True big league devotees are an odd lot. Forced to move through their regular lives according to the Gregorian calendar, they otherwise spend their time on Earth synched to the sound of a round ball on a round bat. For them baseball is not a pastime, nor even a religion: Its a way of life.
All the more troubling when Major League Baseball (MLB) shows itself for the corporate, conservative megastructure that came into being a short decade after the first professional game in 1869. Thinking fans since have walked the line between love of the game and its worst defects — among them the indentured servant system known as the minor leagues.
The minors as we know them began with baseball executives in 1901, with the first game held a year later. Known today as MiLB, the list of teams under its auspices has grown from 96 to 120 clubs, most but not all affiliated with the MLB itself. The current total number of players is over 5,000; and until February of this year none were compensated above the federal poverty line.
The living conditions, health care and travel/meal money have been as meager as the pay — hardships endured on the outside chance a player might become part of the 10% to ever appear in the bigs. And the vast majority of minor leaguers work one or more jobs during the offseason, while two-thirds of their ultimate employers (club owners) are billionaires whose fortunes were in part due to a patently unfair culture.
Since the turn of the century, minor league players (and their allies) have been challenging that culture. Boosted by a lawsuit and strong vote to join the parent clubs’ players’ union, as of this month all minor leaguers are part of a collective bargaining agreement. Every one.
All would be swell were it not for residual MLB resistance in general, and some Florida lawmakers in particular. For MLB’s part, there is a push to shrink the number of minor league teams, as well as the number of players per team. This would significantly thin the ranks of new union members and thus the league’s exposure to further changes.
Then there’s Florida, home to 10 minor league teams and 15 of the 30 big league spring training camps. Through another unholy alliance between Governor Ron DeSantis and Republican legislators, there is an effort to claim minor league players are in effect “working their way up the ladder” as with most other career choices. If so, they should not enjoy protection under federal minimum wage requirements. They’re employees, at the mercy of state not federal labor law.
The situation has thus far played out in modern labor-management fashion, complete with wins and losses along the way. But as is often the case when so much money is in play, skirmishes continue long after a major victory has been won. Let’s hope that’s what we’re witnessing now.
Postscript: As reported by Ball Park Digest’s Kevin Reichard, the day before the Florida legislature was to take up a bill to undercut minor leaguers’ advances, Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts donated $1 million to DeSantis. The Ricketts family is a longtime supporter of conservative candidates and agendas.
Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2023
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us