Marvin Miller Dies
 

Marvin Miller, the man who changed the face of baseball dies. He was never voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Marvin Miller, the first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, dead at 95 after year-long battle with cancer - NY Daily News

RIP - Marvin

Ushering in the era of "free agency" in baseball certainly changed the game. I will have to let history decide if it changed for the better or worse. Certainly allowing players to seek compensation in a free market was a good thing. Allowing the richest teams to get the best players probably resulted in much higher ticket prices, less competition, etc.

This statement is very telling:


Said Tom Seaver: "It's sad if people allowed their personal feelings to override the historical importance and the magnitude of Marvin and the impact he had on the game."


Love him or hate him. He had a very big impact on the game. Intelligence wise, I thought he was head and shoulders above the owners who gave into arbitration that led to changing the face of baseball.

I am conflicted as I loved when the game was all about the competion and score rather than listening to the legal jargon in contracts affecting the issues of the game. It's sad when players problems dominate the news coverage more than the games themselves.

Yes, he changed baseball and possibly should be in the HOF. But, I question whether it was for the good. Because of him, players are getting millions of $ for playing a kid's game. Nobody is worth even $1,000,000 a year to play MLB.

Also, we the fans are having to pay large amounts of $ to see a game.

I still support baseball and go to 30+ MLB games a year, but I am disgusted with the MLB salary structure.....

My wife used to get very upset at the salary that Reggie Jackson was making. I asked her if she would spend $1.00 to make $2.00. She said she would. I then asked her if she would spend one million dollars to make 2 million dollars. She said no. I tried to explain that it was the same thing, but she didn't get it. No one forces the owners to pay these salaries. This is the free market at work. I would've had hated it if I wasn't able to change jobs for a better salary when I was working. But, as you pointed out, these salaries have made it so that many of the seats at many stadiums are corporate owned. The cost to take a family to a baseball game is getting crazy. But, like you I am still a fan.

Before arbitration, players were treated badly, (like a slave according to Curt Flood), by the owners. If you didn't accept the salary offered, they didn't care if you had to drive a truck for the money you needed to support your family.

The story of Ralph Kiner wanting a $10,000 a year raise and the owners wanted to give him significantly less. They asked him why and he said he hit 51 homers that year. They asked him what place did we finish last year. He repied "last".

They replied, we can finish last without you.

I don't like the prices to go see a game and as always, the fan winds up paying but then nobody is going to pay to see a carpenter drive nails into a board. The ballplayers consider themselves entertainers.