RIP Marvin Miller

[George H Ruth]

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/story/2012/11/27/sp-mlb-marvin-miller-major-league-baseball-players-association-donald-fehr.html?cmp=rss

Died this morning. Did a lot of great things for the game.

RIP

[Steven Gallanter]

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/ml...r.html?cmp=rss

Died this morning. Did a lot of great things for the game.

RIP

Everything good and quite a bit of the bad comes from Mr. Miller. His book A WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLGAME details the changes he wrought. Indispensable reading for those with an interest in how our game became what it is.

[toomanyhatz]

Ultimately, Miller did what it was his job to do- protect labor. Labor in this case meant something different than it means to you and me, but still, on a grander scale, his cause was just and moral- seeing that the people doing the work reaped their fair share of the benefits. And he saw through the owners' cries of poverty. The thing that put the burden on the fan rather than the players or the owners was the misguided and ridiculous appointment of Selig. Never should've happened. A commish's mission should be to uphold the integrity of the game, something Selig's failed miserably at.

I say Miller was a great man, and I say he should be in the Hall of Fame.

[George H Ruth]

Marvin Miller was vitally important. Blowing up the reserve clause is monumentally important and for that alone he should be in the HOF.

I think the problem some Miller detractors have isn't necessarily with Miller himself, but what he created once it was in the hands of his less-talented lieutenants and successors.

I can't place when the line was crossed, but at some point (mid 90s?), the MLBPA went a bit over the line from union advocacy to union intransigence to the point where it was beginning to hurt the game.

I understand how it happened -- the MLBPA had been in a pitched battle against a jerk-off cabal of baseball owners and enmity between the two sides began to color everything out of proportion to the good of the game, the industry and its players. That wasn't good for either side and it took 30 years of labor strife for them to finally figure it out before some semblance of peace and cooperation began to emerge in the 2000s.

I primarily blame Donald Fehr for this. His stands against drug-testing, etc., was union protectionism run amok and ultimately damaged the players more so than protected them. He was as unsympathetic a figure as any in baseball's labor troubles.

Often interviewed as a sage, Miller would naturally come out in support of the union he created. I think Miller is criticized because the endgame of his legacy in the hands of less-talented people was labor strife, stoppages and a lot of black-eyes for a sport that, at the end of the day, people just want to watch and love.

[Brian McKenna]

He changed the game in significant ways - perhaps the definition of a HOFer.

[George H Ruth]

Why do people cling to this notion that the commissioner is anything other than the CEO for a multi-billion dollar entity called Major League Baseball? His mission is to maximize profits for franchise owners, which he has done quite effectively.