Some baseball news arrived last week. Bigger, in some respects, than Friday’s word that MLB next year will opt for pitch clocks, an end to defensive shifts and larger bases.
Minor-league players voted to have the Major League Players Association represent them in future wage-and-benefit talks with Major League Baseball.
You could hear the Richter scales rock from commissioner Rob Manfred’s chambers all the way through 30 MLB front offices. Because business is about to change for baseball’s bush-leaguers.
And it is time it did.
More than 50% of minor-leaguers voted to have the Players Association bargain for them in future deals with MLB, which oversees 120 farm teams. This follows a reorganization in 2020 that lopped 43 teams from the various minor-league configurations that now are headed by Manfred and Co. in New York.
That players this month opted for MLPA membership is stunning in its boldness. Never before — not before or after Marvin Miller led MLB players out of servitude in the 1960s and ‘70s and showed them they were more than chattel — were minor-leaguers tempted to make the same assertive move.
Mostly, it was because the farm kids were scared. Scared of big-league baseball’s reprisals. Scared that they might be blackballed. Or, at the very least, fearful they would be passed over if union membership or pro-union stances crept into those dicey decisions about whether a player was ready or not for “The Show,” as it’s colloquially known.
It should also be noted that the MLPA for some time hasn’t always been wild about feeding the farm kids when it was focused on frying bigger fish. The union was watching out for 40-man roster guys and resident big-leaguers as opposed to 5,000 grunts spread across minor-league towns.
Consequences have been serious, if not cruel.
For the vast majority of minor-leaguers, dirt wages have been a yearly standard, with the only significant improvement coming in 2021 as weekly pay moved from $290 to $500 in Single A; $350 to $600 in Double A; and $502 to $700 in Triple A.
A nice jump, for sure. Plus, it came this year with guaranteed-housing provisions that now are an MLB team’s responsibility. Previous to last year, players not only were expected to live on fumes, but also to pay for their housing.
If you ever have wondered how many air mattresses can be crammed into a one-bedroom apartment, scads of bush-leaguers can testify. The new policy stipulates one man to a bed, no more than two to a room, and that hotels must be provided if other housing options are absent.
That’s progress, on a basic level. But not always has this been a happy or amusing story, this Bull Durham odyssey. Nor has it been necessary in a sport as well-heeled as baseball.
Even with last year’s bump, playing baseball in the minors too often has been an exercise in survival. It should be remembered that minor-leaguers are paid only for the months during which games are scheduled. That leaves a half-year or more when players are on their own.
Off-season jobs may seem like a paean to old-fashioned baseball life. But romance doesn’t match trying to find meaningful autumn/winter work when you’re also obliged to hit the gym, eat right and have a body fine-tuned for spring camp.
Some players have had it better, no question. Early-round draft picks often are paid with seven-figure bonuses. Even later picks can get six-figure cash to sign. Lots of others sign for much less.
The number of prospects who have had to reach into those bonuses, simply to enjoy decent food and a few bucks in their pocket during long seasons, has been a sad tale when roughly 5% of farmhands ever see the big leagues.
Even after last year’s adjustments, pay is low. Factor in those miles and nights on buses and it’s no surprise minor-league baseball has counted on Congress (through earlier years and then in a slippery 2018 omnibus bill) to exempt it from anti-trust laws and to sidestep minimum-wage obligations. (An eight-year-old suit against MLB by minor-leaguers and their lawyers is expected to be settled next year and could bring $155 million to 23,000 past minor-leaguers).
Making changes
What farm players have been saying, more steadily of late and most firmly last week, is they’re not living like this. In bringing on the MLPA, they’re wielding union representation with teeth freshly sharpened from last year’s owners-players standoff. That duel won for the players a beachhead after they had ceded significant ground in two earlier contracts.
It would be nice to have Tigers prospects discuss this bold new move in aligning with the MLPA. It would be helpful for players to talk about their financial situations, which either they personally have experienced, or have observed, with pity or disgust — or both.
But they have been ordered to clam up.
The Tigers put out word last week that their staffers are not to assist in any way, shape, or form with interview requests. The players themselves have developed laryngitis, it seems, even after off-the-record assurances they would not be identified — a necessary condition when discussing matters of delicacy and, in their view, with potential repercussions.
I reached out last week to a number of Tigers farm players. Only one, who asked not to be identified for reasons cited above, responded. And his words were more like a matador’s cape being flashed in the face of a charging bull.
“I really don’t know all the details, or the ins and outs of the whole thing,” the player said in a diplomatic text response. “With my little understanding, it sounds like it’s a great step in the right direction and things could really be looking up for MILB players.”
The need to play it safe underscores why union ballots are as private as your vote for legislators or for a President. There can be repercussions from rocking the boss’ boat.
America, though, in 2021 is opting with more frequency, and even more resolve, to say that labor is worth supporting with living wages and decent benefits. Players bent on pursuing an early baseball vocation are deciding they also have a stake in MLB revenues that have topped $10 billion.
Manfred, somewhat surprisingly, acknowledged that very point Friday. He said MLB voluntarily would recognize the MLPA as minor-league players’ bargaining rep. There would be no need to petition the National Labor Relations Board for an authorization vote.
This will cost money, absolutely, hashing out contracts with minor-leaguers. This will chop into MLB’s coffers. This could also mean big-league players will share, directly or indirectly, in subsidizing their bush-league brethren with, say, lighter free-agent packages, given that teams will be budgeting more for the farm and dollars always are finite.
But this is a good and just move, helping kids with a dream live something other than a nightmare. This is about food and housing and work conditions. This is where baseball can wed itself further to America’s fabric — and to its ideals.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.