Marvin Miller cards?
 

Marvin Miller is on the Hall of Fame Eras Committee ballot next month, and I'm thinking he might just make it this time. The earliest card I've seen of his, is the 1994 Upper Deck American Epic (from the Ken Burns film). Anyone know of anything earlier, perhaps dating from his "active period," pre-1985? Sorry if this post is a bit off-topic for prewar. Thanks!

~ Ken

Here are some links to articles about Marvin Miller cards. The only possible one to predate the 1994 Upper Deck card is the 1991 Big League Cards card shown in the first two links below. But I don't think that was a commercially issued card; Big League Cards was Jim Bouton's company that made custom cards for anybody who sent in a photo and biographical info. (See here: http://www.jimbouton.com/cards.html) Looking up "big league cards" on eBay reveals several cards in the same style from the 80s and 90s, but none of Miller.

https://www.sbnation.com/2012/11/28/...n-miller-cards

http://crazybaseballcards.blogspot.c...d-his-own.html

http://www.jewishsportscollectibles.com/marvin-miller/

Marvin Miller also has an Allen & Ginter card with a "Game Used" tie!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2010-topps-...oAAOSwsFpaA72G

Thanks for the links, guys!

He has a 2005 Topps All-time fan favorites card.
He signed on for me though the mail.

Marvin Miller? Please.
 

Marvin Miller in the Hall of Fame? Give me a break. If you like paying $7.00 for a hot dog, $10.00 for a beer, $35.00 to park your car and $100.00 (or more) for a seat, say "Thank You" to Marvin Miller. Giving Marvin Miller a plaque in the Hall of Fame would be like erecting a statue of John Wilkes Booth next to the Lincoln Memorial.

When I was a kid, before Marvin Miller came along, baseball was truly the national pastime. You could identify a team by the great players who started with the team, and stayed with that team until their careers were over. The Dodgers had PeeWee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Duke Snider and Carl Furillo. The Yankees had Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford. The Cardinals had Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst and Bob Gibson. The Red Sox had Ted Williams. The Phillies had Robin Roberts. Even the lowly Pirates had Ralph Kiner. Then we got Marvin Miller and free agency. Branch Rickey, where have you gone?

Name a single person who has had a bigger impact on baseball over the past sixty years than he has. You can't. Because there isn't anyone. Also your analogy with Booth and Lincoln is absurd. Booth killed Lincoln. Miller did not kill baseball. It is thriving today moreso than ever in it's history. So much wealth and tangential jobs, not just players and their salaries but jobs throughout the baseball world, have been created due to his efforts. You may not like the changes he brought to the sport you love, which is understandable. But it is undeniable that the sport would not be where it is today without the work that he did.

And the fact that Bowie Kuhn is in the Hall and not Miller is deliciously ridiculous.

Tom C

Miller
 

He sure had an impact on Topps beginning in 1968/69 with the new licensing and contract terms for use of player images. The days of one sided contracts were over.

Marvin Miller in the Hall of Fame
 

I actually think my metaphor comparing Marvin Miller's potential Hall of Fame plaque to a statue of John Wilkes Booth is quite reasonable, although we do understand that Marvin Miller has not actually killed anyone. And (to paraphrase Casey Stengel) I'll tell you why. Marvin Miller was a very capable union leader, and his efforts provided a huge financial windfall for his employers, which were the players. However, as is often the case with a strong union, comparable benefits did not accrue to the management (the owners) or the customers (the fans). Marvin Miller's legacy has given us, among other things, players with enormous salaries, directly resulting in higher costs to the fans. Another fallout from the powerful player's union has been their powerful opposition to drug testing, which led to the debacle of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds. And now, in the aftermath of this painful kick in the shins, you expect us to go to the Hall of Fame and fawn over the plaque of the person who caused this? I think this would be an affront to those of us who enjoyed baseball when it was truly our national pastime.

It is true that the activities of Marvin Miller have had a significant impact on the game of baseball........but not a helpful impact, from the point of view of the fans. If Marvin Miller deserves a plaque, it should be in the Labor Union Hall of Fame (if there is one), along with those of Jimmy Hoffa, Mike Quill and John L. Lewis.

If I ever get a Marvin Miller baseball card, I will be sure to attach it to the spokes of my grandson's bicycle, so that it will be put to good use.

