On this episode, Bobby and Alex focus entirely on the letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee to Harry Marino and Advocate for Minor Leaguers, attempting to answer the questions that the four senators pose about MLB’s antitrust exemption and how it impacts minor leaguers.
Links:
A League Built On Trust (feat. Jim Quinn)
The Minor League Theory of Value (feat. Harry Marino)
Songs featured in this episode:
Soccer Mommy — “Shotgun” • 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 are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, hello from the past, or hello, from the, the future? I don’t really, I never know how to tense these things when we record the podcast five days in advance. Do you know what is the appropriate space-time continuum on recording a podcast ahead of time? And what tense we should use? What is the AP style for this?
ALEX: I really hope AP editors have never even tried to consider how to use tenses when pre recording a, a podcast. I suppose you can say hello to me in present tense. And you can say hello to the listeners in, I mean, you’re saying hello to the listeners from the past, right? But, but at this moment, you’re speaking to them.
BOBBY: You’re definitely confusing yourself more.
ALEX: Yeah, I think I am.
BOBBY: This is why we need the AP style guide. We need them to update for us podcasters.
ALEX: I’m more–
BOBBY: How else will we make our way–
ALEX: –Chicago style.
BOBBY: –through- you’re more Chicago style?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Is that right?
ALEX: I’m not. I don’t know, who doesn’t?
BOBBY: Chicago style is, is weird, nobody uses that. Come on! Nobody uses that Alex. Anyway, hello. We are recording this podcast five days in advance because I am leaving the country to go to London for a vacation. And we didn’t want to leave the podcast feed completely dark but we were not going to be able to record on our usual timeline. So if something happens between now and then that is relevant to the Tipping Pitches universe, it’s not going to be talked about on this podcast.
ALEX: How, how are you feeling? Last time we spoke, which I know technically at recording time was something in the realm of 48 hours ago. But you were sick with the one they call Coronavirus.
BOBBY: I’m feeling pretty good.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Last time we were recording I was feeling totally fine. All symptoms gone except coffee and peanut butter tasted bad. My–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –two favorite things in the world. And as we sit here to record that is still the case. Peanut butter slightly better, coffee still, still terrible. I went into Starbucks to get a iced green tea and just sitting in there the coffee scent. It was, it was really tough.
ALEX: I am going to clip out those 15 seconds of you just shitting on coffee so that I can use it as I don’t know motivation for myself.
BOBBY: No this, that was recorded under duress. No, I have, I’ve, now officially today’s the day as we sit here to record this. Today is the day of my, my full 10-day quarantine. So I’m, I’m good to go, back out into planet Earth. I don’t know if it’s ready for me and I don’t know if I’m ready for it.
ALEX: Or any of us really ready for the world?
BOBBY: I’m, I’m more concerned about whether I’m ready for the, the lads of London, the lads of the world.
ALEX: They have a–
BOBBY: [3:27] of my new super, my new super ability. I don’t have that much to be worried about.
ALEX: That’s true. Well and you got a, you got a whole cohort of baseball fans over there. That you can–
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: –you can commiserate with. You’ve got our, our boys over at that flips and nerds at the baseball, baseball Brit. I know that covers like four people total there. But I’m sure there are others.
BOBBY: That’s everybody who likes baseball–
ALEX: Maybe even some who listen to our podcasts.
BOBBY: –in all of the UK. I’m looking forward to that trip. We didn’t want to leave the podcast feed completely dark. So instead we decided to do a one topic podcast. And that one topic is the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. Something that we care about and respect deeply here very much respect. The honor and the power of the United States Senate in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And so we are going to in solemn C span tones. We’re going to talk about that Senate Judiciary Committee. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[4:31]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, this is where we usually shout out the new patrons for the week. But we’re recording this so far in advance. I don’t know who those new patrons are. So thank you to unnamed new patrons, X, and Y, and Z, and a bunch of other letters. Please sign up–
ALEX: Oh, we got 3 this week.
BOBBY: –to the Patreon, patreon.com\tippingpitches. There are three tiers, the first tier, it’ll get you access to our Slack. It’s very lively discussing what we’re going to discuss this week. A letter sent from the United States Senate Judiciary Committee signed by four senators. We’ll get to those senators in just a moment. That letter was sent to Harry Marino, who was on this podcast just a few months ago.
ALEX: Heard of him.
BOBBY: The Executive Director of Advocates for MinorLeaguers. You’ve also heard of that organization, you’re familiar with their work?
ALEX: Once or twice.
BOBBY: Yeah. So we thought, given that we, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the news. We thought we would just spend the whole podcast talking about this letter, and answering the series of questions that they have laid out. Asking about the Major League Baseball antitrust exemption. This is another topic of conversation, hotly discussed on the Tipping Pitches Podcast very frequently. And this letter, it comes at a weird time. I mean, the last couple of podcasts, we’ve talked about various stories about treatment of minor leaguers. It’s been sort of the underlying current of conversation for the show. I been, I guess, basically, since the pandemic, and you know, we’ve had our sort of like, meta take a step back. Where is the state of Minor League Baseball labor? What is all of this increased media coverage really mean for the, the fight to unionize the minor leagues? The fight to improve working conditions in the minor leagues? And, I mean, I know we joked at the top of this podcast about respecting the office of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. But this does sort of feel like something coming to a head here, right? I imagine that many of you have seen this letter. But if you haven’t, we’re going to go into great detail. So don’t worry, you don’t need to go, you don’t need to go find it. If you haven’t seen it yet. We will read it, basically word for word here. But does this feel to you, does this feel like a moment of, not validation, because I don’t, that’s insulting. Like I don’t, we don’t need the, the minor league labor effort does not need to be validated by fucking Dick Durbin. But or Mike Lee. But does this feel to you like a little bit of a step beyond where we’ve been before? Are we in uncharted territory, Alex? Uncharted waters.
