EVEN IN BASEBALL, THE GAME IS GIVE-BACKS

Jacobs, Barry

Even in baseball, the game is give-backs Briefcase in hand, Marvin Miller, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, climbed the concrete dugout steps of Miami Stadium...

...Barry Jacobs (Barry Jacobs is a free-lance writer in North Carolina...
...Lake Tahoe, and Atlantic City...
...In 1980, a players' strike was averted only by a last-minute compromise that gave management until this past February to present a proposal acceptable to the players on changing the crucial free agent arrangement...
...More than anyone else he is responsible for bringing baseball labor relations into the Twentieth Century...
...It is the owners who have been trying frantically to outbid one another...
...Franchises in the industry, which is exempt from anti-trust laws, are going for $20 million or more, while owners claim imminent insolvency and blame rising ticket prices on high player salaries...
...Owners moan in the press about the high cost of doing baseball business even as the game is enjoying its widest popularity ever...
...When I got into baseball," says thirty-six-year-old pitcher Joe Niekro, player representative of the Houston Astros and a fifteen-year major league veteran, "it was an owner owned a player, period...
...Their game works better when rigged against the players...
...Miller insists the 650 major league players, who have voted to strike May 29 to block implementation of the owners' plan, are demanding nothing...
...Even in baseball, the game is give-backs Briefcase in hand, Marvin Miller, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, climbed the concrete dugout steps of Miami Stadium and strode onto the field where the Baltimore Orioles were limbering up in the Florida sun...
...As matters now stand under a formula negotiated in 1976, a club losing a top player gets only an amateur draft choice as compensation...
...Making trouble again...
...Under the owners' pending offer, a forsaken club would also be able to draft a quality major leaguer from the roster of the team signing their former player...
...They talk about salaries going up, but every year they keep paying more...
...Player salaries are often reported in resentful tones, regardless of the astronomical salaries, bonuses, and expense accounts accorded corporate executives, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars per week paid to some performers in Las Vegas...
...Baseball club owners, apparently—like other capitalists— can't stand the competition of the free market...
...Miller didn't get very far...
...I don't think this country's system runs that way...
...But it isn't the players or their Association who have been dishing out million-dollar contracts to the sore-armed, the lame, and the chronically mediocre, pushing the asking price for the game's true stars ever higher...
...As a result, the players now enjoy better pensions, fairer treatment, and a higher salary structure—the 1980 median salary for major leaguers was $95,000— brought about by a "free agent" system that harnesses owner greed by allowing players with six or more years' experience to sell their services to the highest bidder...
...one reporter grumbled before joining the chase...
...Finally even the owners seem to be becoming aware that things are getting out of hand...
...In the eyes of the baseball establishment—which includes many of the baseball writers—Miller is, in fact, always making trouble...
...Baseball union activities are frequently denounced as ungrateful agitation—one Sporting News columnist referred to "Marvin Miller's strike-bound Huns...
...free agentry there is virtually nonexistent...
...The result, according to Miller, was "a Xerox of a fifteen-month-old proposal...
...And Joe Niekro observes, "There's twenty-six owners who can't get together...
...If you look at their proposal, the impression you have to get is that the owners are trying to use the players to regulate themselves...
...What has also been shown is how the media can shape and direct perceptions, causing many fans to denounce both players and owners as selfish good-for-nothings...
...What's he doing here...
...The players have a tough time persuading the public that issues of job freedom, rather than simple greed, are the basis for their actions...
...as happened at each training camp he visited this spring, his appearance immediately drew the attention of every reporter within sight...
...By Miller's reckoning, the owners, who have taken out $50 million in strike insurance, are intent on "damaging the bargaining power of the players...
...I think we've shown what can be done with a strong association," Niekro says...
...That's why they're trying to eviscerate the free agent system, and why the players may strike this season...
...This is a take-back proposal from the owners," he explains patiently to reporters at each stop...
...Under Miller's leadership in the past decade, the players have demonstrated their willingness to strike, if necessary, to accomplish their goals, just like other American workers...
...though...
...A similar tit-for-tat system exists in pro football...

Vol. 45 • June 1981 • No. 6


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.