Alex and Bobby wade into the discourse about whose fault a potential delay to the season would be, and whether or not fans have any right to to feel entitled to the 2022 season starting on time. Then, they’re joined by Emma Baccellieri of Sports Illustrated to discuss her piece on The Players’ League, an 1890 National League spinoff that was run like a co-op amongst professional baseball players.
Read Emma’s Players’ League story here
Songs featured in this episode:
Gary U.S. Bonds — “New Orleans” • Hank Williams, Drifting Cowboys — “Take These Chains From My Heart” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
[INTRO MUSIC]
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and, and and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People at home understand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about. It’s amazing. That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, as we sit here to record this, 49 days have passed since the MLB lockout began. I think I’m doing that math, right? 31 days in December, we’re recording this on January 18th. It’s gotta be 49, 30 days–
ALEX: Can’t come up.
BOBBY: –half September. That’s not what, no, no, you could keep doing that. How did you remember how many days were in each month? Were you just kind of like, you remembered it, or did you have to do the knuckles thing? Or did you have to say that whole phrase every time–
ALEX: It was that whole phrase every time. I still do that today, 30, 30 days in September, April, June, November 31.
BOBBY: Can you just remember how many days there are. As someone who has of–
ALEX: You know I don’t have enough space in my brain to remember whether–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –it’s 30 was 31 days.
BOBBY: But as someone who has a 31st day birthday, I’ve always felt a certain affinity for 31-day months. So I always remember which ones there are, you know, like, people don’t know that my birthday is a day. Because the 31st day of a month that they always–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –assume has 30 days.
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: It’s a whole joke in parks and recreation about how April schedules all of Ron’s meetings on March 31st. Because she thought it was a fake day, and he wouldn’t have to actually do the meetings.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, as someone as a, as a day 5, 5th–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –5th day–
BOBBY: Your your birthday–
ALEX: –birthday-
BOBBY: –privileges showing.
ALEX: It it really is, so I’m sorry. I will I will, notes notes apology to come shortly. I’ll spend some time thinking and reflecting again, and back to everyone.
BOBBY: Yes, exactly. Please tweet us from the Tipping Pitches account with no context. Anyway. 49 days have passed. And I received an email in my inbox this morning from mlb.com Insider. You know, some sign up for these things because I buy tickets, sometimes I have an MLB At Bat account all these and get these promotional emails and today’s promotional email said, “The candy NFT marketplace is now open.” No other explanation, it just says, “Candy marketplace, open now”. It’s an, it’s an image with a hyperlink on it. Now you imagine you’re the average MLB fan. You’re 63 or whatever age the average fan is now and you just receive an email that says, “The candy NFT marketplace is now open”. Like that’s, that’s borderline elder abuse to send that email to your whole LISTSERV.
ALEX: Right. They did know what that is [2:50]–
BOBBY: –[2:50] I don’t even know what that is.
ALEX: Wow, Cracker Jack is really making some changes to their product. Like, what?
BOBBY: I think that it’s just that, that’s just what they named the marketplace, Candy, Candy marketplace. It doesn’t really make any sense to me. But I mean, this is Baseball without players for 49 days. So what’s going to happen another 49 days? Pick what, what are they going to start emailing about? Like, hello, I need money to get my family back to the United States from mlb.com/insider.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: I can pay you back threefold.
ALEX: I am a, I am a wealthy foreign national who can make you very rich. If you can simply wire me $1 million right now.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Please don’t ask any questions. Alex, we have a great episode in store. For our listeners. We’re going to talk to Emma Baccellieri, writer at Sports Illustrated, former guests of Tipping Pitches about her article for Sports Illustrated about the Players’ League. Which was a break-off league from the National League in 1890. We’re going to talk a little bit up top about the discourse, the CBA discourse. And then I have a very important burning question for you. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[4:13]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, last week, we drafted the least terrible Owners in Major League Baseball. Thank you to Jake Mintz, and Jordan Shusterman. for participating in that exercise. I still feel pretty good about our team. I put out a poll on Spotify, which is a feature that you can do on that app. To see whether our listeners thought that we won or Jake and Jordan won. Now obviously this is a, this is a partisan poll, because we’re posting it’s our podcast taking how you will. But we got 58, 58% of the vote at time of recording. That’s pretty good. That’s that’s a good margin, that’s a landslide victory, electorally.
ALEX: Well, I just went in and gave us a vote. So we’re at 59% now.
BOBBY: Oh my God, that’s rigged. You’re rigging the election. Are you allowed to do that?
ALEX: We all get one vote, stop the count.
BOBBY: Stop the count right now. And that got me thinking, I earnestly want to ask you this question. And I don’t want you to answer it as if you’re Alex Bazeley. I don’t want you to answer it as a co host of Tipping Pitches. I want you to answer is as if you are–
ALEX: [5:24] really hard, I have some bad news for you.
BOBBY: The both you are those things. I want you to answer as if you’re like an alien come down to earth. And you just get to observe this financial system of Baseball. What do Owners add? Because I got to thinking last week after we did all that research on Owners, and what they do and how they got their money, and, and I just kept coming back to the fact that like, none of it really changes how any of the teams operate. Like none of their wealth, none of how they made their money, none of their personalities, none of that stuff really changes anything. So earnestly, I want to ask you, as someone who has to exist in a baseball landscape, where, where everybody is like, yes, Owners are a necessary evil, why? If you were to be as charitable as possible to the billionaires that run the sport.
ALEX: Because ultimately, the sport needs capital? And I mean, perhaps a a little bit cynically, wherever there is labor, there is someone there who is going to exploit that or try and extract that labor. But even even from a less leftist perspective, baseball teams, Baseball is an enterprise it’s incredibly costly. And so there, I suppose there has to be someone in there who’s willing to foot the bill. Now, nowhere does it say it has to be one person who’s worth $5 billion, who owns the, who owns the whole team who has to underwrite all the operations. I think there are different models for it, but the only thing I can think of truly is someone has to pay the players, someone has to pay the concessions workers, someone has to buy the hotdogs and and, you know, do deals, right? Someone’s got to do deals ultimately, at the end of the day.