So George, you're trying to tell us that the owners did not reap the benefits? Seriously? That's an absurd comment. It's Marvin Miller's fault that the Yankees overcharge for those prime seats? It's Marvin Miller's fault that owners overpay for free agents then pass that on to the fans? Before free agency, players were told how much they would make and had very little say over the contracts, as I have read several stories from players in the 1950's who said this. Curt Flood was actually the person who started this. I believe that Bud Selig ruined baseball and he's in the HOF. And don't condemn the MLBPA for the PED's issue, Selig knew exactly what was going on and let it happen. Miller left the MLBPA in 1982, well before there was a PED issue in baseball.
HE BELONGS IN THE HALL OF FAME !!!

Yes of course. Nothing says freedom and apple pie quite like a good old fashioned oligopoly.

Tom C

Right About One Thing
 

I agree with you about Bud Selig; he does not belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame, either. But I do not care for the argument that X is in the Hall of Fame, and therefore we must also admit Y. Should every infielder who was better than Rabbit Maranville be in the Hall of Fame?

Another outstanding contribution to baseball from Marvin Miller was leading the players to go out on three strikes. In baseball, three strikes means that you are out.

You may get your wish. If Effa Manley is in the Hall of Fame, why not Marvin Miller? If he does get in, I hope they find a special place for his plaque.

What complete horsesh-t. Before Marvin Miller, players were essentially slaves to the owners' whims due to the reserve clause. He led them in their quest for freedom, which was a quest that had been ongoing since at least the 1890's. I have no problem with that quest, because I think that in this nation you should have the right to negotiate the value of your services instead of receiving only whatever your employer thinks you are worth without even having the ability to go elsewhere and try to do better. In almost any other industry that has ever existed in this country, if you disagreed with your employers's assessment of your value, you were free to leave and go somewhere where you thought your services would be valued more highly. Not so with the robber barons who ruled baseball for a century due to the reserve clause. Their greed caused their own demise insofar as player salaries are concerned. That was the owners' fault, not the fault of those who they were repeatedly trying to screw.

Did Marvin Miller's efforts raise players' salaries? Absolutely. As they were intended to and should have. Did the owners pass that on to the fans? Yep, owners have never, and probably will never, eat any expense they think they can make the fans eat. Did they have to do that? Probably not, at least not now, since most of them are making a complete killing on collateral stuff like TV contracts, advertising, parking concessions, food concessions, etc. Would the ticket price increases have happened anyway? Almost certainly so, although perhaps not so quickly. The fact that you have to pay highly for highly talented people in any profession or occupation is just a given. Doctors, lawyers, actors, musicians, etc. If it were not that way, why would anyone ever try to strive at excelling at whatever they do?

I get it that the players are now rich too. At least some of them have now become exactly what I hate, albeit on a somewhat lesser level. In any event, suffice it to say that while my heart does not go out to the players' complaints anymore, I am still far more tone deaf to the owners' pleas for sympathy for their allegedly sad plight. Having a billionaire explain why he has to raise ticket prices again in order to maintain his standard of living is, IMO, the epitome of bullsh-t.

Along with Jackie Robinson, Marvin Miller was, IMO, probably one of THE TWO most influential people in baseball since at least the beginning of the 20th century. He will probably never be elected to the HOF because the owners all hate him (and because he asked for that not to happen posthumously), but that certainly doesn't change his impact on the game.

So to get back to Ken's opening comment, no one knows of any Marvin Miller cards issued during his active years, right?

The Great Marvin Miller
 

Marvin Miller took over as the Executive Director of the MLPBA in 1966. Prior to this time, as far as I am aware, there had been only one strike in the history of major league baseball. That occurred on May 18, 1912, when the Detroit Tigers refused to take the field to protest the suspension of Ty Cobb, who had gone into the stands to attack an abusive fan. Miller, a professional labor union activist, soon put an end to this long reign of peace by engineering his first strike during the season of 1972, in which 86 games were canceled. This worked so well that he tried another one in 1981, which was even more successful, with 713 games not played. By 1994 Marvin Miller had retired, and his protege, Donald Fehr, was in charge. Fehr gave us the greatest strike of all time, running from August of 1994 until April of 1995, including the 1994 World Series, which was canceled. To make it even better, many people believe that a direct result of this action was the demise of the Montreal Expos franchise, which had been leading the National League at the time that the 1994 season was suspended, leaving their fans so disappointed and disillusioned that they never recovered. Fehr, of course, could not take full credit for this glorious victory, since he could not have done it without the trailblazing leadership of the great Marvin Miller. The net result of these successful machinations was an enormous increase in the salaries of the players, to levels that were previously unimaginable.