ALEX: To be honest, I’m, I’m not so sure that we are. Congress has kind of played footsie with the antitrust exemption extended to Major League Baseball for a few years now, right? And there’s been a lot of kind of, there have been a handful of elected officials who have kind of drained standard about potentially getting rid of it in the past. Most notably, last summer, in the, in the wake of Major League Baseball pulling the All-Star game out of Atlanta, right?
BOBBY: Yes. Yes. Stealing $100 million worth of business from the good, good small business owners of Atlanta, Georgia.
ALEX: I, I think what, what feels slightly different about this is how targeted it seems and how detailed it is in its kind of in its curiosity. It recognizes Harry’s work, and Advocates for Minor Leaguers’ work. And there are some specific things that, that it brings up in relation to MLBs antitrust exemption that we kind of haven’t seen in this sort of grandstanding before, right? And we’ll get into what those details look like. It’s, it’s far, far too premature to even start pretending to know what this might actually end up looking like, you know. What might actually come of this? But there are some interesting questions in here that the Judiciary Committee is, is asking Harry and his organization. And I want to get into all of that with you. I also want to say, this is what they’re spending their time on right now?
BOBBY: Bro, first of all, yes! Second of all, we’re gonna get, we’re going to discuss this when we discuss all of these questions. But damn if we haven’t answered all of these questions on Tipping Pitches already. Like Senate Judiciary Committee, please like and subscribe.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, come on!
ALEX: Right. And like, a lot of it is very obviously kind of set up to, like, like there are a lot of questions here that have almost, that are almost rhetorical, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That have very, very easy answers.
BOBBY: Harry Marino, would you say that MLB owners are craving? Check yeah, check Y for yes, check N for no.
ALEX: Right. Is Jerry Reinsdorf a billionaire? Yes or no? So, I don’t know. I, like this, this does come at a really weird time, just like in our country right now, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And you could argue that maybe Congress has bigger priorities, has bigger fish to fry. And I don’t entirely believe that they are, they are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Because they finally came to, to a realization, right? I think there’s probably an opportunity in there, in here that they see for some sort of bipartisanship, you know, and sticking it to the man.
BOBBY: That’s true, or, or this letter sort of presupposes that. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. But this letter sort of presupposes that they might be interested in a law that extends protections to Minor League Baseball players. That carves Minor League Baseball players out of the antitrust exemption. That is, that is what this letter is kind of implying. But, Alex, before we get into this and start answering Senator Durbin’s pointed questions. Couldn’t this just be a way of extorting Major League Baseball into giving them more money to not pass a law like this? Like, oh, we’re gonna make a big dog and pony show of sending this letter to Harry Marino. And what we’re actually going to do is force MLB owners to give us more money so that we pass them another law.
ALEX: To bring up the, the tinfoil hat meter, because that’s like an eight.
BOBBY: Is it, is it though? Because we’re–
ALEX: An eight as in, feels plausible to me.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. An eight as in your, you’re like tipping your tinfoil cap to me.
ALEX: Right. Right.
BOBBY: We believe what I’m picking up what I’m putting down. Just, just a thought before, we before we dive fully into this. So okay, what is the Senate Judiciary Committee do? If you’re listening at home, this is from judiciary.senate–
ALEX: I thought you were about to ask me. And I was like, I, that’s the one–
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: –question I’m not prepared now.
BOBBY: No, no. So we have the internet for. In addition to its critical role in providing oversights to the Department of Justice and the agencies under the department’s jurisdiction. Including the Fedeo- Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security, they’re really crushing it. They’re a lot of oversight with those two organizations. The Judiciary Committee plays an important role in the consideration of nominations and pending legislation. So by making a big public show, by the fact that Evan Drellich is tweeting out this letter that was sent to Harry Marino. What they are trying to imply, like I said, is that they are, there might be, they might be considering nominating or there might already be pending legislation. And there is, we, we know that there is pending legislation about MLB’s antitrust exemption. It’s it’s sponsored by Bernie Sanders. We’ve talked about that before in the past. But this would indicate that it has a little bit wider support. That would be sort of the, the political subtext of this letter. So are we ready to get into the letter or do you want to talk about the four Senators who actually put their John Hancock on it first?
ALEX: It is an interesting collection of dudes.
BOBBY: Yeah, it is.
ALEX: We, we have, we have one, Richard J. Durbin, affectionately known as Dick.
BOBBY: He’s the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
ALEX Yep. His counterpart in, his counterpart in the Republican Party is one Charles E. Grassley, [13:20] Chuck. The man–
BOBBY: He’s still pickin’?
ALEX: –will not quit.
BOBBY: He’s still powering through? Come on the old Pentagon. 9-5, 5 days a week. Is that even worse Senators go? I don’t know.
ALEX: Then we have Richard Blumenthal and Michael Lee. These are guys who have, who have been around for a little while. Two of them are, are Democrat. Two of them are Republican.
BOBBY: Can I read you a little passage from the [13:55] website? The election website from Mike Lee?
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: For Mike Lee for US Senate in Utah. Help Mike continue the fight against Democrats socialist agenda by making a donation. Mike Lee is a champion for conservative values and a defender of the Constitution. And then it gives you, will option to donate here. You can donate $20 to help fight for conservative values stand against the radical left. You can donate $50 if you are interested in ending the reckless spending, it’s time for fiscal responsibility. You can donate $100 makes the quick jump up to $100. Don’t worry, we’re gonna go back down to 75 next. Up to 100 back down and 75 out of order. If you donate $100, you’re a defender of the Constitution. Our rights are in jeopardy. And if you don’t get $75, you’re going to bring back common sense solutions and end the left’s socialist policies. All it takes is $75, sounds–
ALEX: Tag–
BOBBY: –solution.
ALEX: –tag yourself. I’m, rights are definitely in jeopardy right about now.
BOBBY: I’d like to also point out that they spelled Jeopardy wrong, j-e-a-p-o-r-d-y. There’s a whole show for that, Senator Lee. Come on! Alex Trebek did not die for this. Rip to the goat.
