The End of Baseball As We Knew It

"The first book to utilize the files, letters, and correspondence of the Major League Baseball Players Association, The End of Baseball As We Knew It replays the much-storied transformation of power from management to players that set the standard for labor relations, not just in baseball, but in all professional sports. Charles P. Korr also draws on interviews with ballplayers, journalists, and labor executives to construct this insider's view of the most successful sports union's formative years." "Before the appointment of former Steelworkers Union executive Marvin J. Miller in 1966, the MLBPA was a loosely organized company union created to negotiate pensions and working conditions. As the players realized they needed the game to make a living and the owners needed them to make a profit, the union gained momentum. Capitalizing on this equation under Miller's tutelage, the players staged a fifteen-year battle that gradually extracted power from management. By 1981, the MLBPA had dramatically escalated players' salaries, increased their rights and freedoms in contract negotiations, and replaced the century-old "reserve system" with free agency." "With detail and analysis, Korr reveals how the union operated, how the players financed and supported it, and how it succeeded in besting the owners in every confrontation. He also considers the role of the press in swaying public opinion of both sides and captures the ideological rift between fans and owners, who were enmeshed in the romantic traditionalism of baseball's history, and the players who were unwilling to accept the status quo."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.