I recently read John Helyar\u2019s 1994 baseball classic Lords of the Realm. Somehow, I had never heard of it until I spotted it on a baseball top-ten list. If you haven\u2019t read it and want to avoid spoilers, stop here, go buy the book, and return after you\u2019ve finished. That might sound dramatic, but after a few chapters, all I could think was: How on earth did I not know about this years ago?<\/p>\n
Helyar\u2014who gained fame as the co-author of the blockbuster Barbarians at the Gate\u2014brings the same level of meticulous research to Realm. Being a child of the 1960s and \u201970s and having lived through much of what he describes is certainly an advantage, but hardly a requirement.<\/p>\n
Helyar masterfully guides the reader through the origins of baseball\u2019s labor conflicts\u2014or, for decades, the total lack of them. For generations, club owners, derisively labeled \u201cThe Lords,\u201d with the help of Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, ran roughshod over players, who were essentially indentured servants.<\/p>\n
Helyar offers a thorough education on each commissioner from Landis through Selig, but the heart of the book is the long, tortuous effort to establish a players\u2019 union\u2014and the fierce resistance it faced. From day one, the Commissioner\u2019s Office, the owners, much of the baseball media, and a large percentage of fans aligned against the players.<\/p>\n
Even the players themselves were uncertain. Many had been conditioned by owners and their loyalists in the press to believe they should simply be grateful to play baseball and get paid\u2014meager as those earnings were. And they were meager: other than the biggest stars, most players took offseason jobs just to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
Baseball\u2019s first attempt at unionization came in 1946, when activist Robert Murphy tried to form the American Baseball Guild for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He fell short of the 67% needed for certification, earning only 55%. In response, MLB raised the minimum salary to $5,500 and promised a pension plan\u2014prompted in part by guilt over the dire financial state of retired superstar Jimmie Foxx.<\/p>\n
The pension issue lurched along for years until a 1954 agreement that allocated 60% of All-Star Game and World Series broadcast revenue to the pension pool. There was still no contribution from regular-season TV or other revenue streams.<\/p>\n
Robin Roberts, an early visionary advocate for players, foresaw a future in which television\u2014and merchandising\u2014would become far more lucrative. But owners, convinced TV would cannibalize ticket sales, dismissed his concerns. Many had even opposed early radio broadcasts, which today seems absurd.<\/p>\n
In 1965, the owners agreed to fund the Players Association with $150,000 for an office and director\u2014while pushing their preferred candidate to lead it. The plan might have succeeded if not for Roberts, who championed a young labor economist named Marvin Miller. Miller won a narrow vote, and baseball would never be the same.<\/p>\n
One of Miller\u2019s first tests came with the 1966 holdout of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. While assisting them, Miller spotted a vulnerability in the Reserve Clause, which effectively stated that a player who played a year without a contract would become a free agent. That wasn\u2019t the literal wording, but it was the effect.<\/p>\n
At that time, owners controlled everything. Teams sent players a contract with a take-it-or-leave-it stance. If a player wanted to play baseball, he accepted\u2014because he had no alternative. Clubs could trade or release players at will, while players had zero control over their own careers. Miller aimed to negotiate better pay, better working conditions, and some measure of autonomy for the players, but it would take time.<\/p>\n
After Miller\u2019s hiring, the \u201cLords\u201d retaliated by pulling the annual $150,000 payment. The fledgling union had just $5,400 in the bank. To survive, Miller had to dock each player $344 per year.<\/p>\n
He then set about earning their trust by focusing on smaller but meaningful issues: ballpark safety, travel expenses, hotel accommodations, scheduling. One of his toughest tasks was helping players understand their own value. Some\u2014Jim Bouton, Mike Marshall, Tim McCarver, Joe Torre, Reggie Jackson, Mark Belanger\u2014caught on quickly and became union stalwarts. Others took longer.<\/p>\n
Many teams were still owned by wealthy, old-money families. A telling moment came when Mets owner Joan Whitney Payson declared at an owners\u2019 meeting, \u201cLet\u2019s not get involved with any of these awful little union people. We\u2019re sportsmen. We\u2019re not in this for the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senators owner Calvin Griffith growled in response, \u201cLike hell. This is my livelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n
A seemingly small issue Miller tackled was the contract Topps required for baseball cards. Topps locked players into five-year deals for just $125 annually, then often \u201crenewed\u201d them early\u2014keeping players tied to Topps indefinitely. Players mostly shrugged it off as pocket money and were thrilled to be on a card.<\/p>\n
