The first book to utilize the files, letters and correspondence of the Major League Baseball Players Association, The End of Baseball As We Knew It replays the much storied transformation of power from management to players that set the standard for labor relations, not just in baseball, but in all professional sports. Charles P. Korr also draws on interviews with ballplayers, journalists, and labor executives to construct this insider's view of the most successful sports union formative years.

Before the appointment of former Steelworkers Union executive Marvin J. Miller in 1966, the MLBPA was a loosely organized company union created to negotiate pensions and working conditions. As the players realized they needed the game to make a living and the owners needed them to make a profit, the union gained momentum. Capitalizing on this equation under MIller's tutelage, the players staged a fifteen-year battle that gradually extracted power from management. By 1981, the MLBPA had dramatically escalated players' salaries, increased their rights and freedoms in contract negotiations, and replaced the century-old "reserve system" with free agency.

With vivid detail and comprehensive analysis, Korr reveals how the union operated, how the players financed and supported it, and how it succeeded in besting the owners in every confrontation. He also considers the role of the press in swaying the public opinion of both sides and captures the ideological right between fans and owners, who were enmeshed in the romantic tradition of baseball's history, and the players who were unwilling to accept the status quo.

From Library Journal: "Korr carefully explores labor-management dealings involving major league players and team owners during a crucial two-decade imbalance. The author sketches the stark imbalance that existed in that relationship until the 1960s, when Judge Robert Cannon and Marvin Miller came to represent the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). Cannon deferred to baseball moguls, as players like Robin Roberts and Jim Bunning courageously battled for such elementary rights as improved bullpens and toilet facilities and better lighting for night contests. Miller's appointment as the MLBPA's full-time executive director in 1966 proved crucial, but Korr (West Ham United: The Making of a Football Club) challenges many assumptions about the labor leader. Rather than manipulating the players, Miller frequently felt compelled to respond to their greater militancy. Notwithstanding embittered attacks by sportswriters and owners alike, Miller generally remained calm and thoughtful, even prescient at times. Korr discusses how first Curt Flood and then Ted Simmons, Andy Messersmith, and Dave McNally challenged the owners' contractual leverage, which eventually led to free agency. A lengthy strike in 1981 proved the union's toughest test but kept its winning streak intact."

From Leonard Koppett (Hall of Fame Sportswriter): "This illuminating account of how the Major League Baseball Players Association changed the face of the American sports scene should be read by anyone interested in baseball but especially by thirty particular individuals‹the ones who run major league clubs. No detail of this fifteen-year drama has been omitted, with all its alternatives fully explored and explained. As one who had to cover these events in real time, I'm delighted to learn from both sides—at last—what really went on."

From Booklist: "By the time this review is published, the 2002 major-league baseball season may have ended prematurely, the victim of a labor dispute between millionaire players and billionaire owners. Korr puts labor issues and baseball in perspective with this history of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1960 to 1981, when the union succeeded in overturning the century-old "reserve" clause, which bound a player to his original team for life. The reserve system had worked well for owners, keeping the minimum salary to seven thousand dollars in 1966, and giving players virtually no bargaining power. Enter former steelworkers union man Marvin Miller, who, over the next decade and a half, challenged the reserve clause in the courts and in the equally important venue of public opinion. Korr tells the story of these tumultuous years vividly, helped along by interviews with most of the principals. An insightful foreword by broadcaster Bob Costas provides additional context. An engagingly written, carefully researched study of the forces that have shaped the National Pastime into the game it has become today."

Introduction

"'THIS WILL BE THE END OF BASEBALL, AS WE KNEW IT,'" announced Paul Richards, the general manager of the Atlanta Braves, at a press conference held during the 1967 winter meetings of Major League Baseball club owners.¹ A veteran of more than thirty years in organized baseball, Richards had been a major league player, manager, and general manager. He was warning his fellow executives, owners, and the assembled baseball writers against the dangers of negotiating an industry-wide collective bargaining agreement between the clubs and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA).

The MLBPA was the legally constituted bargaining agent for the major league players, a union in all but name. It certainly did not fit popular definitions of a labor union, since most people did not regard major league players as workers. It is not clear how many players, even those involved in the association, thought of it as a union. Even the word "union" did not come easily to the vocabulary of the players; "association" and "players' group" were the preferred terms. The association had been in existence for more than a decade, but it attracted little attention until April, when it appointed Marvin J. Miller, an executive with the Steelworkers Union, as its first full-time executive directory.²

The union was composed of hundreds of men who were competitive by nature. Their job was to beat other members of the union on the field. The players had short careers, and they scrambled to maintain their position on the roster. The threat of being released or sent down to the minor leagues hung over many of their heads, and being traded was an occupational hazard that faced all but a few of them. Even stars were not immune. From the time players were in the minor leagues, they knew they were part of a system where it made little sense to challenge the power of their clubs and even less to think about organizing to challenge the system itself.

This historian of early baseball Warren Goldstein has pointed out the dual nature of the sport's development. Fans got an emotional lift from the performance of the players, and owners were recognized as civic minded sportsmen and reaped profits from what the players did on the field. But the players were involved in much more than a game or contest. They were "playing for keeps" trying to earn a living, maintain a lifestyle, and ensure a special status for themselves.3 They needed the sport for their success, but the sport, the fans, and the owners needed players for profits and pleasure. When the players recognized the possibility of capitalizing on this equation, they transferred their "playing for keeps" attitude beyond the field. After 1966 they created their own team to win a contest again the owners, teams and structure of Major League Baseball.

Copyright © 2003 Charles P. Korr

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The End of Baseball As We Knew It : The Players Union 1960-81

Author: Charles P. Korr.
Pages: 336.
Published: September 2002.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press.

ISBN: 0-252-02752-3.

Baseball Book Shelf: The End of Baseball As We Knew It : The Players Union 1960-81