what M. Donald Grant told Seaver was that it wasn't "healthy" for someone so young to be making that much money

MUCH healthier for M donald to keep it for his own self.

yep

but i have read the line about M Donald and the country club business in more than a few places

Management looking at labor with contempt is pretty much the norm in most industries. Even now.

Trying to compare this to how slaveowners treated slaves is either just incredible hyperbole or a complete lack of understanding of the slavery. In either case trying to make this comparison just weakens Gray's argument and makes her look foolish.

The minimum salary 50 years ago was $6,000, just as it had been at the end of the World War II.

[scratches head]

i have a complete lack of understanding of slavery?????!!!!!!!

be serious dude.

besides that, the point is that the ones in power try to get something for nothing from the work of others and look on the others as so much expendable trash. you might say, unchristian.

i have a complete lack of understanding of slavery?????!!!!!!!

be serious dude.

I am being serious.

haven

ok there dude

do, please, explain slavery to me. i would very much like to hear what you have to say

Oh lawdy, I see the S1W's marching down the street towards Primer Ave right now.

[Stops playing piano. Picks up sheet music and makes a quick exit out of the saloon.]

[Stops playing piano. Picks up sheet music and makes a quick exit out of the saloon.]

RDF. RDF'nF.

[Grabs his beer, finishes it off in one gulp, and follows Craig out the door.]

The minimum salary 50 years ago was $6,000, just as it had been at the end of the World War II.

[scratches head]

The dates are off, but here's the key info:

In 1947, the minimum salary in major league baseball was $6000.
In 1967, before the formation of the union, the minimum salary in major league baseball was $6000.

Real wages at the bottom of the MLB payscale, then, dropped by over 50% during the twenty years before the formation of the union.

[Flips table over on side, cowers behind it.]

Cue Ennio Morricone score.

The dates are off, but here's the key info

whoops, I misread that myself. I thought it said 60 years instead of 50, which made me think "so, wages in 1947 were the same as the wages in ... 1945". Thanks for the info.

haven,

she admits in the article that slavery is an imperfect analogy, but it is not a wildly inappropriate analogy for owner-player relations under the reserve clause. Of course, the players could leave their slavery if they chose not to play major league baseball but, if a player wished to continue his career, then he was essentially the owner's property: He could play only for that franchise unless the franchise chose to trade, sell, or release him; and he had to play for whatever the owner wanted to pay him.

If this discussion becomes about race and discrimination rather than about whether or not Marvin Miller should have been voted into the HOF by the veterans committee, the author has only herself to "blame". It certainly does seem that race and discrimination are the main theme here, not Marvin Miller.

And I do happen to agree that the analogy comparing the "plight" of pre Marvin Miller professional baseball players diminishes the horror that was slavery in this country. It was a poor choice.

A little reading comprehension is in order here.

Lisa does not say the players were treated exactly as slaves.

She says that the attitude of the owners to the players was similar to the attitude of the slaveowners to the slave -- contempt, because they are different, they are less than us.

Now this is not the same thing as the slaveowners' belief that slaves were not only less than them, but less than human. But it is along the lines of the belief that the players were a lesser class of humanity.

Lisa does not say the players were treated exactly as slaves.

Besides, it's not as if Lisa is the first one to have used this analogy before.

srul

thank you. that is EXACTLY what i was trying to say.

i will be SERIOUSLY disappointed if this discussion turns into another race/discrimination thread. so please, lets not.

i suppose i could have used the examples of how there were - no jews allowed - signs and quotas on jews allowed to get into colleges before WW2. how the jews were "those people" to the ruling WASPS right here in this here country. how there were "no jews" rules for country clubs. how there was wasp flight when the jews moved in.

but then i guess it would be getting into more unfortunate/depressing discussions of how "christians" are actually the REAL "those people"

but then i guess it would be getting into more unfortunate/depressing discussions of how "christians" are actually the REAL "those people"

To an extent, perhaps, at BTF. In many environs, however, that sword cuts the opposite way.

Making an analogy doesn't diminish anything, it's merely a rhetorical device.

robin,

yeah, i know.

- sigh

which is what i meant about how everybody unfortunately got a "those people" to kick around... and the people who are "those people" are sometimes the exact same people who are "those people" the group doing it to them.

what i am trying to say is that we are all humans and we SHOULD be looking to treat each other with respect, not disrespect

what i am trying to say is that we are all humans and we SHOULD be looking to treat each other with respect, not disrespect

Indeed. BTW, wanted to say Happy Holidays to you and the family. How old is your son now? Didn't you say he is a big kid with great reflexes? ;-)

robin,

happy holidays to you too!!!

twins are 5 1/2 and da bull is 4. da bull is a VERY big kid - think frank thomas kind of build. but he only likes to HIT the ball offn a T and dang that ball go a LONG way when he hits it. he doesn't want to throw the ball or have to actually run after it and catch it. or go get it when he hits it - thats what barry lamar dog and dog pappas are for.

