MILLER SHOULDN’T GET INTO HALL
The major league baseball hall of fame will divulge their inductees for this years Hall of Fame induction in just a few weeks. On January 8th we will learn who will be the newest HOF’ers to be enshrined in Cooperstown.
As of right now, we know that Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa and Bobby Cox will all be in. The three were elected by baseball’s expansion era committee this week. They are three excellent choices, and have been three of the best managers of our current era. In fact, you could make a strong case for Torre to get in as a player too–his numbers are that good. When you add in his managerial credentials, he is a no-brainer. Same for Cox and LaRussa. The amount of division titles and playoff appearances from that duo is among the best of any manager to get in.
As for the rest of the possible choices, I know one that I would never elect if I had a vote, and that person would be Marvin Miller.
Marvin Miller is the longtime leader of the BLB players union. Many educated observers of the baseball hall of fame and its voting, seem to think Miller should be a shoo-in to be elected. They say that the fact that he hasn’t been elected already is a terrible injustice. They say the game of baseball wouldn’t be the same right now without the contributions of Miller. They say he is the main reason why players are being paid how they are, and how wonderful that is.
POPPYCOCK!
If I had a vote (and sadly, I don’t) Marvin Miller would never get into the hall of fame. The Miller backers say that the definition of enshrinement include the person’s contributions to the game–that the game is markedly better because of them. That he had an impact on the game. They say this most definitely applies to Miller. I say it’s the opposite.
I say that Marvin Miller has actually been a DETRIMENT to the game of baseball. He had an impact on the game no doubt, but it was a NEGATIVE impact. More recent player union boss Donald Fehr has said that nobody meant more to the game of baseball in the first half of the 20th century than Jackie Robinson, and nobody meant more in the second half of the century than Marvin Miller.
He’s half right.
Miller took over as the player union boss in 1968 when that union was nothing more than a handmaiden of the owners. After the reserve clause was thrown out and free agency began, Miller negotiated the league’s first collective bargaining agreement, almost single-handedly changed the salary structure in the game in just a couple of years. In other words, he priced the average fan out of the game.
When I was 9 years old, I remember going to spring training game in Florida for the price of a typical Red Wing game. $7 bucks would get you box seats. $5 would get you in the reserved seat section and for $3 bucks, you get in on general admission tickets. Now, according to seatcrunch.com, the average ticket price for a spring training baseball game last spring was $60 bucks!
Same thing goes for regular season games. When I went to a Cleveland Indians game with my aunt and unle in Ohio in 1975, the ticket stub (I still have it) says $12 dollars. Now, you can’t walk through the gates of a major league baseball stadium for less than $50 bucks, unless you are taking a stadium tour. This is all largely to Marvin Miller. During his tenure as union chief, the average salary for a major league baseball player went from $19,000 in 1968 to $326,000 in 1982. That increase came right out of fans pockets, and now with average salaries over $3 million dollars (according to ESPN), fans won’t be getting anything back anytime soon.
Miller was also instrumental in the game missing 50 games in 1981 due to a player strike, and his policies
were instrumental in two other strikes.
You want to talk hall of fame? Yeah, Marvin Miller would be in the players hall of fame. As for this fan, Miller will hold a perennial spot in my baseball hall of shame.