BOBBY: Oh, man.
ALEX: Am, am I wrong?
BOBBY: I really enjoyed watching you squirm while trying to answer that question. So so then the implication then is that, Owners are the liaison between, like banks and baseball, then right. Because the Owners are not ponying up their own personal cash to buy these teams, with the exception of maybe Steve Cohen, who we talked about last week, put it on his AMEX. But like most Owners are not moving money from one fund to another, from one account to another account to buy these teams by taking out a loan. So the capital in late capitalism is typically coming from like, Wall Street, financial hedge funds, banks, that kind of thing. It’s all kind of centralized in a way. I guess, I’m just curious, because the reason that I asked this question is, we’re going to talk to Emma later in this episode. And it actually kind of was like you’re describing back in the day, you know, and it’s not really like that anymore. So so–
ALEX: With with regards to–
BOBBY: –what you’re, what you’re describing, so what you’re describing, then, is that the implication is that, these banks only give these loans. Because they trust the billionaire at the helm of the organization, then, so I have that straight. Like they wouldn’t just give it to, they wouldn’t give a $4 billion loan to Bazeley-Wagner Productions LLC to buy the Mets. Even though if we bought the Mets and just left everything unchanged. It’s not like the organization would go under.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Right?
ALEX: Right. Yeah, I mean, I think there’s something to be said for keeping wealth in the hands of the wealthy.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: And recognizing that, you know, overall, there is a small circle of people who would really be considered to own a baseball team. And that has to do with the money that they inherited, or the the business that their great grandpa founded in 1790. Or the connections that they’ve made today. How many degrees removed they are from Jeffrey Epstein. Like all these things, factor in, right? But but they are the people who bank Executives are are rubbing shoulders with. Who Rob Manfred is running shoulders with, who the other Owners are rubbing shoulders with, right? Because you need everyone on the same page. You can’t have someone like us to come in and say–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –fuck it! Throw caution to the wind.
BOBBY: All I’m trying to say is I got a pretty good credit score, man. Why can’t I get a $4 billion loan to buy the Mets?
ALEX: That’s so true. I’m maybe–
BOBBY: [10:10]
ALEX: –the one that drags you down.
BOBBY: Well, we’re doing it with the LLC so that [10:16]–
ALEX: Do we got [10:16]–
BOBBY: –that we paid off our debts. Okay, enough of that, I I was just curious, you know, little check in on the state of baseball ownership, seven days after last week’s episode as we we drafted the least terrible amongst them. One more thing that I wanted to get to, before we bring in Emma. I wanted to, I I wanted to just kind of talk a little bit about the state of discourse around the CBA. And we do this often we check in, but it’s been a little bit, it’s it’s been a little while since we talked about like a proposal back and forth, in a serious way. And the wider media’s reaction to it. And I wanted to talk to you about this, because, you know, there was some consternation on Twitter early last week, as we’re recording this, it was just one day ago. But as you’re listening to this a week ago. About who’s really at fault in these labor negotiations, and what each side can really do. And I think that, you know, something that I’ve been thinking a lot about, since we talked to Adam Johnson. Aside from like, the opening of the show was kind of relevant to what we talked about with Adam Johnson to where he was like, why do Owners exist? You could put two Deloitte Executives in a trench coat or two McKinsey Executives at a trench coat. And they would basically do the same thing that Owners do. But thinking about media literacy, as it comes to collective bargaining and how most of the people talking about this, don’t have experience with collective bargaining. Have never been meaningfully taught what it means to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. And because of that, it just opens up a lot of windows for the wrong kind of fan discourse around it. Where it’s like, if one person shares one lazy take to a lot of followers, then it just like, it adds fuel to the fire of the people who already are ready, chomping at the bit to be like, oh, this is ruining my Baseball experience. Do you know what I mean? Like the baseball fans who are like, I wish I didn’t have to be inconvenienced by this. Are then given carte blanche to be like this is inconveniencing me. Because they don’t really understand how the process is working. And they don’t understand that as fans as consumers, they’re not entitled to the labor negotiation. For whatever reason, in this country, we know we’re not entitled to the labor negotiation to be on the Owner side. Like nobody would ever be like, I think Walmart should propose this to their workers. But a lot of people feel–
ALEX: You would be surprised.
BOBBY: No, I mean, no one would be like, for the most part, no one would be like, Walmart is wrong for proposing X to its employees.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: But a lot of people feel, feel really free to be like, the workers should accept X. And the same dynamic plays out in the labor negotiations. Where it’s like, actually, it’s on the players to solve this problem, because we’ve already accepted and we’re ambivalent about the fact that the Owners are just gonna, like, do whatever they do, because they’re like shadowy billionaires.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it’s, you know, there are a couple things at play there, right? One is just the general decline in labor power in this country over the last like, half century. And and, you know, the fact that sports leagues have kind of remained a sort of bastion of labor struggle, in a sense, right. We’ve had a, you know, there has been, quote, unquote, “labor peace” for 25 years in Major League Baseball, but that’s, obviously has not been the case. There have been, there’s been many public fight. And that has existed and leagues elsewhere, too. So like, and that leads into the second point, which is that the athletes are the visible ones, right? They’re the ones who are out there on the field. And so it’s very easy to point to them and say, well, why are they in the back room, trying to hammer out a deal or potentially delay a season, when they should just get their act together and play. And really it like, it reveals just kind of a general lack of critical thinking skills.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, like, you–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –really only have to put yourself in the player shoes for two seconds to really understand what’s going on.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I I think, I think a broader, like you said, kind of illiteracy, lack of holistic understanding of what happens in the labor negotiation has led to this moment where we are right now. Where it’s very easy to just point at both sides, or point at the players at all, and say that this is on them, to get it together.