I think that baseball fans like to see competition on the field, between the best players in the world. And it goes without saying (or, at least, it used to go without saying), that they like to do this at an affordable cost. If Marvin Miller contributed in any way to these admirable goals, I must be missing something.

Marvin Miller Card
 

I am trying to visualize a 10 year old kid in 1982, buying a pack of baseball cards and opening it, hoping that it will contain a Marvin Miller card.

I wonder what the stats on the back would include.

I remember, in 1956, getting the cards of William Harridge and Warren Giles. That was bad enough.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...19/304/old.jpg

What I gather is that you're saying a ticket to a ballgame should cost 5 dollars and a hot dog should cost 50 cents. The reserve clause should still exist and players should play for whatever the owners see fit to pay them. Am I close?

AND THE WINNER FOR THE MOST RIDICULOUS NET54 HYPERBOLE IS...

You forgot to mention that the players should all be tethered together at all times, with express written permission from the owners needed to go to the washroom or to breathe. :D

Not Close
 

No. Some people, including Bud Selig, advocate electing Marvin Miller to the Baseball Hall of Fame because he "had an impact." I am trying to understand why anyone, particularly a baseball fan, would like to honor an individual whose activities were totally counterproductive to their best interests.

Instead of simply "having an impact," I think the criteria for election should include something like "having a helpful impact," or "having a desireable impact." If having an impact is the only thing that matters, why not elect Tony Bosch from Biogenesis?

Did you enjoy the strike in 1994? As I recall, most of the players did not even know what the goal was. Thanks again, Marvin Miller.

Are you a fan of the current state of the NFL, where the players get very little guaranteed money and receive less than 50% of the total revenue? I don't see where anybody could be upset by a concept in which the people who make the head guy extraordinarily rich are compensated in a proportional manner. Especially in such a specialized business as baseball where top flight ballplayers don't grow on trees.

Helpful to whom? Desirable to whom? Who gets to define that one? You?

How about this.

The quality of major league baseball is as amazing as it is solely and completely because of Marvin Miller. If you enjoy watching the best possible players in the world playing baseball then you absolutely have him to thank.

Why?

Because the extreme money in the game draws people who may have done something else with their lives to playing baseball. While people would always play the sport because they wanted to, throughout the history of the game are examples of people leaving to "get a real job" or to play outlaw ball or minor league ball instead of major league ball because the pay was better elsewhere. So it goes to reason that the money in the game draws out the best possible talent.

How's that?

Tom C

Agree with Tom. Miller is a first ballot HOFer in my eyes for his contributions to building the MLBPA and improving the lives and working conditions of baseball's most important resource, its players.

While I agree with most things you write on the forum, with all due respect, I think you're wrong on this one Tom... for starters, can you name ONE player who chose another career because baseball didn't pay enough? ONE?

Fifty years ago in 1967, the year before Marvin Miller became executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Assn. the AVERAGE salary in baseball was $19,000.00 - which equates to roughly $139,428.81 in 2017 dollars - while the MINIMUM salary was $6000.00 - which equates to roughly $44,030.15 in 2017 dollars. Baseball salaries in the past 50 years have increased 20,000%... but that's not ridiculous?

So are we really to assume that pre-Miller players would sooner take a year-round job not playing the sport they love because almost $50,000 wasn't enough to live on a year? And that was just the MINIMUM, not the AVERAGE. I'm sorry, but pro athletes have ALWAYS been paid well and have made more than the average worker/citizen, while it's true it's only within the modern era that we see considerably inflated sums.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/mlb/la...329-story.html

https://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

Bill Lange? There are others certainly. That one off the top of my head.

I highly doubt anyone plays baseball because of the money you can make. You're either a baseball player or you aren't. People play professional lacrosse because that's what they are, lacrosse players. You can't convince me your average lacrosse player isn't playing any other sport because of money when the guy's already not making any. He just loves lacrosse.

According to the SABR website....