ALEX: Yeah. What is Mike needs an editor.
BOBBY: Mike needs AP style guide.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: Okay, those are the four senators. Let’s get into the letter, ready?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Dear Mr. Marino, May 29, 2022 mark the 100 -ear anniversary of the Supreme Court’s unilateral creation of Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption in the case federal baseball club versus National League. As we mark this anniversary, we right to seek information about how baseball’s antitrust exemption is impacting competition in the labor market. Something so important to someone like Mike Lee, conservative values, competition in the labor market. For Minor League Baseball players, as well as the operations of minor league teams. Your answers will help inform the Senate Judiciary Committee’s analysis of the necessity of this century old exemption. We ask that you provide answers to the following questions by July 6. Pretty tight turnaround here.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: July 6, I don’t do anything–
ALEX: The thing is–
BOBBY: –in that quick of a turnaround, except this podcast.
ALEX: Well, my guess is Harry Marino could probably answer these questions in, in faster time than we could. So, I don’t think–
BOBBY: Well–
ALEX: –pressed.
BOBBY: –it’s a lot of pressure for Harry. And I, by doing this podcast, I would just like to say, if Harry wants to give the answers that we give, by all means, Harry, feel free. Copy the work.
ALEX: I, I absolutely hope he does not do that. Please, Harry, if you’re listening, I, I disavow that statement.
BOBBY: Well, okay. I’d like to imagine an alternate world where we get this letter from the good ol Senate Judiciary Committee. Are you prepared to get into that headspace right now?
ALEX: I mean, that’s basically what we’re about to do, right? We’re gonna pretend–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –like this letter was addressed to us.
BOBBY: We’re doing the Senate Judiciary Committee, which it’s not just those four members. It’s an interesting collection of, of people on this, in this body. Including Dianne Feinstein–
ALEX: [17:19]
BOBBY: –Amy, Amy Klobuchar, TBT.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Jon Ossoff, remember that guy?
ALEX: My dude!
BOBBY: And ofcourse–
ALEX: Are we, are we literally just doing remember some guys for US Senators–
BOBBY: Well–
ALEX: –right now?
BOBBY: –here’s the most important one. And this is definitely how it got here is Ted Cruz. He was the one who was trying to get the biggest W off of taking the antitrust exemption away from Major League Baseball for moving the All-Star game in 2020.
ALEX: Right. Inter- interestingly, he’s mentioned nowhere in this letter.
BOBBY: Alright, let’s do the questions. Alex, question number one, will you please do the good Senators a favor and answer this question? Aside from baseball, do any American professional sports have a general exemption from the antitrust laws?
ALEX: Well, that’s a very interesting question, Mr. Durbin, Senator Durbin, excuse me.
BOBBY: Honorable–
ALEX: No!
BOBBY: –Durbin.
ALEX: Right. The, it’s like, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be like the honorable committee chair.
BOBBY: I always think of that scene from Step Brothers when John C. Riley’s character refuses to call the dad anything other than Dr. Doback. He’s like, please stop calling me Dr. Doback. I’m your stepdad now. And he’s like, Doback. He just call him just his last name.
ALEX: So to the honorable Dick, no! No, there is not another sports league in America that has this sort of general exemption from anti trust laws.
BOBBY: Of course–
ALEX: Really, it’s a one, it’s a one word answer.
BOBBY: Must much discussed on Tipping Pitches, which is why when I first read this letter, I was like, Y’all don’t have Google? Why are you making Harry Marino answer that simple of a question for you guys? But you know, they weren’t themselves up, they get the questions get a little bit tougher.
ALEX: Right. Well, and it strikes me as them it’s not them literally not knowing, right? It more seems like setting the stage–
BOBBY: Don’t put the [19:21]–
ALEX: –for the Harry’s response. Well, you’re right.
BOBBY: Don’t put the [19:23], they literally might not know. They might just be like, with the way the NFL is going. I kind of just assumed they had to have an antitrust exemption. We just let those guys do anything. Okay, number two, what effect does the antitrust exemption have on the incidence of lockouts and work stoppages at the MLB level? And what impact did these incidents have on minor league players and teams? This is an interesting question.
ALEX: Yeah. And it’s not one that I think we have really spent much time addressing head on, right? We, we discussed the exemption and we discussed the lockout and we often discuss minor leaguers. But this is kind of an area where, where the Venn Diagram of all of these really comes together, right? And the Judiciary Committee recognizes that, that minor leaguers are the ones who are most vulnerable as a result of this exemption. I mean, the, the short answer, right, is that collusion is effectively legal as–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –a, as a result of this antitrust exemption, right? The Major League Baseball can fix Minor League Baseball salaries? Which technically is illegal any anywhere else.
BOBBY: Well, that’s sort of- okay, so now you’re getting ahead of yourself with a touch because that’s sort of what they’re asking you about and the third question. But as it pertains to lockouts, and work stoppages, I think that what they’re going for here is that you can implement a lockout and work stoppage at the minor league level. If you, if you wanted to, you could lock them out whenever you wanted. And you could collude with the other 29 owners to lock out all of your minor leaguers, all at the same time. Which in other industries, is illegal. But of course, they would never do this because they’re already paying minor leaguers such little money. That there’s no reason actually lock them out, they are, they are providing way more value than they would have you would ever get from locking your, your employees out. And, you know, when they asked about work stoppages at the MLB level, what impacts these incidents have on minor league players and teams. I mean, the impact is that they, they don’t get any of the trickle down benefits from any kind of strike from MLBPA, or a work stoppage, or the, the CBA is that those two things result in.
ALEX: Right, or a guarantee of pay throughout the duration of the lockout, right? As they are effectively unemployed, unlike, say, the protections that MLBPA provides for its players, right?