BOBBY: I just think that the capital side has had like, literally centuries to craft their arguments. against labor, and that do it effectively. And in the last 50 years, they’ve done an even better job of that, like, it’s been accelerated as, as you outlined, like labor is in a pretty bad spot in this country compared to where it was in the early 1900s, in the late 1800s. And so often, when fans are talking about like this consumer first division, they don’t even realize that they’re kind of union busting. Like they’re kind of undermining the the solidarity of the, the union that they’re talking about. And I don’t know, I I just find it very frustrating. And this is why like, when we were doing the CBA ABCs. One of the questions or, or even, or even when we’re talking about the state of labor in Baseball with Baumann like, and the question of what would you give up? Was brought up. I think a listener asked us this question. What would you feel comfortable giving up? I was like reticent to even answer that question. Because, you know, it’s not a good thing to do, like really opine about what a union should do, if you’re not in the union. Because you don’t understand the dynamics at the table, you don’t understand the different factors affecting each individual member, that sort of galvanized to affect the whole unit collectively. You don’t understand how militant different members are feeling at different times. You don’t understand how happy they are with their current conditions versus what they think that they can get at the table in this negotiation versus the next negotiation. Like there are so many things about union strategy that you should just not opine on. And I know that we opine on it from time to time. But that’s because we’ve spent so much time on this podcast, like trying to enact a vision of the sport that we love, that is actually like pro player, and in a roundabout way can come around and make Baseball a community that’s like a welcoming to all types of fans as well. And we balance those things. But like when you don’t do that, I don’t think that you should just be hopping on Twitter and sharing takes out what the union should be doing. Like they should be bargaining against themselves, which is stupid. Or they should be rolling over to the owners, which is unnecessary at this point. And not their obligation as a union.
ALEX: Yeah, definitely. I mean, this also dovetails with, like, you can’t divorce this conversation from the one we have about the product that’s being put on the field right now, you know. And there are plenty of decent enough faith, arguments about various aspects of the game today in 2022, right? About competition, about pace of play, about how we are watching the game evolve in front of our eyes, and whether or not we like the direction that it’s going in. And the players are making the same considerations as well. Like they are not there as well aware of the deepening divide in competitive teams as you are. Which is why it doesn’t make a ton of sense to out of one side of your mouth say, well, something has to be done about the competition in this league, and half the teams being noncompetitive. And then the other side of your mouth saying, I’ve got why, why the players and Owners can’t come to an agreement.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like that’s those statements are fundamentally at odds with each other.
BOBBY: Yes. Thank you for distilling that. Thank you. Because I just don’t fans are not entitled to this negotiation. There’s not and I know, that’s a hard pill for some fans to swallow, because they just feel like baseball should exist as this public institution. But guess what it doesn’t, we gave that up when we let Owners buy the teams. Like that is what we gave up. Seriously like that, like if Baseball is not municipally owned, then we don’t actually have a say in the fundamental economic structure. Like you, you can stop buying tickets if you want. And you can completely boycott it. But at that point, who are you serving? You’re you’re not really even sure what that is for. There is no political compass here to your frustration over not agreeing on a CBA. I don’t know, it’s, there are some problems that just can’t be solved in the wider baseball landscape through collective bargaining. And one of those things is how the sport generally treats its fans. Like that, that’s on the league, that’s on the Owners. The players are not like refusing to engage with fans. Like if anything, they’re going out of their way to try to make the sport better for fans.
ALEX: I mean, I ultimately, I think where I come down on is I think it’s more than okay, and frankly admirable to admit that you don’t necessarily know everything about the dynamics that are going on at the table right now. I certainly don’t, I don’t think you do either. Like you were just saying none of us really do. And that’s fine. And and frankly, we’re all learning. That’s why we did a three-part series on key elements that are being negotiated over right now, right? Because they are very thorny, and they’re tough to wade through and it’s it’s hard to tell what’s at stake for either side. It it’s okay to to want to learn more about these things.
BOBBY: Without you don’t your hands up.
ALEX: You don’t have to just tweet through it. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yes, I agree. And last thing I’ll say on this, and then we can bring Emma in is that, if you have a problem with how labor negotiations unfold, you don’t actually have a problem with unions, or how either side is handling anything. You just have a problem with capitalism. Like, capitalism is the reason that in the United States, we have labor unions and labor law and collective bargaining. Like that is, this is the only thing that governs other than labor laws, which are pretty minimal. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the whole fight for 15, that’s been going on for 15 years, and now actually should be like a fight for 25. But collective bargaining is kind of like the only avenue that these things can actually play out in. So if you want it to not play out like this, you also have to not want capitalism to exist. So people can kind of get over that tough.
ALEX: Tough pill to swallow among us.
BOBBY: All right, let’s bring in Emma. Like I said, at the top, she wrote an article titled, Solidarity and Betrayal: The Rise and Fall of the Players’ League. This is for Sports Illustrated, well, the link will be in the description. But essentially, it was about an 1889, a majority of the players in the National League, which was the main professional sports, baseball league, at the time, outside of the Negro Leagues, baseball was still segregated. A majority of those players left to form their own league. Which was at the time seen as radical, it seems even more radical now compared to where we’re at. And Emma wrote about the history of that, what went wrong, why it only lasted a year, and the challenges that the players were facing that kind of pushed them over the hump to want to even do something radical like this. So we wanted to talk to her about it, because obviously, it touches on a lot of interests that we have here on the show.
ALEX: Yeah, it is as relevant as ever, many of these issues persist today. And it was an example of players recognizing the power of their labor, right? This is, this is one of the catalysts for this is the introduction of the reserve clause, which is passed in secrecy, just a couple years prior. And that, among other things, like a, like effectively a salary cap, and a tiered system of paying players. Basically galvanized a majority of the game stars to get together and say, hey, maybe there’s a better way.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And they went out on their own. And, it’s a fascinating history lesson, to say the least even if its success at the time was minimal. It, it disbanded after a year.
BOBBY: It was a real fucked around and found-out moment for those Owners at the time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That they overstep their boundaries. But I don’t want to spoil too much of the conversation because Emma details it very well. And it’s a great conversation. So let’s get to that conversation with Emma Baccellieri of Sports Illustrated.
