Originally appeared in The Coldest Issue # 1

When discussions between Major League Baseball owners and the player’s union about the return of baseball in 2020 dragged on, it was a stark contrast to the positive relationship the NBA seemingly has with their player’s union. Curious as to why the relationship was far more hostile in baseball, I found this book. Lords of the Realm is considered the finest on baseball’s labor relations, won some awards and today is still closely read by many player’s union executives.

It does not portray the owners through the different eras of baseball very glowingly. They are greedy, exploitative, self-interested and full of lies. For decades, players did not even know each other’s salaries. A player would have a historic year and still face a pay cut, the owner falsely claiming declining revenue. Players were considered the property of a team, shipped wherever and with no right to have a say in where they ended up. Forward thinking owners who tried to adjust the system of labor relations to make it fairer to the players were berated and stopped at every turn by the more conservative owners.

After some abortive attempts at collective action and maintaining some sort of stable labor union, it took Marvin Miller to really get it together. The book says Miller was considered an unimpressive economist and negotiator for the United Steelworkers union. If that’s true, he was very impressive as the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Those familiar with the labor movement will recognize that Miller’s efforts combined key tactics of an organizer and negotiator. He built consensus and strived for unity. He got players to recognize they had different economic interests from the owners. He, along with dozens of player-activists, finally shattered the benevolent dictator relationship owners had with the players and won them massive gains and rights.

The owners fought everything tooth and nail, making decisions that ultimately backfired through arbitration, lost grievances and work stoppages. Their stubborness in dealing with the union, combined with their impulsive behavior with signing players once free agency was won, basically forced themselves into a situation where player’s salaries started skyrocketing and put some of the teams in a poor financial situation. Their solution was illegal collusion, where they consulted with each other to keep salaries down, a decision which cost them almost a quarter of a billion dollars court judgments, caused artificially suppressed salaries to explode and provoked a bitter and militant union. All of this culminated in the 1994 strike, which is where the book stops.

Loved this book, it not only educated me on why labor relations are the way they are in baseball, it schooled me on how the MLBPA became one of the strongest unions in the country. Anyone interested in baseball or the labor movement would learn something by reading this book.