"Then at the close of the 1899 season, Lange abandoned it all, quitting the game in order to take a bride whose well-heeled father would not countenance a baseball player for a son-in-law. Sadly, the marriage did not last, but Lange’s departure from the diamond did. He never returned to uniform, having played his final game at the age of 28."

Lange later went on to numerous baseball jobs after hanging up his cleats as a player including spring-training outfield instructor for the Chicago White Sox and European talent scout for Ban Johnson and John McGraw. This hardly sounds like a man disgruntled from the sport by his income.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/6a073842

Mike Donlin took three entire years off from playing for the Giants at the height of his career (1907, 1909, 1910) to perform in vaudeville and on Broadway with his wife Mabel Hite, because it paid more than baseball.

Donlin was always known to be a huge Broadway fan. Can you point to anything that supports it was purely for financial reasons? After his wife died he went right back to playing baseball.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/3b51e847

"In the spring of 1907 he demanded the same $3,300 he had been paid in 1906, plus a $600 bonus if he stayed sober all year. Owner John Brush declined. Mike held out and eventually went on the vaudeville circuit with his wife, missing the entire season. With characteristic confidence, he proclaimed: "I can act. I'll break the hearts of all the gals in the country." Critics generally disagreed. One said that Donlin "never was the actor he thought he was or wanted to be.""

"On October 26, 1908, Hite and Donlin's one-act play, Stealing Home, opened at the Hammerstein Theater in New York. Though the play was acclaimed, reviews for the ballplayer-turned-actor were mixed. Variety raved: "Mike Donlin as a polite comedian is quite the most delightful vaudeville surprise you ever enjoyed." But another critic wrote, "Hite was so good she could carry him." For the next three winters the pair performed Stealing Home in front of sold-out houses from Boston to San Francisco. Donlin vowed never to return to baseball because he was making more money in show business."

Considering the argument is that an overwhelming plethora of players have left baseball or pursued other careers due to a lack of compensation...

yet Turkey and Lange - players from a past century - are the only examples?

Who said anything about an "overwhelming plethora"?

And I don't think anybody is arguing that lots of players who were already competing at the major league level have left the sport because they weren't paid enough. The argument (as I understand it) is that the more MLB salaries increase, the more they will attract talented athletes who might have otherwise chosen a different career than playing professional baseball. I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with that argument in this context either, because now there are several other very well-paying professional sports competing for many of the same athletes, whereas in the early 1900s there was basically just baseball and boxing (and hockey for Canadians, like George Gibson). Of course, there are plenty of other differences as well (such as the lack of black MLB players in the early 1900s), so it's hard to make comparisons.

The fans are the most important part of baseball

And I don’t think Miller gave a rats ass about us fans

Labour Union Hall of Famer-yes

BB HOF- I’d skip checking out that plaque in Cooperstown

Tom.

"throughout the history of the game are examples of people leaving to get a real job" So with 150 years encompassing the "professional" game, a single player leaving the sport every couple years seems plausible I would surmise, as we're referencing "throughout the history" of the paid game. That would leave us at least 75 men that have said bye bye to the chosen sport they love.... all to take some menial, thankless "job" that pays more?? IN WHAT WORLD GOOD SIR?!?
Let's see how many you can find....

As you can tell... this is all light-hearted.

....but I think your argument only has merit over a century ago, but not by today's current context. In good fun, tell me the jobs that a pro baseball player would abandon the diamond for - an average player mind you - and what he would even be qualified to do making over the equivalent of $150,000.00 in pre-Miller 1967?? :D

Strawman argument. Never said a plethora.

Tom C

Problem with this argument is that those other sports can thank Marvin Miller as well. No sport would be as it is if not for him.

Tom C

There are also stories of players through the 1920's playing out west or in the minors because the pay could be better than in the majors.

But that wasn't the crux of my point and I think you know that.

If this kind of money went to doctors it would likely funnel some people to it that end up being really really good. People who would have, maybe, chosen something like baseball had it paid more.

If you enjoy great baseball, thank Marvin Miller. He helped that happen.

Tom C

There are not any career-contemporary cards of Miller based on my research...I did a lot of it at some point when I thought his HOF election was imminent. Its not anymore unless they decide to ignore his wishes. I'm still kind of shocked that the players involved in the HOF did not "go to bat for him" more.

