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History of Baseball
Part III
A Brief History of Baseball:
Part III: Labor Battles in the Modern Era
Professional baseball players had organized several times in baseball history,
but they were never able to make the advances that unions in other industries
had won for their members. The Major League Baseball Players Association had
been around for more than thirty years, but its sole purpose had been to collect
and administer a meager pension. Concerned about getting a piece of growing
television revenues, the players sought to strengthen their union in 1965.
They hired Marvin Miller, a veteran labor organizer who had fought for the
United Steelworkers union for years. He knew there was more at stake than adding
broadcasting money to the pension fund. When Miller came on board and saw what
the conditions were, he knew much more was at stake.
For one thing, the minimum salary was $6,000, just a thousand dollars more than
it had been in 1947. As he began to collect data, the players were surprised at
how poorly they were being paid. This education paved the way for the first
collective bargaining agreement in 1968. It provided some modest improvements,
but most importantly it gave the players some leverage. For nearly a hundred
years, team owners had a “take it or leave it” relationship with players.
The union could (and did) file complaints with the National Labor Relations
Board when they were treated unfairly. Players also won the right to have their
grievances heard before an independent arbitrator.
The owners did not like this. They did not like the union interfering in their
business, and they did not like the players standing up to them. Curt Flood, one
of the league’s premier centerfielders refused to report to training camp in
1969, demanding that the St. Louis Cardinals offer more than a $5000 raise. They
relented, but after an unexceptional season, they traded him to Philadelphia.
Flood did not want to go. He had strong ties to the community, and filed a suit
against Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Flood argued that the Reserve Clause was
illegal, and that he should be allowed to negotiate freely with other teams. The
Supreme Court ultimately ruled against him, but it made a lot of players think.
By 1975, two pitchers decided to challenge the reserve clause again. It said
that the teams had the right to renew a players contract for one year. They
interpreted that to be recurring, that they could renew it every year. Dave
McNally and Andy Messersmith refused to sign their contracts. If the reserve
clause bound them for the 1975 season, there was no contract that could be
renewed for 1976. An arbitrator upheld their case, and free agency was born.
Players were still bound to a team for the first few years of their career, but
after that they could sign with any team. The owners couldn’t contain their
excitement at this, and spent the next five years outbidding and outspending
each other. The players were happy, because everyone’s salary was going up.
But many owners were getting upset. When a player left, they got nothing in
return. They argued that a team who lost a player should get something in return
for compensation. Otherwise, the money they had invested in that player’s
development would be lost. The players argued that this would severely limit
their freedom. The two sides couldn’t agree, so in the middle of the 1981
season the players walked out.
There had been a brief player’s strike at the start of the 1972 season, which
delayed the start of the season by 13 days. This was much more serious, and
little negotiation took place. After fifty days, the owners relented and agreed
to a modified compensation plan. In return, players not yet eligible for
free-agency could have their salaries decided by an arbitrator. The economic
issues was growing more complicated, and the adversarial relationship between
owners and players grew more intense.
In 1985, the players struck again. The owners had hoped that salary arbitration
would help keep salaries down, but it propelled them through the roof. The
owners wanted to change it, the players said no way. After two days, the owners
relented and the players came back.
Then the free-agent market suddenly and mysteriously dried up. Following the
1986 season, players in search of contracts found no bidders, and many re-signed
with their teams for lower salaries. This continued for the next few years,
until an arbitrator ruled that the owners had colluded. The collective
bargaining prohibited that action, and the players were awarded damages.
This all set the stage for the worst battle of all. In 1992, the owners forced
Commissioner to resign. The labor contract was about to expire, and they
didn’t want him to interfere in negotiations. Turns out they didn’t want any
negotiations either. Their had been a strike or a lockout every time the
collective bargaining agreement expired, and the players didn’t want to go
through that again. They started the 1994 season without a contract. The owners
were insisting that a salary cap was necessary for teams to survive. They
claimed free agency and salary arbitration were wrecking them. No progress was
being made, so the players went on strike in August.
The World Series was canceled for the first time in 92 years. Fans across the
country were disgusted and heartbroken. President Clinton appointed a mediator,
but nothing happened. Finally, the owners decided to unilaterally implement
their own plan. They assembled teams of replacement players and set out to start
the 1995 season without the “real” players. The players asked for and got a
restraining order, prohibiting the teams from implementing their plan and
forcing them to work under the terms of the old agreement until a new one was
reached.
It took almost two more years for a labor deal to be reached, and it finally
happened in November of 1996. While it’s too soon to tell if the deal will
address the financial problems that face Major League Baseball, it does offer
the hope that fans can start thinking about the game on the field once again.
Baseball has fallen behind other American sports in popularity, and it will take
a lot of work to regain the prominence it once held in American culture. There
is a long, proud history to build on, and baseball will enter its third century
with reasons for optimism.
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