BOBBY: Right. And as we were approaching the start to the Major League Baseball season, the originally scheduled start to the Major League Baseball season. And we had to push that back because of the MLB level lockout. The minor league season was coming. Like they were going to start that no matter what. So I mean, what impact do, does work stoppage at the major league level have on minor league players? Kind of like none. But also at the same time, like so much those players don’t have a chance to get called up to Major League Baseball. So they’re just going and, and working without the, the hope and the dream that they’re usually sold as the reason that they’re there. So I don’t know, I’d be interested in this, I’d be interested to see how Harry answers this one. Because during the lockout, I mean, minor leaguers who had sympathy with the Major League Baseball Players Association still had to come to work, otherwise they would have been cut.
ALEX: So in part three, we really start getting into the meat of it all, right? And it’s a, it’s a three part question.
BOBBY: Nah, I hated these questions on tests.
ALEX: I know, it’s not fair. MLB requires all minor league players to sign a minor league uniform player contract. A- what role if any, does MLB is antitrust exemption play in enabling this contract? B- discussed the, the impact of the antitrust exemption on negotiating with minor league players contract–
BOBBY: They really–
ALEX: –wages.
BOBBY: –they really this like it’s a test, like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –please discuss the [23:26]–
ALEX: Exactly. In, in five paragraphs or less.
BOBBY: Topic sentence, topic sentence, body.
ALEX: What, what effect would removing the antitrust exemption have on, on minor league player working conditions and see if a more tailored approach like extending the Curt Flood Act to cover minor league players was taken? What would be the impact? So let’s, let’s break that down, shall we? Because there’s, there’s a lot, a lot in there.
BOBBY: Okay, part A- easiest part what role if any, does MLBs anti trust exemption play in enabling this conduct? It’s the reason, it’s the reason that they can do this. In any other industry, it would be illegal for different companies say to each other. let’s make our employees all sign this exact same contract. So that, so that we don’t have to compete for those employees labor. So that they can’t withhold their labor and choose to go somewhere else choose to work for another company because they’re paying better, or they have better benefits, or they’re in a better location. The reason that minor league teams at the behest of their MLB owners who are paying their bills, the reason that minor league teams can do that is because of the antitrust exemption. I feel like we’ve talked about that a little bit, but it’s sometimes a little bit too in the weeds to, to explain in those terms. But in the context of this letter, and in the context of that question. That is the, the number one reason that MLB is able to pay minor leaguers such little money. Now, if the antitrust exemption had never existed, does that mean that minor leaguers would be making 100k a year? No, they would, they would not collude. They would not collude, Alex. They would. they would look around and they would say, hmm, what, what do I think that Jerry Reinsdorf wants to pay as minor leaguers? And then that then it the pay might be a little higher, but it wouldn’t actually be that high.
ALEX: Right. But you also might see a, a world in which there are other viable places for minor leaguers to go, right? Right now, Major League Baseball has a monopoly on effectively the sport of professional baseball in the United States, right? If you want to play professionally, this is the place to go. And so when a team holds the contract out in front of you, if you want to do the thing that you’ve trained your entire life to do up until this point, you have to sign that contract.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: With no, with no ability to really negotiate. With no protections provided to you by any sort of union or anything like that. You, you’re really boxed in, right? And so that’s why in those contracts, they are able to set those wages so low, right? Outline these, you know, oftentimes ridiculous stipulations that MLB requires minor leaguers to adhere to.
BOBBY: And what the UPC does, and the antitrust exemption enabling the UPC is it just makes, it makes it really easy to suppress the labor conditions for all 30 clubs. Like they don’t even have to try that hard. They can just meet and say, here’s where we want to set it. And it makes it impossible basically, for, or it makes it extremely passe for a team to not follow those conventions. Because you’re meeting with your other owners, and they’re telling you, they are basically whipping you into line to do that. And if the antitrust exemption didn’t exist, I do think that you might see a rogue team here or there that treats their minor leaguers better. But because so many of the teams are and so many of the owners are colluding together to make it this exact uniform player contract. It’s just it’s not, not that I’m saying that owners want to do this, but it’s never going to happen that a bunch of owners are going to sit down and say we’re gonna it’s gonna pay more. Now with the antitrust exemption the way that it is.
ALEX: Yeah, definitely. So as you said, What is the antitrust exemption have to do with this? Everything!
BOBBY: Yeah,.
ALEX: It is, it is the reason.
BOBBY: Part B- is super open-ended and super hard. Please discuss the impact of the antitrust exemption on the negotiation of minor league players length of contract, wages, housing, or other working conditions. I don’t think that’s hard, I mean, the the antitrust exemption is the reason that you can’t negotiate on those things. And that the uniform player contract is given to you. And it’s a take or leave it kind of thing. Which, honestly, a lot of people listen to this podcast, probably can relate to. Most people, most people will probably like, yeah, that’s how I felt in my industry. And to that, I would say, if it feels like you’re being colluded against, that’s probably because basically you are. Capitalism is just colluding against workers. That’s kind of the whole point. But it’s, it’s illegal in other places. So, but the second part of that what effect would removing the antitrust exemption have on minor league player working conditions? That’s a really hard question. And it’s a question that we attempted to answer when we did our episode about the antitrust exemption that was completely devoted to it. And we talked about how, how it came about, and we talked about what a world without it might look like. And I think that is what people have been sort of pontificating about online all day, I saw Jeff Passan didn’t 18 tweet thread about this, which was like, just write an article big dog. But what, what effect would removing that interest exemption have? Honestly, nothing, nothing fast. If you just remove the antitrust exemption, and minor leaguers did not unionize? I don’t think that a bunch of teams would suddenly start paying players a lot more. That’s like kind of what I was trying to get at, part A.
ALEX: But, and, and this starts to get into part three of this question, right? Is removing the antitrust exemption does potentially open up a pathway for minor leaguers to take Major League Baseball the court over these substandard working conditions, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And that’s why, and that’s, and that’s what question, and that’s what part three asks about, right? Is it says if a more tailored approach, like extending the Curt Flood Act to cover minor league players was taken, what would be the impact, right? The Curt Flood Act being the, the law that Congress passed, but specifically carved Major League Baseball players when it comes to labor related issues between players and the league, right? So it’s the reason why baseball players are able to have free agency, right? Like it’s the reason that they are actually able to have meaningful contract negotiations, right? And it’s what effectively forced to Major League Baseball’s hand into saying we have to come to the table and bargain fairly with you guys.
