miss a chance to watch him play ball: 15 were in the stands when the strapping (6 ft. 5 in., 210 Ibs.) Portland, Me., fastballer pitched Cheverus Classical High School to a 2-1 victory over Portland High earlier this year. Like fond relations, they were on hand with gifts for Dick's graduation last June. The Boston Red Sox presented him with a $100,000 bonus offer ($50,000 down, the rest spread over five years), and six other clubs said they were willing to raise the ante. But Dick Joyce couldn't be bought. Last week, he decided to turn down the tempting bonus offers and go to college instead.

As he pondered the pros and cons of a baseball career. Joyce sought counsel from businessmen, clergymen, lawyers, and such former bonus babies as Boston's Bill Monbouquette ($4,000) and Carl Yastrzemski ($100,000). Dick's father, a onetime minor league pitcher, was alarmed by carefully planted reports that the big leagues might soon outlaw bonus payments, and urged Dick to accept the Red Sox offer. Dick refused. "If I had accepted the $100,000," he explained last week, "I would have been able to keep only about $69,000 after taxes. Scholastic and business experts estimate that today's college education is worth at least $50,000 more than a high school education in increased lifetime earnings. I have been awarded a baseball scholarship at Holy Cross that's worth in the vicinity of $12,000. That's $62,000 for getting an education nobody can ever take away--as opposed to $69,000 for five years of baseball."

A cum laude high school graduate, Joyce will shoulder a stiff scholastic load at Holy Cross (subjects: Greek, Latin, German, English, history, theology). He will pay his way by pitching, and he expects to improve on a four-year high school and American Legion record of 59 victories (including seven no-hitters) and 12 losses. The big leagues can wait. "If the arm holds out," says Dick Joyce, "the money should still be there."

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