[22:54]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Okay, we are once again joined by Emma Baccellieri, writer at Sports Illustrated, now two-time Tipping Pitches guest. Hi, Emma, how are you?
EMMA: I’m good. How are you guys?
BOBBY: Doing okay. You wrote an article that set off the Tipping Pitches radar. It has solidarity is the first word of the headline, Solidarity and Betrayal: The Rise and Fall of the Players’ League and article for Sports Illustrated, which of course is in the link. The link is in the description of this podcast, if you have not read it and you’re listening at this point. It’s about the formation of the players league in the 1880s. And we wanted to talk to you about that, because it obviously comes at a time when a lot of people are talking about labor and solidarity and what it looks like to kind of divest from ownership or imagine a world without ownership. But first and foremost, I wanted to ask, what was the implication, like what got you thinking about the Players’ League is not something that we’re really always talking about in the context of modern labor landscape. Because so much has changed about the game and finance since then. So what really set off your radar for this story?
EMMA: Yeah, so the Players’ League, which was 1890s so yeah, far before anything with modern baseball was on the radar. Was something that I learned about a couple years ago, actually, I think when I was looking at baseball reference and saw this league pop up with really old players and and names and I clicked on it and was like, this is really interesting. I can’t believe I’ve never heard this before. And, like, went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, two in the morning and was like, oh my God, this is the coolest thing ever. A player led league like someone should write a book about this. And and then I looked it up and someone had written a book on it and I ordered the book and then kind of just forgot about it for a long time. And then this winter is kind of a perfect time to come back to it where it’s like, oh, like not only should you read that book, you should maybe read something about this yourself with this moment for just big questions about labor and about just envisioning what baseball can be. And what that relationship between players and owners looks like and has looked like in public like in the future. Like this was a seemed like kind of a perfect time to go back to it. So uhm, yeah, the book called the guy who wrote the book, who’s a professor at Point Park University. His name is Robert Ross, very good book, I recommend it and kind of just went from there.
ALEX: I imagine it’s a little harrowing. writing an article about anything that really happens pre internet, but like 1880-1890, as you said, That’s, especially for a topic that has, I think, relatively limited scholarship on it, right? As you mentioned, there’s a there’s a book or two about it. There’s a Wikipedia page, but by and large, I think it’s kind of–
BOBBY: John Thorn’s email address.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. But the walking Encyclopedia of Baseball. But, you know, by and large, I think it’s kind of something that, as you know, I think Bobby and I can attest to his escape to the minds of many modern baseball fans. So kind of what was this process of researching it like? And was there anything that kind of struck you as you were digging through it as you were digging through the dynamics of the the kind of player ownership battle? Anything that stuck out is particularly relevant today?
EMMA: Yeah, I mean, as you said, it is very hard to research. So two big things you said John Thorn’s email address, MLB’s Official Historian, for those who don’t know, who is a tremendous resource about literally anything. it’s crazy to me what he can bring up off the top of his head. And then the the one book that has been written about this, those were both like, phenomenal resources that I don’t think I could have written much about this [26:59]. And apart from that, you know, some digging in newspaper archives, although that was totally bodied and hard to figure out some things at the Hall of Fame. But really, a lot of it was John Thorn pointing me in the right direction. And then what was put together for the book that Rob Ross wrote. But I think the biggest thing that stood out to me in all of this was just how timeless a lot of these dynamics aren’t. And obviously, that’s not just Baseball, like I mean, timeless as a larger labor dynamics between workers and management. But it it really is remarkable to me how much of this when you’re looking at the moment that players decided to break away that the system or baseball they felt wasn’t tenable. In in terms of how owners or anything, they felt the owners didn’t care about the long term welfare of Baseball. They felt that, you know, they were being treated fundamentally unfairly, and that ownership was greedy. A lot of these statements certainly felt like they could have been made at any point until the reserve clause was eliminated after a Curt Flood. So that’s anytime for the next, you know, 70, 80 years. But a lot of the bigger, less specific things could be said right now. And that’s just really, really striking to me. How much of this is, you know, if not the same minute details, like this a minute sentiment and and just really how much of this has stayed the same for over 100 years.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: There was that, there was a quote that really stood out to me, right. It’s it’s it goes there was a time where the league stood for integrity and fair dealing. Today, it stands for dollars and cents, once it looked to the elevation of the game and an onyx ex–exhibition of the sport. Today, its eyes are upon the turnstile. Where–
BOBBY: Are you’re not reading the transcript of when Collin McHugh came on this podcast a year and a half ago.
ALEX: Right, was was that John Montgomery Ward in 1890, or the MLBPA last week? I don’t know.
EMMA: Right. There’s literally I think it was Evan Longoria that had an Instagram post that is like, almost word for word, the modern tweets of guy from 2020. The conversation about starting back up. but yeah, it’s crazy. Like that’s exactly what it is today.
BOBBY: I mean, I think it’s kind of humbling to see how little has changed. It’s like you could kind of read it one of two ways. Like it’s either humbling and like, you know, we know what the fight is going to be, right? Or it’s like kind of kind of like dark, because the, the more things change, the more they stay the same there are always these sort of existential threats facing baseball from you know, that financial system and how it’s chosen to run itself. If you can take us back a little bit through, through the how the Players’ League started and and for those listening who might not have read the article yet. What was sort of like the, the catalyst like the push that was like the players are? Have made the decision that they really think that this is their best course of action. Like how, how did they get so bad? Because I think for the modern listener, like for the modern baseball fan, they can’t imagine baseball players ever trying something like this. Because you know they are so much better compensated, even relative to the rest of society, then players were back in the 1880s and 90s.