Based on the Hall of Fame's definitions he clearly belongs. Also you can compare his accomplishments (like them or not) with the other HOFers who were not on-field contributors (or GMs) and he tops almost all of them. I mean the various commissioners and owners for the most part.

If you don't like his contributions that's another thing. In the history of MLB he is a giant like Judge Landis and few others. Incidentally, I don't particularly like a lot of what Judge Landis did but he indisputably belongs in the HOF.

Brian,

LOL, I actually HATE much (most?) of what Landis did and I definitely hate all of who he was as a person in terms of his racism, bigotry and whatnot. I also don't buy the different times excuse for him or anyone else too much. But that's a different discussion. In any event, it is hard to disagree with your assessment of Landis as belonging in the HOF, although I would very much like to.

Thank you for the "contemporary card research" response. While I appreciate the lively discussion about Miller's HOF merit (and by all means, let it continue), I truly was curious as to his earliest appearance on cardboard - which seems to be 1994 (commercially distributed). As a HOF collector, my goal is to acquire a card of ALL MEMBERS, whether I agree with their selection or not. And contemporary with their active career, if possible. That's my "set."

One thought. Perhaps there are postcards out there? No idea, but they are gaining cache as rookie cards now. Perhaps there is a career contemporary one floating around out there somewhere.

Tom C

Yeah, a contemporary PC would certainly be desirable.

No thanks. He ruined the game for me. 1 small market team has won a championship in the last 25 years. So, for the fans of that bottom third of teams, he is the devil along with his disciple Donald Fehr. I would like for the team I root for to have a chance, but I doubt I will see another championship in my lifetime. Baseball's popularity peaked in the 70s and has been declining ever since. In my opinion this is why. It is hard to invest much in the game when your team has no chance to win.

Donald Fehr is responsible for steroids. He blocked the testing. The problem with Miller/Fehr isn't that they fought for the players. The problem was their tactic of "burnt earth" to destroy the owners and in turn fans and the game. We were their enemies, don't expect me to support someone who has shown nothing but hatred for the fans. Baseball used to be the #1 sport. Now it is #3 behind NFL and NBA. Destroying the national pastime is not a reason for induction to the HOF. Bud Selig was the worst selection for the HoF. Marvin Miller would be even worse.

I think it would better for players if they didn't make so much money. Look at Stanton. He's entombed in Florida because of how much money he's making. And even if his team is able to trade him, it'll never get anything back, thus having a negative effect on the quality of baseball being played.

I guess if the money is such a prison for him he could give some of it back for freedom :)

Sorry, but the evidence doesn't support your claim. Below are the attendance figures for the NL and AL each year from 1970 through 2017, from Baseball-reference.com. Total MLB attendance this year was 67% more than in 1979, and per-game attendance was 44% more. Per-game attendance this year was more than twice as much as in 1970. By any objective measure, baseball is a lot more popular now than it was in the 1970s, which was itself a decade of tremendous growth for the sport. It has been that growth, especially the exponential growth of TV money flooding into the owners' coffers over the past 40 years, that has been the primary driver of the huge increases in players' salaries. Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr merely helped the players get a larger share of that flood of cash than they would have otherwise received.

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/g...14.14%20PM.png

Thanks for the chart David! I don't think "evidence" is going to work on the anti- Miller crowd though. Couple things I noticed. About 3,000 people per game prefer not having a DH. And since about 1980 the average MLB game has out drawn the 2017 "LA" Chargers.

Attendance
 

It appears that attendance peaked in 1993 and 1994, dropped precipitously in 1995, and then took almost ten years to recover. I wonder what the reason for that might have been.

They did not kill the sport this argument is FALSE.
 

Does anyone have the number of different champs in each sport over the last say 25 years. it seems Football and Basketball have as much of a problem if not worse than baseball of the same team(s) winning all the time. As a pirate fan I refuse to use the we have no money as an excuse not when we had a decent run, Oakland is often competitive, Kansas City has been a contender lately. Pretending small markets have no shot just is not true. Of course there are years when certain ones have no shot but there are always teams in every sport you can say this about. If the biggest spender was automatically the winner why even play the games? Just give it to the team that spent the most money.
Even though I have been a business owner most of my life I will never turn my back on the working man ( My father worked 6-7 days a week 10-12 hours a day in a steel mill to provide for our family I have seen hard physical work. Then I saw how his company treated him and his fellow workers. No loyalty and they decreased all the workers wages while company profits increased as did the salaries of the big whigs. Players are one of the few laborers with any leverage and i will always support them for using that leverage.