Miller persuaded them to stop signing. The result: in 1968 and the years immediately after, several stars\u2014Willie Mays and Hank Aaron among them\u2014had cards recycled with old photos because Topps couldn\u2019t shoot new ones without contracts. Eventually, Topps relented, raising payments to $250 per year and agreeing to share revenue with the union.<\/p>\n
With the players unified, Miller turned to the heart of the issue: the Reserve Clause. His first major test came in 1969, when the Cardinals traded Curt Flood to the Phillies\u2014along with future Royals Joe Hoerner and Cookie Rojas. Flood refused to report and wrote an eloquent letter to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn requesting free-agent status. Kuhn denied him, invoking the Reserve Clause.<\/p>\n
Flood sued for $1 million. Stars like Sandy Koufax, Lou Brock, Dick Allen, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Greenberg supported him; others, most notably Carl Yastrzemski\u2014\u201cCarl bleeping Yastrzemski,\u201d as my mother called him\u2014spoke against him, declaring that Flood\u2019s cause would \u201cruin the game.\u201d Flood lost in the Supreme Court, ending his career, but he laid the groundwork for what came next.<\/p>\n
The decisive blow came in 1975, when Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally challenged the Reserve Clause. Their victory opened the door, and when Catfish Hunter became a free agent in 1976, that door blew wide open. After a decade of unrelenting effort, Miller had finally emancipated the players. To borrow from Martin Luther King Jr.: Free at last.<\/p>\n
Kansas City factored prominently in Helyar\u2019s account. The Athletics\u2019 move from Philadelphia to Kansas City enabled the Dodgers and Giants to shift west. Later, owners grudgingly accepted Charlie O. Finley as A\u2019s owner after Arnold Johnson\u2019s death. Finley, though often abrasive, was a visionary: pitch clocks, night World Series games, colorful uniforms, an orange baseball, and a designated hitter. Ideas owners mocked eventually became reality.<\/p>\n
Kansas City also played a major role in early free-agency pursuits. The Royals nearly landed Catfish Hunter in 1976. Hunter knew Kansas City from his A\u2019s days, and the Royals were an ascendant young team. They offered six years at $825,000 per year plus $50,000 annually to age 70. Hunter was ready to sign but asked one question: \u201cWhat if I die before 70?\u201d<\/p>\n
GM Joe Burke replied, \u201cWell, that\u2019s the end of the contract.\u201d
Hunter asked, \u201cWhat about my wife?\u201d
Burke answered, \u201cWe won\u2019t have to worry about that, will we? You\u2019ll be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hunter crossed the Royals off his list. Burke, in my view, rode Cedric Tallis\u2019s coattails anyway, and this only cements it. The Yankees signed Hunter, won two World Series with him, and Hunter\u2014who indeed died at 53\u2014had been right to ask the question. Had Burke simply agreed, the Royals might have won multiple more titles with Hunter anchoring the rotation.<\/p>\n
The Royals were also serious contenders for Pete Rose. Kansas City made the best offer, and Rose liked Ewing Kauffman. But Rose insisted on staying in the National League to break the league\u2019s hit record. That decision came back to haunt the Royals in the 1980 World Series, which they lost to Rose\u2019s Phillies.<\/p>\n
The book clarified many of the key personalities in baseball\u2019s labor wars. Helyar doesn\u2019t play favorites; he reports the facts. I realized how wrong I\u2019d been about several figures from the 1970s and \u201980s. My past opinions were shaped by mainstream media accounts that, I can now see, were often misleading. People portrayed as heroes were boors; people vilified were decent. There was a time when mainstream sports media commanded respect. That time is gone.<\/p>\n
With baseball lurching toward another potential work stoppage, this is a perfect moment to read Helyar\u2019s book. It\u2019s a long read\u2014604 pages\u2014but never drags. It also invites comparison between the legendary Miller and current Players Association head Tony Clark. Maybe I\u2019m wrong, but I\u2019ve never been convinced Clark fully has the players\u2019 backs. He seems too friendly with Commissioner Rob Manfred\u2014who, for his part, is little more than an owners\u2019 tool, and not a particularly inspiring one. Based on his past comments, I\u2019m not convinced Manfred loves the game or even understands its history.<\/p>\n
His one competition seems to be Roger Goodell for most tone-deaf commissioner in major American sports.<\/p>\n
One issue I remain passionate about, and have written on before, is the unconscionable exclusion of pre-1980 players from the pension plan if they accrued fewer than four years of service. Clark seems unmotivated on the matter, and Manfred will only act if forced. More on that in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I recently read John Helyar\u2019s 1994 baseball classic Lords of the Realm. Somehow, I had never heard of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,4558,936,2123,55,2596,2595,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-472381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-general","10":"tag-kansas","11":"tag-kansas-city","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115702074466907627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}