twins are built like barry lamar before, uh, workouts - yeah, workouts. thats the ticket.

it is my NIECE who is seriously wanting to play baseball. well, she gonna play little league this year. they can't not let her play. i guess it is time she learn what misogyny is all about. pretty sad. sigh

It is a shame that Miller didn't make it, but I don't know why Lisa chose to take this article in the direction she did, rather than just call it what it was: raw spite carried out after the composition of the voting body was changed radically. She did touch on that to a degree, but I don't see what it had to do with Tom Seaver or drinking fountains. Last year when the VC voting was open to all living HOFers, Miller almost made it, outpolling Kuhn by something like 65% to 17%. Maybe the owners viewed the players as 'those people,' but is that how they see Miller? I don't think so. I think it's safe to say he is more educated and more cultured than most of them, and they know it. They certainly don't view Miller as being beneath them; they just resent him for getter the better of them time after time.

Maybe the owners viewed the players as 'those people,' but is that how they see Miller?

I'm not sure how they view Miller now, but when he was active the owners very clearly viewed him as one of "those people." Generally he wasn't even referred to by name among the owners, but instead simply as "that gimpy-armed Jew bastard." Phillies' owner Bob Carpenter's summation of Miller was "that plebian socialist."

The owners didn't merely resent Miller, they feared him and hated him, quite beyond any rational basis. It was the essence of class-oriented prejudice.

Generally he wasn't even referred to by name among the owners, but instead simply as "that gimpy-armed Jew bastard." Phillies' owner Bob Carpenter's summation of Miller was "that plebian socialist."

not to mention"moustachioed four-flusher" (Paul Richards)

however,

i most CERTAINLY did call it raw spite. well, actually, i called it petty revenge.

and you best believe that the owners detested miller. you know he was one of them rabble rousing dirty jews, right? you know, like the kind went down south to get all them nigs registered to vote sayin Those People should have rights - what do they think Those People are? PEOPLE????

miller WAS more educated than most of the owners. but he wasn't rich, upper class etc. and you best believe that educated and class don't mean diddly to, shall we say, Those People...

hehhehheh

edit:

geez i shoulda read steve's post first

Below are the 12 people responsible for voting in Bowie Kuhn over Marvin Miller:

Monte Irvin, Harmon Killebrew, Bobby Brown, John Harrington (Red Sox), Jerry Bell (Twins), Bill DeWitt (Cardinals), Bill Giles (Phillies), David Glass (Royals), Andy MacPhail (Orioles), Paul Hagen (Philadelphia Daily News), Rick Hummel (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), and Hal McCoy (Dayton Daily News).

Ten voted for Kuhn; three for Miller. Are you going to ascribe the motives of classism and apparent anti-Semitism previously cited to the people listed above? If not, then the analogy falls apart. It's a group of twelve people disproportionately represented by owners/management who for one reason or several deemed Kuhn worthy (in the year that he died), and Miller not. Adversaries call each other names all the time; I'm sure the owners did the same to each other. Mere name-calling does not make this a class issue.

I am surprised Miller didn't get more support from the writers. I assume his three votes came from the two players and one of the writers.

I assume his three votes came from the two players and one of the writers.

I'm not so sure. Irvin was already retired before Miller came along, and for purposes of this vote probably could be considered more 'management' than 'player', while Killebrew was already an established star at the top of the payscale. I'd guess either ALL 3 votes for Miller were from the writers, or maybe 2 writers plus Killebrew.

Not only was Irvin retired when MIller came around, but he was special assistant to MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

The NBA's de facto one-year-of-college rule is closer to slavery than anything baseball has to deal with.

and mccoy is an old guy who thinks the players are overpaid and greedy

no one has EVER explained to me why they think that the owners should get most of the profit and the players virtually none. seeing as how there are a WHOLE lot of people that really think that even ML minimum is WAAAAAAAAAAYYYY overpaid

- smileyy

i know exactly ZERO about the NBA or the rules of it and dragging that serves WHAT purpose?

I'm sure the owners did the same to each other. Mere name-calling does not make this a class issue.


Don't you think the tribalist bent to their name calling is a telling fact?

Don't you think the tribalist bent to their name calling is a telling fact?

Maybe 40 years ago. That says nothing about the nine who didn't vote for him this year. I think a conflation is being made that isn't there. I don't think these people sat down and said, "A vote for Miller is a vote for uppity, greedy ballplayers." If the voting body had been 100% players, I doubt O'Malley or Kuhn would have made it, but that wouldn't make them an evil cabal. In other words, it's not fundamentally a moral issue. It's just a bunch of stuff that happened.

Re: Killebrew, he pretty much came out and said he voted for Miller. I don't know about anyone else.