Apparently somebody has built a time machine, because apparently I logged in on December 31st, 1969. Quite honestly, I really don't remember that day or year, being that I was still 9 years from being born yet. An obvious site glitch, I notice that after visiting threads and moving forward, it'll still show that the thread has unread entries, or sometimes posts won't show up right away.
After beating my brain to a pulp with loud cla$$ic rock music this past week, I unknowingly bypassed that there was a Baseball Hall of Fame vote by the Veterans Committee. The biggest news of that vote, was again the exclusion of former MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller. Say what you want about all the good Miller brought to the players, he is ultimately the reason why a man can't take his family for an afternoon at the ballpark without it costing an arm and a leg.
Marvin Miller succeeded the free agency clause, which caused ..er allowed players to become free agents after 6 years of service and be subjected to a bidding war with their next contract. All fine and dandy for the player, but it means higher ticket prices for you. It also killed pretty much any hope of a player playing his entire career on one team. This is exactly why I wear team jerseys blank instead of with a player's name & number on the back. I can no longer have a favorite player on the White Sox, 'cause I know he'll end up playing on "The Enemy", whoever that ends up being. Free Agency also ended up with vile results when Orel "Bulldog Dodger Blue" Hershiser, of all people, was someday pitching & making millions while in #1 enemy San Francisco Giants black & orange, team loyalty is basically a dead concept. I don't know why Orel pitched for the Giants in '98 after 3 seasons in Cleveland, but if I was a true Dodger and appreciated what I had done for the team and its history and ten's of millions of dollars the Dodgers paid me over the years, I would never have pitched on the Giants. It's not like he needed the money. Of course, my jaded moment came in baseball came years earlier, after years of gradual salary bumps, when baseball's #1 salary at $4 million a year for Minnesota's Kirby Puckett, to Chicago Cubs Ryne Sandberg's #1 salary at $7 million a year. Sure is great, huh? In 1989, a Wrigley Field right-field bleacher seat cost $4.25. Today? $60. (other bleacher seats go from $30 to $36, and it goes even higher when that depends if it's a "regular" game over a "prime" game).
As I recall, the NFL didn't have free agency until like 1992 or '93, and that sport isn't exactly hurting or dying. And from the pro-Marvin Miller commentary that I've read around the web, Miller was NOT in fact "saving baseball players from levels of slavery". Get some god damn perspective: it's a GAME. "They had to work winter jobs". Oh noes! Let's see, their "work" consisted of dressing up and going outside for 3 hours, most of it where they were either sitting or standing around. The horror! Also, these same people claming blasphemy are saying the Hall of Fame is "poorer" for having omitting Miller. Hmmm, it's a Hall of Fame, not a general baseball museum. They have the right to include or exclude whatever the hell they want.
Today, with baseball with all of its A-Rod $27.5 million a year salary, with their little steroids problem, with the Florida Marlins trading Dontrelle Willis & Miguel Cabrera to Detroit and blaming it "on their stadium woes", this is what happens when you let Miller build the world's most powerful union that won after every single labor war, which somehow led to having illegal things legal in baseball. And you bet your ass Miller would have NEVER allowed steroid testing on players, alas it took a public and congress outcry to actually have the players wise up and realize "it's actually for their own good and for the integrity of the sport for the future". Marvin Miller was good for baseball players, bad for the game. I know I feel better, knowing that Tribune writer Phil Rogers would completely disagree with me.