Corcoran: How the MLBPA went from $6,000 and a filing cabinet to a powerful force
From Cliff Corcoran at The Athletic on September 4, 2018:
Over the past decade, Major League Baseball has made a show of celebrating the holidays and days of remembrance that fall within the limits of the regular season, outfitting its players in special uniforms and caps. The questionable aesthetics of these are balanced by the charities they serve, even if they have occasionally missed the mark on the meaning of the day being celebrated (something MLB has made strides to correct). Baseball has even invented new occasions for such displays. However, you won’t find the players donning Major League Baseball Players Association caps or patches, or any other such celebratory garb, for Labor Day.
That isn’t surprising. After all, the MLBPA’s founding executive director, Marvin Miller, one of the four or five most significant figures in baseball over the last century, remains locked out of the Hall of Fame, while the bumbling commissioner who was so often his overmatched adversary was inducted a decade ago. It is the commissioner’s office which mandates all of the celebration on display on other holidays throughout the season, and the adversarial relationship between the union and the commissioner—who, despite pretenses of impartiality, is the owners’ representative—would seem to preclude a proper acknowledgment of the union’s proud history, despite the existence of a national holiday dedicated to it.
Read the full article here (subscription required): https://theathletic.com/502837/2018/09/03/on-labor-day-how-the-mlbpa-went-from-6000-and-a-filing-cabinet-to-a-powerful-force-for-its-members/
- Related link: “Marvin Miller and the Birth of the MLBPA,” by Michael Haupert (Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2017)
Originally published: September 7, 2018. Last Updated: September 7, 2018.