EMMA: Yeah, it’s so like, while we’re talking about how timeless the sentiment is, the the details of what led them were very specific to the time. Very much had to deal with the fact that a players weren’t paid that much had pretty much no protections at all around being cut, around being treated. Which at the time was just referred to as being sold. Which, you know, had a very, like particular cultural-historical context that players really didn’t like. Just general working conditions, like you had to pay for your own uniform, and you had to launder your own uniform. You had to do like just all sorts of stuff around traveling, like there were no perks, no benefits. Like, really was kind of crummy working conditions. So players really dislike all of that. And and the big one was, this was actually shortly after the reserve clause had been installed. And that was something that players actually were initially kind of receptive to. Because there were no multi-year contracts originally, so players were very much living this like, year to year existence. Where it’s like, I have no idea where I’m going to be signed. I have no idea when I’m going to be paid next year. And so the idea of, okay, I’m with this team, I can like have my family in this city. I have an idea that I’ll be paid the same next year as this year, even if it’s not much money. And I’m still like working a regular job in the offseason. That was a guarantee of security that players actually liked. But shockingly, it only took about like, 5 to 10 years for that to turn really terrible for players. And there was a pause, drove salaries down, you know, players really were not happy with it. They were even the security they thought they were getting from it of like, okay, I’m with this one team. This is where I live, this is where I work. Even that was falling apart as Owners started to do more with selling contracts and players being forced to move and be traded. And so it was kind of an interesting point where it players remember the time from before there was a clause where like, yes, things sucked. But they sucked in a different way. And that kind of emboldened them to realize like, okay, like, our working conditions sucked before there was a problem. They now stuck with the reserve clause, why don’t we just, instead of just trying to abolish the clause, let’s just break off and start our own league and start our own, basically, kind of a co-op model, even though they didn’t have to bring in outside investors.
ALEX: It’s, it’s kind of interesting to imagine what that sort of league could have looked like if it existed beyond, you know, a year? Simply because it’s so drastically different from any type of sport that exists today, right? I mean, it’s sports are so unique in the way that they are, like, set up that I mean, it’s, it’s hard to think about, like, what it would look like if the sports model applied to say, my job, right? If I had to spend six years working my way up, you know, in the nonprofit world to finally get that first payday that’s, you know, still at the lowest rung. And this was this radically different vision of actually bringing the players into the process. Can you talk a little bit about what ultimately was its downfall and why it failed? And kind of why in the years following the the National League and kind of the owners that that ran professional baseball, kind of started to solidify their grip on the the sport as a whole?
EMMA: Yeah, it really is a shame that it fell apart after just one year. Because, like you said, it’s such an interesting model, it was so radical. And I think it’s probably one of the most interesting what ifs, you have from really all the Baseball history. Like what if the model that we had for professional sports in this country, was instead one of like, players not only having a a say in the way that the game was run. But a share of the profits, a model where like, the players are the ones driving it. Like, I mean, that would have had all sorts of interesting implications for not just sports, but labor as a whole in America, I think.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
EMMA: And so it’s kind of a bummer that we didn’t get to see more of it. Because it it really, even though it had I think it’s such an interesting idea, it had incredible solidarity. Like the vast majority of of players as a whole, but really the vast majority of talented players. Most of the players who would go on to become Hall of Famers from that time, were all with the Players’ League. No one wanted to stay with the National League, even though they were offering higher salaries and doing everything they could to try to keep players from jumping. Like they so many of them really believed in this ideal and really stuck together and had a chance to make it something great, I think. But you know what, ultimately, doomed it was the fact that they did have to bring in these outside investors. Because they had no money themselves, because they’d been paid so poorly before.
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: And these outside investors wanted a return on their investment, which is really hard to do and just to one season, and the nationally executives were very shrewd businessmen. Most notably, Spalding, Spalding Sporting Goods, based in Cincinnati, incredibly perceptive about what what was going on here. And realize, like, these leagues are ripping each other apart. Like there’s not space for two baseball teams that are operating entirely off of, you know, gate receipts for their revenue to compete head to head and be able to survive, there can only be one. And if I want that one to be the National League, the easiest way is to sow division with these investors for the Players’ League, to get them to kind of be nervous about the lack of return that they’ve had so far. And just to get them to all kind of bow out and, you know, just collapse on the investor side, despite the solidarity of the players and get them to all turn around. Which really sucks, I think it would have been really interesting to see it continue. And I I think they had, they they were more successful on the National League in the one like that, the one year that they existed, in a lot of ways. Drew more fans, had better players. I think that if they had gone head to head for just one more year, I think it might have been the players like that one out. Even if it would ultimately have lasted much longer beyond that. Like I’m sure something like the Natio–the American League, excuse me, probably would have propped up anyway as it as it ended up doing a couple–
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: –years later. But yeah, it’s just fascinating that it, and it also feels like a pretty damning, bigger statement about like the presence of capitalists and investors in any sort of, you know, collectively minded social cause like this. But yeah, the investors brought them down and that was it.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s I was just getting ready to say, capitalists and investors are all about competition amongst each other. Until that competition starts to threaten the entire industry or like threats. Until that competition starts to like, swing the balance of power. Like in the actual workers, in this case, the players favor, and then they start to kind of line up and be like, no, actually, we’re on the same team. Because, you know, they’re all pulling from the same pools of money in the same industry, as I imagine. So so that’s kind of what went wrong, what what went wrong, right? Like is that these outside investors, they wanted a demand. But I’m wondering like, they wanted, they demanded a return on their investment too quickly. And you can say maybe that was because that’s like, full, you know, that’s foolish, or wrongheaded at the time, they should have like, waited it out. And it could have been a much more lucrative thing for them. But I’m wondering if you imagine that if it could work now? Like, given that there are so many different avenues for capital to come in and like invest in a new like startup idea. Do you think that it has a better or a worse chance of succeeding now? Because on one hand, like, yeah, there is more capital coming in from different places into the sports industry. And we understand it better as a way that it can make more money with like TV rights, and how much technology has changed. But on the other hand, there is like, seemingly less of a collective vision of what player power looks like now. Like, I I feel like players have sort of, players like more collectively think they could actually replace me. Because there are more players being developed across the country than there ever were. So there’s kind of like the two competing ideas, like one you might say, could be easier now. But in another word, in another respect, it kind of seems impossible now.