BOBBY: Yes. And if that more tailored approach was taken, and the Curt Flood Act, extended to minor league players, I think that the most immediate impact that you would see is a lot of minor leaguers. And their agents with their agents help. They would, they would get that uniform player contract and they’d say, can I please have a red marker? And they would be crossing a lot of stuff out of it. And they would be saying, no, this is how much you need to pay me. No, this is, this is what my name, image and likeness is worth. No, you can’t, I, I don’t actually have to sign that stuff away to you just to play Minor League Baseball for you. And guess what? The owners might say, go fuck yourself. Like they, they are not going to go, they’re not going to roll over lightly on something like this. They’ve lobbied Congress for decades to get the protection that they have so that they can pay minor leaguers less than minimum wage in the Save America’s Pastime Act. And if the Curt Flood Act extended to minor leaguers, I think the impact would be that the, the top tier guys would be able to negotiate their value a lot more. It still would not really help a lot of those lower tier guys, unless, unless they formed a union.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Which, if you took away that uniform player contract, and you took away some of those anti trust benefits. And some guys started seeing the benefits of being able to negotiate your worth at that low level. I think it might make the unionizing effort a little bit easier, honestly. When you’re not so crushed, when you’re not so immediately crushed by something like the UPC, you might actually have some time to sit down and think, what am I actually worth? What would happen if I actually got to negotiate what I’m worth?
ALEX: Yeah. Or what would happen if I teamed up with dozens of other minor league players, hundreds of other minor league players. And take MLB to court over antitrust violations, right? As, as we saw in the, in the, in the case recently regarding minor league players and effectively wage theft from Major League Baseball, right? Like there actually is a viable path there. And it’s something that poses enough threat that MLB is going to do whatever it can to, to stay away from that possibility, right? Even if that means maybe moving an inch in some of those negotiations, right?
BOBBY: Yeah. Now, the, the one thing that I will add, is that, just to be clear, the antitrust exemption does not prevent minor leaguers from forming a union.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Before the Major League Baseball players were carved out from the antitrust exemption by the Curt Flood Act. They still had their union and they still had things like free agency. They still had all of the protections that a CBA gave them. Because the Collective Bargaining Agreement, that’s, that’s law, that governs your workplace. Like that, no matter what the owners want to do with their antitrust behavior and their anti competitive behavior, if you have a collective bargaining agreement, that says that you have to be treated a certain way, that supersedes that. So when people try to draw a direct line between the antitrust exemption and forming a union at the minor league level, I sort of chafe at that a little bit. But I get, I get what they’re saying, if you can start to, if you can start to improve labor conditions at that level, piece by piece, and you don’t have that weight of the antitrust exemption of them, including against you and them only paying so little money to everybody at that level, uniformly. Then it frees up more time, energy, and money to organize the minor leagues. But it would still be an incredibly large challenge is all, is all I will say. Like all of the problems about forming a minor league union that we’ve discussed on this podcast, the things that make it so hard, guys going up and down, guys moving city, the city, the pressure, the stigma associated with forming a union. Fearing like you’re gonna get cut, all of that stuff, the antitrust exemption goes away for them. All of that stuff is still there. So I, I would caution people to not get ahead of themselves and think antitrust exemption over Minor League Baseball unionized, owners going down, you know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s go to question 4. Recent reports, including an article in The Athletic. Nothing like Senators reading The Athletic. Do you think that they have to pay for it? Or do you think that they have some kind of paywall workaround?
ALEX: I, I feel like it probably came in the lobbying package for the Save America’s Pastime Act. They were like will comp you, will comp you on this.
BOBBY: Recent reports including an article in The Athletic entitled a failed system, a corrupt process exploiting Dominican baseball prospects. Is an international draft, really the answer. Have identified rampant corruption and abuse in the market for international prospects. From giving performance enhancing drugs, teenagers to shady dealings between scouts and trainers. To your knowledge, how widespread are these practices? And what role if any, does MLBs antitrust exemption play in creating the conditions that enable these practices? First of all, I have a new goal for the podcast.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Is to have one of our titles cited in a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Like in this recent episode, Alex Rodriguez and the legal definition of racketeering. You guys stated X isn’t true.
ALEX: You know, it’s becoming a, a clear possibility in, in the midst of the downfall of, of this democracy. So, you know, fucking sure, why that?!
BOBBY: Bernie would be the one to do it. Okay, do you have an answer for this question? This one is very complicated.
ALEX: It is very complicated. It’s very, it’s very naughty. And it’s something that we haven’t really addressed too much on the podcast, which is the kind of international state of affairs when it comes to players entering the league from foreign countries, right? But when the Senators lay out those examples of practices from performance enhancing drugs, to shady dealings between the, the scouts and trainers and handlers and that sort of thing and ask how widespread is it? The answer is quite, there have obviously been some reforms that Major League Baseball have tried to implement in the last few years. And obviously, in this latest round of CBA, negotiations, and an international draft was, was kind of one of the the last pieces to click. And it’s still something that’s being negotiated over right now. But as it stands, it’s still a, a far more lawless system than even Minor League Baseball. Which is–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –on its own in a, in a very bad state, obviously.
