It's Miller Time

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DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

It's Miller Time

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Wed May 27, 2020 7:33 am

I've thought about Marvin Miller a lot over the past few months. Miller is credited for the system baseball has now.
Free agency, higher salaries, stronger player union. Everything that has turned the players into millionaires while the owners are billionaires.
Way above my pay grade.

Miller was supposed to go into the Hall of Fame this year.
Why?
I don't know.
Baseball isn't necessarily better with this system.
He introduced more lawyers and agents.
I know in everyday life, if lawyers are involved with anything, it's usually not good.
Its lawyers and agents who work to bring baseball to the fields now.
How's that working out?

Back in the day, owners would mail players their contracts. Average or lesser players would sign and return the contracts.
The better players would try and squeeze more money out of the owners.
Enter Marvin Miller and we have what we have now. Which is more of a controlled chaos.
Players are making a lot more money.
He changed the game.
I guess that's the reasoning for Miller going to the Hall.

It galls me.
The game is worse for the fan since Miller.
Take the situation right now.
The owners have shitloads of money.
The players have shitloads of money.
Both sides are going to make less money this year.
But neither, HAS to work. There is little incentive.
Not playing at all, almost as bountiful for some, as playing.
And it's not a player deciding to sign a contract.
It is now, a room full of lawyers. We don't seem to stand a chance of seeing our game.
If not for Miller, these players couldn't wait to make whatever money they could. Like all other Americans now.
With Miller, we have strikes. Players not playing. Didn't happen without Miller.
Now have players changing teams like we change our clothes.
Players use to have team loyalty. Now, their loyalty lies within their wallet.
That, that is NOT better for the fan or the game.

Miller changed the game.
So what?
If it's not for the better for the fan, who cares?
Scott Cousins ran Buster Posey over at the plate almost nine years ago to the day in 2011.
It changed the game.
Not one person thinks Scott Cousins should be in the Hall.
The whole 'game changer' argument is lost on me.

If it hadn't been Marvin Miller, I know that somebody else would eventually have changed the system.
I get it. The players have to make their money.
Miller, in increasing players salaries also brought more of his own kind into the game.
Lawyers and agents. Before a pitch is thrown, lawyers talk.
And they talk, and talk, and talk. They love to talk.
Us?
We wait. Powerless. Thanks Marvin!
Just think.
Without this system, there is no doubt these players would be chomping at the bit to play a game for a living.
As is, they make so much money now, that they could take it or leave it.
They now have lawyers deciding for them.
Fans have no control in depending on these lawyers to watch or even have our game. Wonderful.
Thanks to a fella selected to the Hall of Fame.
Gotta love America.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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whale4evr
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Re: It's Miller Time

Post by whale4evr » Wed May 27, 2020 10:31 am

Should have been Curt Flood instead. He took all the heat.

DOUGHBOYS
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Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Re: It's Miller Time

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Wed May 27, 2020 11:08 am

whale4evr wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 10:31 am
Should have been Curt Flood instead. He took all the heat.
So agreed.
Flood lived it. He was berated by fans, the press, and especially other players.
Flood is only remembered by you, I, and others who were around at the time.
He was treated as a pariah while Miller lay claim to that of a conquering hero.
Flood was a damned good player. A player who paved the way for today's game.
Miller, was a damned good lawyer.
Miller enters the Hall.
Somehow, that makes sense to the Hall of Fame.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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