EMMA: Yeah, I would love to say that I think it would be more feasible now. I think I’m on the side of it being more impossible. Partially because what it means to run a league is so different now. Like as a a a global enterprise that is about like selling a vision of Baseball, and everything that entails not just a group of eight teams who play Baseball?
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: And want people to show up and see them. But yeah, it it is really interesting, because in in some senses, I think, you know, players have a, like a much more direct connection to fans with social media with the way that like personal brands exist. And I think that’s interesting for what it means for someone to want to support the players and the idea of players coming together and forming something on their own. And the idea of Baseball being the players not being the league, if that makes sense. I think that’s very powerful, and in some ways, much more powerful now than it was then. But at the same time, the question of how you harness that power and what it means to like, assemble a a league with that. Where you have like a fair democratic process for players and you have some sort of external way for investors to be satisfied without being unnecessarily extractive seems just kind of, unfortunately, probably destined to fail, although maybe I’m being too pessimistic there.
BOBBY: Well, it’s also worth noting that this players leak happened before the antitrust exemption was a thing, too. So there are all kinds–
EMMA: Yeah.
BOBBY: –of different legal challenges that like the league would have in its arsenal now that it didn’t have sort of like structurally built-in at the time. Like MLB is much more entrenched, entrenched institution than just like the National League was back in the 1880s. It’s gone through this evolution, it’s thought of all of the different Players’ League problem. Like Players’ League level problems that could kind of crop up and it knows what to do, it has an action plan for all of this.
EMMA: The legal challenges alone, you’re right. The, the for this to actually happen would require a very different world than the specific one we’re living in right now. Because you’re right, although the antitrust exemption hasn’t been like, meaningfully challenged, been challenged in court and a while and it would be incredibly interesting if something like this was what provided–
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: –that challenge, but–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
EMMA: –probably not going to happen.
ALEX: I mean, in [41:11]–
BOBBY: If there are any players listening, if any top 50 MLB players are listening, Tipping Pitches in [41:15] you being the one to challenge it in this way.
ALEX: Well, this is–
EMMA: Yeah, please take it to the Supreme Court.
ALEX: I would, I would love to see Collin McHugh and Shawn do little in in three piece suits in front of the in front of the Supreme Court making the case for this. I mean, in you know, in 1994, there was kind of a a more modern example of this with the United Baseball League, right? Which was going to be commissioned by one Curt Flood to, may may have heard of them? May have heard of them listeners of this podcast? And it never got off the ground, because I think as you were alluding to, I’m a Baseball or Major League Baseball, the organization had just grown too massive for there to be any real, reasonable competition facing it, right? I mean, at at that point, you know, the the United Baseball League was like trying to negotiate a deal with what would become Fox Sports, which had no interest in kind of a fledgling little league off on the side., right? So, but why is it do you think that in this kind of span and the 100 years, I guess that follow? I mean, the reserve clause itself is not it doesn’t end up being toppled until 1972, right? I mean, some 80 plus years after this Players’ League. After the players have recognized that the reserve clause is an inhibiting factor to their livelihood, right? So what do you think it is about this specific moment in 1890, that precludes players from maybe trying to go after something like the reserve clause? Or or they’re broader, more likelihood in any sort of meaningful fashion for decades to come?
EMMA: Yeah, it’s a, a really good question. And I think there are a couple of things that lined up. I think, in the immediate aftermath of the Players’ League. One thing was just how hard they were struck down. Which was that, you know, they had this big, ambitious scheme. And a year later, not only had it collapsed, because their investors sold them out. But teams then took all the players that had been in the National League in 1889, before the players league in 1881, they were right back under the same reserve clause. They went back to their original teams, most of them their salary then went down as a way of kind of like punishment. Which is like, not only just a really terrible working condition in general, but like super personally demoralizing, I think? And so, for that generation of players, I think you had that that effect of seeing what happened when you tried. Seeing just how immediately it was struck down and how it wasn’t something like, oh, well, like the effort failed, but we still got XYZ it wasn’t the effort failed. And now not only are you back where you started, you’re actually kind of worse off. And and then you know, you had some like very small attempts at not quite unionization, but a forming another organization like the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players. Which was what preceded the Players’ League, just kind of an organization that gave players a voice but wasn’t a formal labor union.
ALEX: Far better name than the MLBPA, I just want to say that too.
EMMA: It really is. It’s super, they should go back to that, the Brotherhood. They had there was one free attempt in like 1905, after going to come on the scene, you had another one like right before World War I. And none of those really worked until they decided to like fully see it as a union until you had like Marvin Miller step in and so and that’s a person decades down the line. I think it was a combination of like the players in the immediate aftermath being kind of really burned by it, then you have these failed attempts to do a kind of a halfway step of like, let’s organize but let’s not actually unionize and realizing no, you need to go all the way. Like the half [45:17]–
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: –is not going to get you anything here. And then I think just like the the the rate people and in flood and Miller together. But yeah, it is really crazy that you could take a step that drastic in 1890, and then have basically nothing else until you know, the late 1960s.
BOBBY: It’s when I was reading about the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players and they weren’t considered an official union. It’s like kind of more like a trade association, I guess. Like they don’t have the the right to collective bargaining the same way that a union would. But they do kind of they can kind of like organize the workers in in like a wildcat way? Or like they could just choose what they do. Like they don’t have the protections but also like, what are the Owners gonna do if all the players stopped showing up. So they are considering a strike and they were considering the Players’ League and they ultimately went with the Players’ League. And like you said, I’m like, shut down, but it’s it kind of reminds me a little bit of like advocates for Minor Leaguers. Or, you know, More Than Baseball, like these outside sort of organizing forces that speak on behalf of some of the players and are advocating for better conditions. Even if right now, they don’t have the legal protections that a union would have to actually demand those better conditions or bargain over those better conditions. I’m going to do that. I think that we’re kind of like, at a similar moment in the baseball landscape. Like there is a lot of rancor and like a lot of, you know, transformational energy among players. Even if like it’s sort of like entrenched at the MLB level. I think nationwide, and like baseball as a larger umbrella, I think we have like a similar level of energy and engagement about making conditions better for Minor Leaguers the way that they had to do for Major Leaguers over a century ago. Do you see a connection like that? Or am I imagining it, because that’s all we talk about here?