BOBBY: I think the, the biggest role that the antitrust exemption plays in this is that it allowed them to all create this world together, you know–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –what I mean? It, it, it allowed them to come together and say, here’s how we’re going to, here’s what we’re going to pay international free agents. Here’s how we’re going to manage the recruiting process. And you might not think that they did much of that, because it’s pure chaos, pure lawless, wild, wild west chaos. To the point that MLBs international practices are being investigated for things like human trafficking. But there was still an element of collusion and coming together and saying, this is how we’re going to set up this system. And if there is no, if there are no teams that are allowed, under the banner of MLB. If there are no teams that are allowed to do it better, or do it fairly, then you’re never going to have a market in which international free agents who are, by the way, as this, as this says, who are 13, 14, 15, 16, 17-year old kids, you’re never going to have a system where those people can enter any kind of market and get any kind of fair compensation. You, you just get what MLB decides.
ALEX: Right, exactly. They are subjected to the market that Major League Baseball has, has set for you, right? Which includes things like salary caps, right? And so the antitrust exemption goes away. All of a sudden, you are talking about more leverage for young players, when they are trying to come to the United States to play baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And, and there is kind of an interesting, there is kind of an interesting corollary to that. Which is the fact that amateur players from the United States also have very little leverage in how they enter Major League Baseball. So–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –if you talk about overhauling MLB is international system to give those players more leverage it, it stands to reason that something like the amateur draft may be up for debate all of a sudden as well. Which is, which is not to say that, that Major League Baseball would voluntarily look at changing that whatsoever.
BOBBY: But here’s a hypothetical for you that the antitrust exemption makes only a hypothetical. That, that can never happened in the real world, let’s say a renegade group of businessmen and women said, I look at the internet, I’m a big baseball fan. Let’s say, let’s say it’s you and me, Alex. We come into some pips and Patreon money, we got a bill, just a billion dollars that someone decided to give us. And you and I say, the international player pool, what’s going on the international player market is pure chaos. And it’s immoral, and it’s terrible. And I agree with what you’re saying about the domestic amateur player pool, too. They don’t have a lot of choice either. They can either go to the NCAA, or they can go to Major League Baseball. And what if you and I started a new amateur Player League. A, a competition to Minor League Baseball, where players could come and we could pay them $100,000 a year, or $500,000 a year. Or maybe what they’re worth, like millions of dollars a year?
ALEX: Okay, okay.
BOBBY: All right, come on, you get, you get on the, the very [41:04]–
ALEX: I just don’t you spending the money that I don’t have.
BOBBY: Yes, exactly. Let’s say we’re paying players a million dollars a year. Like the G league in basketball. Or like, you know, like the Big3 tried to do in basketball. Or like the other competitive, the competition leagues in that we have in football, too. MLB could put all of their weight behind the string. They could all 30 of those billionaires could come together in a room. And they could say they could use all of their collective contacts to say don’t lease them a stadium, don’t give them a line of credit. Don’t take their, don’t give them advertising money.
ALEX: Right. You’re in–
BOBBY: Don’t play their games on television. ESPN–
ALEX: You’re [41:49] our on our location rights.
BOBBY: Right. The ESPN, if you want to play their games on TV, then we’re ending our con- we are terminating our contract with you right now, Fox Sports, if you want to play their games on TV, no more regional sports broadcasts of Major League Baseball games. They could legally do all that. That is not legal anywhere else in the United States. Unless you have an antitrust exemption. And so to me, that’s how destroying a hypothetical like that, that is how it enables these international practices. Because there’s no other option for anybody. Fraught as any of those alternative options might end up being in the real world that they don’t even exist at all.
ALEX: Right. The fact that there is one pipeline to Major League Baseball, and it is through the one that they’ve traded and set the market conditions for, means that you have a, a legalized monopoly on the game, right? And you’ve given these kids no other choice, which is, is maybe what this whole antitrust thing is was intended to do in the first place.
BOBBY: Maybe. Okay, question five, in lobbying for the Save America’s Pastime Act, MLB claimed the bill is necessary to prevent minor league contraction. However, despite its enactment, prior to the 2021 baseball season, dozens of minor league teams lost their affiliations with MLB clubs as a result of its roargo- reorganization of the minor leagues. A- how did this reorganization affect Minor League Baseball players? B- did the antitrust exemption play any role in MLB is ability to restructure the minor leagues in this way? And C- what effect would repealing the Save America’s Pastime Act have on the minor leagues and minor league players? Now we’re getting into the good stuff.
ALEX: We are getting really good stuff. I, it’s, look it’s, it’s not funny, obviously. But it is a, a little bit funny that Major League Baseball set themselves up for this. By going–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –to Congress to ask for exemptions from minimum wage laws. And, and lying to their, their faces about not only why they needed, why these conditions are needed for Minor League Baseball? But what it would do to safeguard the future–
BOBBY: Right!
ALEX: –of Minor League Baseball, right? You remember the, the, the title of the Act–
BOBBY: Called America’s Pastime.
ALEX: –Save America’s Pastime.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You could argue that contracting 40 teams is maybe antithetical to that.
BOBBY: It is kind of deliciously their fault, you know what I mean? That all of this is happening, because I, I do think that that contraction. You can see how that has to, to call back to joke from earlier that has across the aisle appeal. They just eliminated these small teams. And they didn’t tell the teams ahead of time. They didn’t give them warning. They didn’t give them a financial caution. And to get into Part A- how did this reorganization affect Minor League Baseball players where they were playing baseball last year is no longer where they’re playing baseball now. They had to pick up and move and all of the staff that they had all of the concessions workers that they knew their apartment lease. Their car that was registered and Staten Island in New York. They might have to leave the state and go live somewhere else. Like that, that is how it affected Minor League Baseball players.
ALEX: Or, or you’re out or you’re simply out of a job.
BOBBY: Right. Or that because there are fewer teams, and you’re at the bottom of the organizational chart, you’re done. They just call your job.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Although I don’t think that the Senate has a problem with layoffs, kind of like the whole MO of this country. Did the antitrust exemption play any role in MLB’s ability to restructure the minor leagues in this way? Yes, it did.
ALEX: 100%, was the thing that allowed them to do that.
