Minor Leagues, Major Problems

This is an excerpt of a piece that was written for a journalism class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln:

Minor League players don’t have leverage because they don’t have a union. Only players on the Major League clubs’ 40-man rosters are protected by the MLB Players Association. Nobody has started such a union for minor leaguers, in part because players don’t want to be in the minors long enough to be their teams’ union representative. “I don’t think players set out to be minor leaguers as a career,” Manuel said, adding that playing in the Minors is “basically meant as an apprenticeship.”

If Minor Leaguers did unionize, how effective would they be? “Unions are effective when labor is highly skilled and therefore difficult or impossible to replace,” Law said. Most minor league players are essentially organizational filler, Law explained. “They’re not prospects but are there to fill out lower-level rosters so that the legitimate prospects have someone with whom to play.”

Even though these “filler” players receive the lowest pay and would benefit the most from a union, they would not have much power because their organizations see them as replaceable parts. “The best candidates to unionize in the minors are the top prospects,” Law said. “But of course, they’re usually much better compensated through signing bonuses, and they’re loath to risk the large paydays ahead of them when they reach the majors.”

Read the rest of the piece HERE.

Check it out at Baseball America.

During the Winter Meetings last month, new Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos announced that minor leaguers in his system would get a bump in their meal money. Now, it appears this change is baseball-wide.

While this isn’t the revolutionary change we’re hoping to achieve, it is something. Here’s hoping it’s just one of many changes on the way.

Congress’ interest in baseball didn’t start when Mark McGwire wasn’t there to talk about the past in 2005. The Curt Flood Act over a decade ago said that antitrust laws only applied to dealings at the Major League level. Garrett Broshuis did a Q&A about the Act withEd Edmonds, the Associate Dean for Library and Information Technology at Notre Dame Law School:

You’ve written about entities within minor league baseball lobbying Congress during the passage of this act. Can you talk about the effects of these efforts?

Minor League Baseball was quite concerned about the possibility of any changes to the basic “farm system” relationship of minor league teams to major league teams. In particular, major league teams cover the salaries of minor league players, and this is a critical feature to the existing business model of minor league teams. When the legislation was first considered in Congress, Minor League Baseball made sure that it approached the many Congressmen and Senators with minor league franchises within their Congressional districts or states to make sure that any possibility of a lawsuit by a minor league player could not happen by changing the status of major league players. Most courts that have considered baseball’s historic antitrust exemption have held that it covers the entire business of baseball. The legislation basically left a slight bit of ambiguity by stating that baseball players are “subject to the antitrust laws to the same extent such conduct . . . would be subject to the antitrust laws if engaged in by persons in any other professional sports business affecting interstate commerce.”

[The rest of Broshuis' Q&A can be found here.]

And here are some snippets from the testimony of Dan Peltier. Note that although this was spoken over a decade ago, things haven’t changed a whole lot. The salary figures Peltier quotes are similar to what today’s players make, despite different economic circumstances.

…no one gets wealthy in the minors. Most baseball players do not make in a year as much as Cal Ripken makes for one game. In fact, most minor league players would love to make what I understand you pay your entry-level staffers. When I played rookie ball, although I was under contract for a year, I made $850 a month for 21/2 months. In double A, I made $1,350 a month, and in triple A I made $1,850 a month for 5 months. Clubhouse dues and tips cost roughly $1,500 for the season, leaving me about $7,500 before taxes. I have no idea how some of my friends who were married and had kids were able to make ends meet.

Third, a minor league baseball players has very few rights. Baseball’s reserve clause is very much like the indentured servitude of the 1700’s. When you first sign, you are owned by that team for basically 7 seasons. A team can buy you, sell you, send you to another country, or fire you whenever they want. They can cut you if you get hurt.

A player, on the other hand, cannot try to play for someone else. He can’t try out for his home team. You have to play for the team that drafted you even if they are loaded at your position. I got drafted by the Texas Rangers after my junior year of college as an outfielder. I also played some first base. When I was ready for the majors, the Texas outfield included superstars such as Juan Gonzalez in left, Ruben Sierra in right, and Raphael Palmeiro at first. I got the chance to play when Ruben Sierra got hurt, but was sent back to the minors when he came back, even though at the time I was hitting .385.

Under the standard minor league contract, a player is required to waive all rights to appeal any action by the team in State or Federal court. You can appeal to the commissioner of baseball, except there has been no commissioner for almost 5 years. In addition, you are pushed to leave college or not to attend in the first place and play in the minors, even though the chances are that you will never have a career in the major leagues.

The rest of Peltier’s testimony is just as enlightening, and a good read.

This is the future home of Minor Leagues, Major Problems – one facet in a battle against the unfair wages given to Minor League Baseball players.

Did you know? Many minor leaguers made less than $10,000 this year. If that surprised you, there’s a little bit more info at this post on my other site. Please bookmark this site and check back for more details on what’s wrong with baseball, and what you can do to help!