EMMA: No, I think that’s completely true. And I think a big part of that is like, one of the first things that Brotherhood did was organized fundraisers and like benefit plans among themselves. Like mutual aid, for the biggest one was players who were injured or sick. Like it used to be, if you got hurt, you you wouldn’t get paid for any games you miss. Like, hopefully, you’ll get healthy again and come back, and then you’ll get paid. But until then, like tough luck. And so they created these like, yep, like mutual aid, where they’d all pitch in a little and help out a guy who was hurt badly enough to to miss a lot of time. And that’s really similar, I think, to what we’ve seen, with Minor League mutual aid in the especially the last two years with the pandemic. Not organizing for players who are injured, but just because players need it to live. Because they’re not getting paid otherwise, because they’re not getting paid enough otherwise. Like that instinct of, I think specifically of you know, our first step is figuring out how to help each other with just like material need. That’s not being met by the organizations and using that as a like delivering that help where needed, but be as kind of like an animating force to show others. Like, this is what teams won’t do for a player. So we’re doing it ourselves. That’s–
BOBBY: Right.
EMMA: –exactly the same thing.
ALEX: It also feels like a kind of rebuffs, I think the argument that the anti-labor argument that is thrown out today a lot, right. That idea of, oh, it’s just millionaires versus billionaires fighting. And, you know, I wish we could go back to the days where they just played for the love of the game and, and get politics out of Baseball. All this, all these kinds of arguments that float around in the ether today, among baseball fans. This seems to kind of fly in the face of that, right? And and recognizes that labor has always been a a central part of this game. And well, players may have played for the love of the game, and I’m sure many do still today. They were still well aware of their personal power. And it’s kind of more a testament to the, the way that management has eroded that solidarity and labor power. Over the last century than it is indicative of you know, where we are right now with regards to players or his owners or where we were back then, you know.
EMMA: Yeah, it it’s really interesting, because one of the first things that John Montgomery War–Ward, who was the founder of the The Brotherhood, and then the Players’ League. One of the first things he had to do was convince people that this is a job, which is still kind of–
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: –they’re having today. He–
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: –briefly had this movement to start in call–instead of calling them baseball players. Because play like evokes playing in a game. He wanted them to be called the Baseball lists.
BOBBY: Hmm.
EMMA: Like this is a, a craft that we’re all doing together. Like you’re not a player, you’re a Baseball list,
BOBBY: Yeah.
EMMA: Obviously it didn’t catch on. But like yeah, it was even though they were being paid. I mean [49:58]–
BOBBY: If somebody, somebody who like, who like wrongfully assumes baseball as a better sport than anyone any other sport. Like you’re a baseball list, like, you look down on Football.
EMMA: Like, yeah, you’re prejudiced against other sports.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly.
EMMA: Exactly. Uhm, but yeah, like it was fighting that same battle like they were, the average salary was like $1,800 a year, at one point. Like, certainly not millionaires versus billionaires. But it was very much like this is work. take us seriously, like you are labor. And everyone should see us as labor. And like, yeah, that’s been a huge part of it from the beginning.
BOBBY: I think one of the things that I was most interested in when I saw the article and then was, was satisfied that it was like a thread throughout the whole thing was like, this idea of, do you try to fix what you have? Or do you just say, let’s try to make something new. This is like, this is such a theme threw out. All of like every socio-political institution, it’s like, do you try to reform from within? Or do you just try to say, I think we would be better off starting from scratch and, and setting the our own terms and seeing if we completely fucked it up. Like the people before us completely fucked it up. And just knowing, like having the peace of mind that, hey, we tried something radical, and we tried to change something. And I mean, we talk a lot about, we talk a lot about that on the show. Like the, the value of splitting your energy between, hey, do we try to like, you know, do we try to lean on Major League Baseball to like treat fans like, actually part of the equation? Or do we just try to say, hey, maybe in 50 years, baseball will be publicly owned, and we’ll have massive political transformation. Like, that’s kind of like a battle that we’re always weighing. I mean, Emma, when you were researching this, and they kind of were making that decision to like, go break out on their own. Was there like, internal strife amongst them? Are they afraid of doing that? Or was like, was it a pretty like, easy sell? I think conditions are so bad. We do want to go out on our own, and it won’t be hard to get players to come and do this.
EMMA: It was a weirdly easy sell, it seems like which is me. Yeah, as you said, that feels totally crazy today, we’re just the idea of imagining something. Feels like such a big step like to to to think like a, like a better system could potentially exist.
ALEX: Yeah,
EMMA: Feels like a radical, crazy thing to say out wow.
BOBBY: Dark.
EMMA: Uhm, and yet, for them, it really wasn’t. And I think a big part of that was, you know, to consider the time period, like the 1870s, 1880s, 1890s. You had teams popping up all the time, like collapsing after a few years. Like they weren’t considered these long standing civic institutions the way they are today? You know, like–
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
EMMA: –a team would exist for a couple of years, and then it would go under. And then maybe a different one would pop up in its place. You had the American Association as a another league that was operating entirely. Lots of independent leagues that were like, kind of on the same level, but where it really. It it was just such a different environment, that the idea that you could like, say, like, hey, like, you know, people are starting new teams all the time. Why don’t we just start a new league? Like, was both like, super radical from a a a labor perspective, but also from like, a just operational perspective. It’s like, this is kind of happening all the time anyway. And I mean, we’re 10 years from the American League popping up. So like–
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
EMMA: –the idea of founding a new league itself, like, not radical in and of itself, just very radical for the players to be the ones to do it.
