Miller, Marvin

Described by legendary sportswriter Red Barber as “one of the three more important men in baseball history” along with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, Miller was considered by author Studs Turkel as “the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis.” A member of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (in Commack, New York), Marvin is one of the most influential people in American sports history. Baseball’s first labor leader, Miller led the MLB Player Association from 1966-1982 and helped players win the right to free agency.

Both Sport Magazine (in 1986) and Sports Illustrated (1994) ranked Miller among the 40 most influential people in sports – Sport did not have numbered rankings, while SI ranked Miller No. 7, ahead of such luminaries as Larry Bird/Magic Johnson (No. 8), Arnold Palmer (No.9), Wayne Gretsky (No. 12), and Pete Rozelle (No. 13). During Marvin’s tenure, major league players saw their minimum salary jump from $6,000 to $33,500, while the average salary rose from $19,000 to over $240,000. Maligned by owners and even by some fans for leading the players on strikes in 1972 (13 days) and 1981 (50 days), Miller nevertheless won every single legal and negotiating conflict he ever had with the Lords of Baseball. He was, as one player put it, “our Whitey Ford.” Marvin should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in the coming years.

Birth and Death Dates:
b. April 14, 1917

Career Highlights:
Miller was born in the Bronx, where his father was a salesman of women’s coats on the Lower East Side of New York. Young Marvin saw him on the picket lines when the workers organized. Miller said that as a child, he “enjoyed the regular paid vacations, paid holidays and so on the union won for those people [workers].”

Miller himself became a union member at a young age and joined various local, state, and national unions before working for the labor movement in the private sector. He made a name for himself at the United Steelworkers of America and was a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s National Labor Movement Panel.

In 1966, he became the full-time first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Miller explained that he left the Steelworkers because, “…an election for the presidency in 1965 created a deep split. I was spending more and more of my time on political in-fighting than on representing the membership. In addition,” he added with characteristic dryness, “the players’ association had so little that you could not help but succeed.”

Despite the potential for success with baseball’s union, Miller found initial difficulties in working with baseball players because, “major league players had no work background at all. They played in the minor leagues and in school, but they didn’t have what we call real work experience, which meant they had no union background…” Nonetheless, Miller went straight to work and his straightforwardness was shown in his first meeting with the players when he told them he would not hire former Vice President and future President, Richard Nixon as the union’s legal counsel.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, baseball prospered financially, but the players’ salaries remained unchanged. In 1966, when Miller took over as labor boss, the players’ average salary was $19,000 (the minimum was $6,000) even as franchises became worth more and owners made more and more money. Free agency did not exist, so teams practically owned the players outright through the “reserve clause.” Over a ten-year period, Miller worked to end the “reserve clause” and gain the most valuable labor commodity any worker can hope for, the freedom to choose their employer.

On March 30, 1972, after six years on the job, Miller led the player’s union on baseball’s first-ever strike. While many people were convinced that Marvin had hoodwinked the players, sportswriter Red Barber wrote, “From time to time, owners and mouthpieces of the establishment have pictured Marvin Miller as a master pitchman who hypnotizes the players. The 663-10 vote in favor of a strike (by major league players) suggests that if the players aren’t in earnest, Miller has to be the glibbest con man this side of Soapy Smith.” The strike, which arose from a dispute over the expansion of players’ pension benefits, delayed the opening of the 1972 season for eight days, but the players won greater benefits when the strike ended on April 15.

Three years later, Miller and the players won another victory over management when they successfully challenged the notorious “reserve clause.” It said a team could renew the contract of an unsigned player for one season, but the teams insisted that the clause gave them the right to renew the player in perpetuity, each “one season” automatically becoming the next. Miller interpreted the clause as if it meant what it said: that if a player played under a “renewed” contract for that one season, he could then become a free agent. In 1975, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally tested this theory and were awarded free agency by arbitrator Peter Seitz. Major League Baseball twice appealed the decision in federal court, but Miller’s interpretation was upheld, decisively.

The decision radically changed baseball. While many in management believed free agency would be the end of baseball, the game instead continued to thrive and expand. Despite the growing prosperity of the game, the owners attempted to roll back the clock on some of the players’ new-found freedoms, and Miller found himself leading the union in another strike in 1981 over a contract negotiation. This strike lasted 50 days and took away 706 games, 38% of the season. It was not just strikes that Miller used, however, as he also compromised many times with the owners.

Miller retired as labor leader in 1982 and although he briefly returned the following year, he retired for good in 1984. Since then, he has remained in an advisory position to baseball’s union, now led by Marvin’s protégé, Donald Fehr.

Career Dates:
1966-1984

Position:
Leader of Players Union

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