The Labor Leader Who Made Baseball Players Millionaires

It was an ordinary day.  Reading about the labor leader who made baseball players millionaires.  Journalist Studs Terkel, who wrote 1974's "Working," the classic oral history of Americans' on-the-job lives, called Marvin Miller "the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis."  Miller, the United Mine Workers president for 40 years and Congress of Industrial Orgnizations' founder, took over a failing group that represented the nation's most exploited but irreplaceable workers - the Major League Baseball Players Association - and converted it into the country's most powerful union.  Miller's introduction to labor negotiations came when he worked in the early 1950s for the United States Steel Workers Association, who, along with the United Auto Workers, represented America's union strength.  But, an internal shake-up prompted Miller to seek new employment.  He turned down a faculty position at Harvard University when Philadelphia Phillies Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts asked him to consider becoming the executive director of the players union.  But getting the job wasn't easy.  Team owners hoped that by repeatedly stalling they would force Miller, who still had no field plan to fund the union, to give up.  Owners also tried to persuade unconvinced players that Miller would lead them into a strike few of them could afford.  Their heavy-handedness infuriated the players, who unified their support behind Miller and unanimously elected him as their union's executive director in 1966.  By 1968, Miller had negotiated the union's first collective bargaining agreement with team owners, which won the players a whopping increase in their minimum salary from $7,000 to $10,000, plus larger expense allowances that covered the 1968 and 1969 seasons.  Miller advised superstar outfielder Curt Flood in the historic 1972 Flood v. Kuhn case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.   The court ruled against Flood, but his lawsuit opened the door for other MLB players to challenge the reserve clause.  On Dec., 23, 1975, Peter Seitz, the neutral arbitrator, awarded MLB players - both present and future - the greatest Christmas present they would ever receive.  He ruled that clause 10(a) of a player's contract, reserving an unsigned player to his current team, was only valid for one year.  After that, a ballplayer could become a free agent if the contract remained unsigned.  Free agency, resulting from the 1974 case of the Los Angeles Dodgers' Andy Messersmith and the Baltimore Orioles' Dave McNally - whom Miller encouraged to sit out a year - was on the horizon.  After filing a grievance,  Messersmith and McNally won free agency and signed new contracts with the Atlanta Braves and the Montreal Expos, respectively.  During Miller's tenure, baseball suffered through strikes and lockouts that angered fans.  But the average annual salary rose from $19,000 in 1966 to $326,000 in 1982, the year Miller left the players union.  Miller died in 2012 and didn't live long enough to see the explosion in player salaries.  Last winter, the Dodgers signed two-way player Shohei Ontani to a 10-year, $700 million contract (though most of the money is deferred).  The current average MLB yearly salary is about $5 million.  The Modern Baseball Era Committee inducted Miller into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020.  Miller was among baseball's three most impactful figures, sharing the honor with Babe Ruth, who changed the way the game was played, and Jackie Robinson, who paved the way for Black players to enter the major leagues.  Not bad company!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.