BOBBY: They can that, that Rob Manfred can from on high decree that this, that his cartel of Major League Baseball teams can just cut out some of those little subsidiaries with no prior warning, and no prior discussion, and no opportunity for those companies to compete to keep their affiliation is because of the antitrust exemption. Part C- what effect would repealing the Save America’s Pastime Act have on the minor leagues and minor league players, Alex? I, I don’t know! Can you, can you tell me? I have thoughts on what repealing that act should do.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And how they should be treated if that Act was repealed, but I don’t know what the actual effect would be to you.
ALEX: Not quite, I mean, I, you know, you certainly wouldn’t instantly see every Major League Baseball team paying each player 750 an hour for their work, right?
BOBBY: Which you not, though?
ALEX: Or, or, or maybe or maybe you, you would, but you would have a very narrowly defined rationale for what that work actually is, right? Which is what the argument that we’ve seen them make already, right? Between spring training and extended spring training, and the entire offseason, right?
BOBBY: The travel time.
ALEX: And travel time, yeah. So I think it, it just kind of shifts the, the contours of the fight a little bit. Because you would still see Major League Baseball, trying to suppress those salaries. But doing it through slightly different means. That it’s–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –like does that sound like it make, makes sense?
BOBBY: It does. And you probably would see Major League Baseball try to jump on the train if something like Prop 22 in California. Are they try to carve out these very specific, this, this very specific terminology that calls you an at will employee for like versus a, versus a hourly employee. And that means that you don’t have to provide them all of these things. You don’t have to give them health care, you don’t have to guarantee their shifts. Because Rideshare drivers and, and food delivery workers, they are getting to choose when they work. That is how you would see M- that, that’s how you would see Minor League Baseball players treated in the offseason. They’re choosing when they work. Like they, if they come into the facility, then all of these things. But I do think that there are fewer things that MLB could wriggle out of, fewer labor laws that MLB could wriggle out of. Of course, if they repealed the Save America’s Pastime Act. It would give a much better legal case for them to be able to say, we need to make minimum wage, period. And we need to be, if we are full time employees, then we need to be guaranteed that minimum wage, whenever we are doing baseball related activities.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then MLB would have would be in the very difficult job, which is what they don’t want to do, which is why they lobbied for the Save America’s Pastime Act of defining when and where baseball related activities are happening. So that they could present their case in a court, in a, in a labor court.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And that’s really hard. They don’t want to do that.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Because guess what baseball related activities are all the time. And they would have to be paying these players all of the time.
ALEX: Right. Well, and–
BOBBY: And minimum wa- even a minimum wage starts to add up to much more than they’re currently play, paying those players right now.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. And we’re already starting, starting to see the kind of dismantling of that idea that baseball related work is limited to the nine innings that you’re on the field, right? Notably, as a bit of an aside, the, the Save America’s Pastime Act was passed through the, the reconciliation bill as, as effectively a footnote back in 28, back in 2018. A, a bill that, that Richard Durbin and Richard Blumenthal happily signed off on. Happily said, Yay, I will throw Minor League Baseball players under the bus. If it means a little slush fund money over here for my own pet project.
BOBBY: Oh, Alex, don’t you know that like, that like leaves in the wind? Whatever–
ALEX: Sometimes–
BOBBY: –political wins are flowing.
ALEX: –competitions.
BOBBY: Yeah, sometimes you have to make the tough decisions so that in the future you can extort Major League Baseball for more campaign funds.
ALEX: Right. All parody by the way.
BOBBY: All, but, yeah. Complete in total parody, what is not parody, is this hypothetical. Do you think that maybe Rob Manfred has been pushing for lowering gametime? Not because he thinks that baseball fans are going to flock back but because he thinks that they’re gonna have to pay players for all of the extra time and they’re actually playing baseball out there?
ALEX: I love that conspiracy theory. That’s like a three, I think on the tinfoil hat meter. But I love it. I love–
BOBBY: You see it coming.
ALEX: –I love the energy.
BOBBY: He’s seen the writing on the wall for a decade. And he said, you know what, if we get gametime down to two hours instead of three hours at the Minor League Baseball level, that’s 33% of pay that I’m saving the owners.
ALEX: I would respect that–
BOBBY: I’m the greatest Commissioner of all time.
ALEX: –long game so much. That playing four dimensional chess [50:42]–
BOBBY: [50:42] I mean–
ALEX: I think you’re–
BOBBY: –that’s Rob.
ALEX: –giving him far too much credit.
BOBBY: Nope. Rob is a four dimensional political actor. He’s operating on the astral plane, dude, you don’t even know what he’s thinking about. Alright, sixth and final question. Alex. Is there any other information that you believe could help the Senate Judiciary Committee’s analysis of MLB century old antitrust exemption? I have some information.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s very valuable information. That valuable information can be applied to many things in society.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That, that valuable information is this, the Supreme Court is illegitimate and their ruling on the MLBs antitrust exemption is also illegitimate. And all of their other rulings are illegitimate because they are an illegitimate, illegitimate body that doesn’t actually care about anybody.
ALEX: That’s, yeah!
BOBBY: Except maintaining power. That’s my other information that I believe could help inform the Senate Judiciary Committee’s analysis.
ALEX: Do you think?
BOBBY: It was, it was very illegitimate 100 years ago, just as it’s illegitimate now, just as other decisions that they are making–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –are illegitimate.
ALEX: Yeah. Do you think that’s going to be a convincing argument for Charles Grassley?
BOBBY: We have shared quite a bit of useful information that Harry Marino could include in his response to this letter. But I don’t think that Harry would include that. So I don’t think that Charles Grassley is going to have to make that decision.
ALEX: What I, what I will offer to Harry as a potential addendum to his response is, is not even my own declaration. It is the words of former Atlanta Braves owner, Ted Turner. Who–
BOBBY: Thank you based Ted
ALEX: –doing, doing the hard work for us. Who after the, the league was forced to pay out a trio of settlements after losing three arbitration cases regarding collusion in the ’80s. He famously said to his, to his fellow owners, quote, “We have the only legal monopoly in America and we’re fucking it up!”