They only played part of a season in 1994. The 1995 season bore the brunt of that. They lost me at that time too. I don't think they cared though.

What about TV ratings? Attendance is a very small part of popularity, many more people watch games by TV. If MLB is so popular, then why are the World Series ratings so poor? 2012 7.6 12.6 million, 2013 8.9 15 million, 2014 8.2 13.9 million, 2015 8.6 14.5 million. Even with a historic WS in 2016 12.9 22.8 million. In 1978, the World Series had a 32.8 rating and 44.2 million views. Do you really think a few thousand more people going to games is more reflective of baseball's popularity than losing roughly 30 million fans watching the most important games of the year? The general population doesn't care about baseball like it used to.

Let's compare that to the NFL. The highest rated Super Bowl in the 70s was 1978 47.2, 79 million. Last year 45.3 111 million viewers. If this year's game only draws 30 million viewers, would you say that the NFL is still growing in popularity? Those raw attendance numbers tell us very little. I would like to see how many fans are attending games vs. corporate sales for business just using the game as a write off. The average fan cannot afford to go to many games. I would like for you to tell me why those average fans don't care to watch the game anymore.

And how many championships did the St Louis Browns win back in the good old days?

Again I must ask how he or Fehr destroyed the game? Changed it? Sure. But there is more money in the game for everyone than there ever has been. Attendance is stronger than ever. The talent level has never been better. By no objective metric has the game been "destroyed".

Speaking as a fan of the Pirates, I will tell you that postseason appearances has far more to do with decision making within a front office than it does money. Money guarantees merely the opportunity to make expensive mistakes and thus take larger risks.

Tom C

You can always cherry pick one particular team, I am talking about the bottom 10. If you don't think that a 248 million dollar payroll vs. 96 million doesn't make all the difference, then there is no reason to continue this discussion. The inbalance that the MLBPA caused is absurd. I'm still waiting for someone to answer where the 30 million viewers went and why they have quit watching? Is it just a coincidence that the decline started soon after free agency started?

A football team plays what? 20 games per season at most? Add up all those numbers for all of those teams versus the numbers for all MLB teams for their 162 game regular season plus their postseason. Get back to me when you see which one is higher.

Tom C

Well, for one thing, leaving aside that you cherry-picked the most highly rated World Series ever from 1978 as your comparison point, there are several reasons why that event might be less watched on TV than before that do not have anything to do with baseball's overall popularity. First, in 1978 baseball was far less available to watch all season--now you basically can watch all 162 games of any team you wish, such that the World Series is less of an "event" for TV viewing. It would be more relevant if you could show that total viewership of baseball games overall has dropped, which you have not. Second, interleague play takes away the mystique of watching the best of two leagues, again, something that wasn't around in 1978. Third and similarly, there are more postseason games-- one wonders why if the game is supposedly less popular. Fourth, many people watch the games on devices now, which are not accurately captured (if at all) when evaluating "ratings". Fifth and similarly, the proliferation of sports bars this century has greatly increased viewership on fewer sets, and although Neilson now tries to capture this, its ratings system has not thus far.

In sum, your premise that baseball is not as popular has not been proven (at least by you), and is misleading in that it both fails to account for overall viewership of all baseball games, and instead focuses on a vastly different technological time.

EDITED To add that Neilson WS ratings, at least in large measure, examine the number of metered televisions that are watching the targeted event as opposed to other programming. Because the average television viewer now likely has anywhere between 150-250 more channels available to watch then s/he did in 1978, there is far less of a captive audience than in the past. There were large parts of the country that lacked even basic cable then, leaving many viewers with three main networks (one of which had its normal programming pre-empted by the game), maybe an educational or public service station and the odd independent channel or two. In sum, look at what the choices were back in the 70's and early 80's and compare them to where we have progressed since.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but if the alternative to free agency is the former system which locked players to one team, and frequently a losing franchise (Ernie Banks), and forced them to accept contracts dictated by owners, then I would have to say the current system is preferable regardless of its other consequences.

I can't help but find it pretty confusing when people say Miller should be in for his contributions, which essentially boil down to free agency, without saying Curt Flood should be in before him. Flood actually lost something. Miller's contributions didn't cost him a thing.

