Marvin Miller isn't in the Hall of Fame yet. Again. But Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner who did his best to thwart the end of indentured servitude (and competitive imbalance) that Miller shepherded so powerfully, is going into the Hall of Fame.
The sensibility in that is where, considering who did the most to change the game for, mostly, the better? Unless you think there was genuine virtue in the owners being allowed to misconstrue and misapply the ancient and deplorable reserve clause, binding their players to their will and denying them their right to peddle their services on a fair, open market, you can't suggest Miller left a lesser legacy than Kuhn.
Oops. The Veterans Committee group that picked from among the owners and non-field personnel — and gave Miller three of twelve votes — was composed mostly of, what a surprise, executives to whom Miller is probably the founding father of their malcontent.
This is not to say that Kuhn lacked for his virtues. He did preside over a broadening of the game's television exposure; the game's revenues did grow under his watch; and he did behave properly and beyond, perhaps his finest hours, when the Atlanta Braves sought to hype the sweep — holding him out of a season-opening three-game road set — to rig Henry Aaron's meeting and passing of Babe Ruth for the home folks and fair competition be damned.
Kuhn crooked his finger, manager Eddie Mathews knew better than to disobey, and Aaron himself pitched in in the best way he knew how, sending Jack Billingham's fastball over the Riverfront Stadium left field fence to tie the Babe, playing fairly in one other game of the set, and then hitting The Bomb for the home folks in the only way acceptable, fair and square (and how, would say Al Downing).
But there were 15 work stoppages on Kuhn's watch, the last of those — the 1981 season-disrupting strike — exposing him especially as lacking any genuine consensual power, when all was said and done, rendering baseball a little worse for the wear in the doing.
And Kuhn's active resistance to the inevitable end of the reserve era — first, by spurning Curt Flood with, in effect, what Red Smith translated to mean, "Run along, sonny, you bother me"; then, in effect, telling the arbitrator hearing the Messersmith-McNally case that the reserve system was just about the only thing that kept baseball from corruption.
If you go back into the history of baseball, before there was a reserve system, the problems of integrity in the form of outright dishonesty by clubs and players alike was flagrant, and there was no public confidence in the game. The reserve system is the cornerstone of baseball. It gave baseball the stability, economic stability, to develop a system where you were able to eliminate the problems of integrity that had been flagrant in the game.
What I see [coming if the reserve system is ended] is the loss of clubs — some of our clubs would not be able to survive it. You'd have the loss of employment opportunities for our players and our other personnel, the elimination of any possibility that in the near term we could expand into cities that have much wanted baseball . . . and, not inconceivably, the loss of a major league . . .Now, I think there is another solution, and I think that the other solution is one that I have fought for as long as we have had a collective bargaining relationship in this industry. That is to solve the problems of this kind through collective bargaining. I think the record shows that there has been very substantial movement in collective bargaining, not only with respect to the overall reserve system, but in all other areas where demands have been put on the table by the Players' Association.
— Bowie Kuhn, testifying on day two of the Messersmith-McNally arbitration hearings.
It was proper to wonder just what Kuhn thought of the kind of integrity the reserve system fostered when eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, most of whom may really have been as George Will once described, "more dumb than dishonest," were receptive to a plan hatched by two of them to throw the World Series for more money than they were being paid by a notoriously penurious and arbitrary owner.
It must have been on the mind of Dick Moss, representing Andy Messersmith (Dave McNally had signed on, as a favor to Miller, as insurance in case Messersmith might have wavered: McNally intended to stay retired) when he asked Kuhn soberly if he really believed a Messersmith victory would mean games becoming dishonest or thrown.
Kuhn delivered himself of a somewhat scrambling reply that said, essentially, yes, that's just about what it would mean so long as the public was gullible enough to believe it. (Well, the public is gullible enough to believe the free agency era has meant the compromise of competitive balance, too.) From which point Moss illustrated how ridiculous it would be if a Dodger booted one against the Padres thinking it would make him more attractive to the Padres for next season.
"I would agree with you," Kuhn replied.
Game, set, and match, pending Moss's exposure (by way of a newspaper article quoting him) of Calvin Griffith's all-but-admission that, interpreted strictly and not as his fellows had done for decades, the option portion of the reserve clause did, indeed, allow a player's free agency once he'd played out the option rather than signing a renewed contract, especially if the team's owner cut the player's salary up to twenty percent.
Arbitrator Peter Seitz had no choice but to rule for Messersmith-McNally in light of that. And Miller was canny enough not to go right for the throat when the ruling came down (and held up on appeal) and the owners locked the spring training camps in 1976. He went to the players to size up any consensus between immediate free agency and maximizing their earnings, or a prudent time frame in which a player could become a free agent.
Meanwhile, Ted Turner broke an apparent boycott and signed ill-fated Andy Messersmith to a three-year megabucks deal (injuries compromised and ended Messersmith's effectiveness and career), Charlie Finley (who favored a market-flooding immediate free agency, knowing it would screw the owners' works more than hurt the players) tried and failed at his fire sale when Kuhn blocked him, and the owners finally blinked — they approved a six-year free agency threshold while players unsigned by August 9, 1976 would become free agents at once.
The class was distinguished enough. Especially after George Steinbrenner, having been rebuffed in his bid to make a Yankee out of smooth second baseman Bobby Grich and a few other prizes, hunted, wooed ("He hustled me like a broad"), and won Reggie Jackson. From there, regardless of what you've heard or believed, baseball's competitive balance launched, little by little, piece by piece.
And the moment Riverdance Papelbon swished pinch-hitter Seth Smith, finishing the Boston Red Sox's staggering World Series sweep, that made it 20 teams having won the past thirty World Series — compared to 14 winning the past thirty Super Bowls, 10 winning the past 31 NBA championships, and 13 winning the past thirty Stanley Cups. Quick! Guess which three of the four sports have salary caps.
That's the competitive balance Bowie Kuhn — who loved the game genuinely while lacking the foresight to smooth its most important and imperative changes — sought to obstruct (18 different teams won the 71 World Series played under the reserve system, ladies and gentlemen) and Marvin Miller worked to invite.
"Bowie was a close friend and a respected leader who served as commissioner during an important period in history, amid a time of change," said incumbent commissioner Bud Selig to reporters when the vote was announced. Then he added, "I was surprised that Marvin Miller did not receive the required support given his important impact on the game."
For once, Mr. Commissioner, you'll get no argument from many.
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