ALEX: Let’s say it does exist today. Or, or the the will, is there, among the players. Who, who is going to be the one leading that charge, do you think? In in your, I mean, we’re just spitballing here. But like, who’s going to be the guy that is going to rally the players to say, you know, it’s time for us to stand up and fight back? Or maybe who is the one who the players would you think would place the most faith in to kind of lead this action?
EMMA: That’s a really good question. Because I think like when you look back at how it happened the first time, John Montgomery Ward was a really good mix of like, genuinely excellent player. So Hall of Famer, he pitched the second perfect game in baseball history. But just like a really good teammate, who was really well respected by everyone who played with him. Like it it, and also was someone who had been even as one of the better players and one of the more highly paid ones at the time was one who had been like, walked all over earlier in his career. Like before the reserved cause he was actually on a team [54:36]. The Owner, the end of the year, they clearly weren’t going to win the pennant. Owner wanted to save some costs. So he cut the entire team. The day before their final paychecks were going to be sent out and just like forfeited the last five games. Because he was like, oh, they’ll be back next year, but I can’t pay you for these games, so we’re just gonna forfeit them all, bye! Like, that sucks. Uhm–
ALEX: Wow.
EMMA: Yeah. Uhm, and so like someone, I feel like that’s a good mix, like someone who has been like, can see how this system can like really mess you up. But also is genuinely good and is as a player and really well-respected and a really good communicator who was a great writer. So I think it’s it’s not too obvious to go with someone who’s currently on the Executive Subcommittee and therefore kind of in this role already. I feel like Andrew Miller is a really good fit for it. Uhm–
BOBBY: Oh, interesting.
EMMA: Yeah, I feel like Scher–Scherzer is an easy choice because he’s super vocal, obviously, one of the most highly paid players, excellent future Hall of Famer. But I kind of like Andrew Miller in this role instead because I think someone who, as a reliever you’ve seen, like, firsthand have a lot to point to of how the way in which your job can be controlled by front office’s and ownership who aren’t necessarily thinking of the longevity and best needs of the players. What that can do to a career and what that can do to people. Very effective communicator. He’s done a lot of this front facing work for the Union and seems to be by all accounts just like pretty beloved in it. Lots of people are a fan of him. I think I’m gonna go with him over over someone like Scherzer although his masters are wants to start it off like five years, [56:23].
BOBBY: I will watch Max Scherzer pitch to any human being anywhere, so long as he is revved up and ready to roar. I I love I, we can’t let you get out here without talking about the proposal in the after the 1888 season. Where there were like different tiers of players like graded from A through E. And the A players would only be able to see receive a maximum of $2,500, while E grade players could only receive a maximum of $1,500 and would have to work as groundskeepers or ticket takers. Was that kind of one of the bigger revelations for like, okay, collective bargaining has come very far since then for you?
ALEX: Imagine walking up and Max Scherzer is taking your tickets. Or I guess in this case, it’s probably more likely to be Andrew Miller taking your tickets.
BOBBY: I mean, we were like three years removed from when, why don’t know why I’m blanking on his name right now. The really fitter who turned into a starter for the Twins, who was driving Uber and that was like, their whole that was like a social media market.
ALEX: Yeah, Randy Dobnak.
BOBBY: Randy Dobnak was was actually working a second job, it just happened to not be happen to be for a tech company, a tech rideshare company, not for the Minnesota Twins.
EMMA: It’s just such a ridiculous idea that it like, yeah, it just perfectly put it in context, this idea that not only would Owners want to be so cheap as to install this, like very regimented system. But like, if you’re not considered a good enough player, like, we’ll take all of your labor no matter what it looks like. It’s just wild.
BOBBY: Right. It’s like Andrew Miller having to like log stats in tape, like over the offseason, you know, like that would be the 2022 equivalent.
EMMA: Yeah, it’s just incredible. And it’s like, really like I should have put that upfront with you know, the reserve cause the labor conditions. Like even though this didn’t fully get implemented the way it was proposed. The fact that the Owners, like A thought of this and B publicize it as like, guess what everyone, this is how Baseball is gonna work soon is like that was also a huge, huge factor. Just the suggestion that like performance drops, like you’re going to be taken care of the the grounds, but that was also a huge win.
ALEX: A better sport as possible and also a worse sport is definitely possible. I promise you that much. Uhm, Emma, thank you so much for being so gracious with your time. This has been a real joy to to talk about. Before we let you get out of here, do you want to just tell people where they can find your work? Where they can find your your writing? Your, your takes anything you want to get out there in the world?
EMMA: Yeah, thank you for having me. This is great. Uhm, I’m on Twitter @emmabaccellieri. Work is at Sports Illustrated. And uhm, yeah, happy to be here and happy to to talk about the the cool stuff that was the Players’ League.
BOBBY: Thanks so much, Emma.
[59:17]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Okay, thank you to Emma. I’m not sure what we’re gonna be doing on the feed next week, Alex. Because I will be on a cross country road trip to move back to the East Coast. So we’ll see TBD, question mark. In the meantime, you know, you could do you could tell a friend to subscribe to Tipping Pitches if you enjoyed this and or any other episodes of our podcast recently. Or you could buy a t shirt, or a hat, or some stickers at tiny.cc/nationalize.
ALEX: We’ve got to start using Baseball lists. I’m just saying it. I’m not saying player anymore. The MLB Baseball Lists Association.
BOBBY: I thought it was gonna be like Baseball workers, you know.
ALEX: That’s, that’s where I thought it was gonna go too. But, no–
BOBBY: Baseball is, this was a curveball, no pun intended.
ALEX: It’s an you’re an artist, right?
BOBBY: True.
ALEX: I mean, that’s the that’s the sentiment. Baseball is an art.
BOBBY: I like it. Baseball is as good. It sort of sounds like someone who writes essays about base–essays, you know, like–
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: –but we could, we could get over the initial awkwardness of the word. It looks better on paper than it does out loud. But they barely even had recorded audio at the time. So they were mostly writing stuff down.
ALEX: Thank you, everyone for listening. We will be back next week.
[1:00:44]
[Music]
[1:00:55]
[Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya.
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
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