Marvin Miller cards?

[George]

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.

[scott6649]

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?

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by scott6649

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.

[George]

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.

[scott6649]

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.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by George

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.

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

[mattsey9]

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.

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

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

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

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by Huysmans

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.

[packs]

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.

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

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

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

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

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

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.