A Brief Legal History of One of the Most Influential Players in the History of Baseball, Marvin Miller

Quoting from Christopher Schmidt's recent Legal History Blog post:

Marvin Miller, who led the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966 until 1982, died last week.  Miller is best known for his role in orchestrating the downfall of baseball’s century-old reserve clause system, under which owners basically dictated where players played and for how much.  More than any other individual, Miller thrust baseball into the modern era—an era characterized by players regularly moving between teams in search of new multi-million dollar contracts and collective bargaining as a primary policy-making mechanism for the game.  Under his leadership, the Players Association went from something of a joke (the players “didn’t know what a union was, but they knew they didn’t want one,” Miller later recalled) to arguably the most powerful union in America.  Miller has been rightly celebrated as one of the handful of the most consequential figures in the history of baseball.

For much more, see Schmidt's Marvin Miller: A Brief Legal History. [JH]