BOBBY: Oh, man!
ALEX: Ted, thank you!
BOBBY: Can you imagine if he was still an owner now?
ALEX: Oh, God.
BOBBY: Talk about fucking it up. Amazing quote by him.
ALEX: Amazing quote by Him.
BOBBY: God, this, he would give us so much podcast fodder if he was still an owner these days.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: It be like, Steve Cohen on steroids.
ALEX: He’s a former owner, so [53:04], does he–
BOBBY: I don’t think he does media anymore. It’s trying to get them on. All time shot in the dark. Or just email like ted.turner@tnt.com.
ALEX: I’m a, I’m a very big CNN guy.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah?
ALEX: Yeah. So I you know, I want to give him his flowers while he’s still here.
BOBBY: You know, some advice in the podcasting world that I often hear and give is that sometimes if you, if you want to shoot your shot, just do it on the podcast. You never know who’s listening. So if somebody’s listening, if Ted himself, Ted if you’re listening, come on the podcast, the invites open. That’s all I got, this was supposed to be an abbreviated episode and of course, turned into a full episode. One, one final thing to mention, it’s hilarious that Ken Rosenthal and Maria Torres. But it’s hilarious to see Ken Rosenthal, literally Ken Rosenthal’s name in a footnote from a letter from the Senate, from a bunch of senators.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s, that’s, it’s just, if we hadn’t jumped the shark before with this podcast, but what society in general that the shark–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –is sufficiently jumped.
ALEX: What a whirlwind of, of a letter that really is. I, I again want to underscore how, how cautious I am in getting too overly optimistic here.
BOBBY: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
ALEX: And this certainly it’s not the kind of thing that Major League Baseball will, will let go down without a fight. But as the courts have reaffirmed in the past, the so-called illegitimate courts have reaffirmed in the past. It up–
BOBBY: Not so-called just they are, they are–
ALEX: They are.
BOBBY: Definitively illegitimate courts.
ALEX: It’s up to Congress to do something about this exemption if they really want to. They’ve had opportunities before. They haven’t done much with it. But that could change, it could. Many things could happen, many things can happen at any moment, really.
BOBBY: My closing thoughts on this are that it’s a fool’s errand to think that the Senators aren’t going to actually do anything for you. So the, the most direct way to improve minor league working conditions would be to unionize the damn minor leagues, and I still stand by that. They still support that effort. I still would like that to happen. And I don’t give a damn about the antitrust exemption if we get union of the minor leagues.
ALEX: Woah! This guy doesn’t give a damn about the antitrust exemption. He’s also–
BOBBY: It’s a fire brand, I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, just–
ALEX: Right. This letter specifically focuses on minor leaguers, right? Now, what we, what we haven’t really talked about is all the other things that the antitrust exemption enables, right? Things like team relocation and blackouts, everything that kind of is outside of the scope of labor relations, right? And if you’re interested in–
BOBBY: Yeah, but the Senators–
ALEX: –hearing more about that.
BOBBY: –can’t, they can’t get brownie points on that.
ALEX: No, they can’t.
BOBBY: They can’t seem like [56:04]–
ALEX: [56:04] look like their–
BOBBY: –the working people by doing that.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
BOBBY: Nobody wants to hear about the time that the A’s tried to move to San Jose. It’s not gonna win them any points. political points, Alex.
ALEX: I don’t know that San Jose voting bloc is on the, on the come up, I hear.
BOBBY: Mike Lee is really going for that San Jose voting bloc. He’s like, I need the good people of the extended Bay Area. Anyway, you were saying, if people want to hear more about that they can go?
ALEX: To our episode, antitrust issues that came out last year, I believe? Where we break down all the parts of the exemption and potentially what a, a flat out repeal of it would mean for the state of the league, right? Not that we are facing that possibility at the moment. But I thought we had an interesting conversation about, about what this exemption actually means because it’s very esoteric. And, and a lot of the, the parts of baseball that were enabled by this antitrust exemption. We sort of just kind of take for granted as being part of the sport, right? Without really stopping to question whether or not there’s another way. And trust me, there always is.
BOBBY: Yeah. And I would point people to two other episodes if they’re interested in hearing more about the antitrust exemption, and how it affects minor league labor. The first one would be a it was A League. it’s called A League Built on Trust. Featuring Jim Quinn, that was from January 27th of this year. That’s when we talked about the case that is currently in the courts right now as sending its way to the Supreme Court to try to repeal this decision. And the one of the lead litigators on that case, Jim Quinn. And then our conversation with Harry Marino, which I mentioned at the top of this, this episode, which was on February 21st of this year. A great conversation with Harry about how he views all these things and how he might actually formulate his legitimate response to this letter, not our hijacked podcast response. I think that doesn’t for this week, Alex, unless you have anything else that?
ALEX: We could use our, our crystal ball to talk about whatever happens on Saturday.
BOBBY: The Swarovski crystal ball that sells for $350 on MLB.com’s website?
ALEX: Yes, yes, ex- thank you. Yes! I have one sitting on my desk right here. I’m staring at as we speak.
BOBBY: I hold one during all pods.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Thank you, thank you to the five members of the Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier, who helped us to afford our Swarovski crystal balls. Those five members this week are Alexis, Jake, Craig, Ben, and Tristan. If you would like to become a supporter, a producer Alex Rodriguez VIP level supporter of the Tipping Pitches Podcasting, get a shout out at the end of every episode, five new VIP at the end of every episode. Thank you so much to the dozens of people who have signed up for that tier. It’s patreon.com\tippingpitches. I hope nothing important happened in the time between when we recorded this podcast and when this podcast comes out into the world. But guess what, it’s not changing because I’m going on vacation and everybody deserves that. So thanks for listening and we will be back next week.
[59:08]
[Music]
[59:28]
[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!
ALEX: It is one that was made by former Braves owner, [59:49]
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s still kicking. This motherfucker looks like Moonlight Graham, he really does!
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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