I was born and raised in St Louis. Attended my first World Series in 1964 there. They had some fine teams in the 60s. I remember how sad I was when the Cardinals traded Flood. I think we got him from the Reds. His post baseball story is a fairly sad one

As I recall Musial' highest salary was $ 100,000 in 1958. That came after 7 years with no salary increase. In 1960 I think he took a $20,000 pay cut. By contrast Pujols eventually got more money per game than Musial per season. But at least Musial was treated as a icon for the remainder of his life in St Louis. Truly a great person as well as a great player

I get the argument both ways, but think Miller and Flood were both inevitable.

Inevitable or not though you can't deny Flood lost his career. I think he deserves a lot more recognition than he gets.

PS while Stan made his 100K in 1958 the average American made under 5K. I don't think he was hurting for cash.

Flood is certainly an interesting case, as not only was he the sacrificial lamb for the cause to get rid of the reserve clause, but he also was a pretty darn good player for over a decade. He likely would have gotten to 2,500 hits had his career taken a normal trajectory.

I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive in terms of HOF discussion. Flood was the opening salvo and the unsuccessful martyr to something greater than himself. Without him, Miller likely would have eventually gotten what he was looking for. It just would have taken a bit longer perhaps.

As I said, I am certainly open to discussing the merits of Flood for the Hall in some capacity. But to me, without Miller, Flood is a moot point. Without Flood, Miller likely still gets it done eventually.

Tom C

Miller was the driving/organizing force, intellectually and financially, behind the MLBPA's sponsorship of Flood's free agency lawsuit. But free agency wasn't the only Miller contribution. He took over a sham union that was being run, illegally, by owners' stooges and money, and turned it into a legitimate bargaining force for the players. He has had more effect on the game than any executive. And I love him for making it possible for the Yankees to sign Reggie and Goose in the Bronx Zoo days. Gave me some of the best memories of my childhood. Plus he was in full agreement with the expansion of baseball cards beyond Topps; that alone qualifies him in my eyes.

As for the effects of free agency and a strong union...I am supposed to feel bad because a few billionaires and large corporations don't get to suck up all the proceeds from a very profitable business and have to pay their employees a market wage instead under threat that the employees will quit and go elsewhere? Boo-friggedy-hoo; I cry for the plutocrats. You are living in Fantasyland if you think the sudden end of the MLBPA and free agency would result in a lower cost to attend the game. When has any large business ever passed on reduced costs to its customers when they are willing to pay more for the product? I don't go to baseball games any more because I don't think they are a good entertainment value, but millions do, happily. If that changes the economics of the game may change. That's called a 'market'; preventing workers from leaving their jobs for better ones is a distortion of the labor market.

I wish there was a union like the MLBPA for my wife's job. She just put in an 80 hour week at a job that has given her only one 2% COLA bump over the last five years, while making record profits and having a soaring stock price, and raising our contribution to health insurance every year.

Yes. All of this.

I would also add that Miller got former players a pension that they never would have received without him. I am guessing those guys should have just been shit out of luck?

Tom C

Miller and Flood
 

Tom:

You seem to be under the impression that it is somehow in the interest of the public (specifically, the fans) to elevate the status of the players from the top 1%, which it has been for the last 120 years, to the top 0.01%, or 0.001%, or as high into the stratosphere as they can possibly attain. And if they have to go on strike, or do whatever else they need to do, good for them, because the end justifies the means.

I, on the other hand, believe that they have been handsomely and adequately compensated for longer than any living person has been alive. As Lawrence Ritter famously and correctly noted in his great book, describing the players of the Deadball Era, "All these were honored in their generations, and were the glory of their times." I doubt that a single one of them would have traded his career for any other. I therefore believe that it is their ancillary duty to respect and support the fans who follow them, and it is by extension the duty of the Hall of Fame to honor those individuals who have contributed to this process. That would exclude Marvin Miller, whose sole interest was to strengthen the power of the MLBPA. The welfare of the fans was not his interest, nor his problem.

Curt Flood was an outfielder who had 83 RBI's in his best season. Del Ennis, whose career overlapped Flood's, drove in over 100 runs in seven different years. If Del Ennis was not good enough, neither was Curt Flood.

George

Curt Flood's case would be as a contributor, not a player. It's not about stats. His induction would be about what he gave up and what other players gained.