It's been 50 years since a lawyer's decision unlocked free agency in MLB and changed sports forever

[Auggie]

NEW YORK (AP) — Sports were turned upside down 50 years ago Tuesday (Dec 23) by a man who never threw or kicked a ball.

A lawyer with expertise in labor relations struck down Major League Baseball’s reserve clause, which had bound players to their teams since the 1870s.

No one could have predicted then that the 65-page decision issued Dec. 23, 1975, by arbitrator Peter Seitz — who later compared baseball owners to “the French barons of the 12th century” — would lead to an upheaval that made thousands of players multimillionaires.

“The real floodgates opened after that,” former pitcher David Cone said. “Players were finally in all walks of life, in all sports, were finally able to see what, hey, what free agency really looks like. There was all the doom and gloom back then from one side that said: ‘This is going to ruin the game. It’s not sustainable.’ And actually, it was just the opposite. It made the game better.”

MORE: https://apnews.com/article/free-agency-50th-anniversary-849bbad930f23b37bb739d7c367c41c0

"It made the game better."

Yeah, for the players. And MLB was too myopic to add a meaningful salary cap.

[NoRethugFriends]

1. I believe it involved my Phillies and Curt Flood

On a side note, I believe Curt played the deepest center field of anyone ever

[JT45242]

2. Every other major sport in America has free agency and a salary cap...MLB sucks because it doesn't

Born in Cincinnati, been a Reds fan all if my life.

Free agency WITHOUT a salary cap and revenue sharing has killed small market teams. There is no real hope for a team like the Reds. If they get a great player, they have two options.

Lose him when the salary gets too big (Elly de la Cruz will be the next after losing pitchers and other players for the last 50 years) or pay one guy and have a crap team around him of bargain basement contracts (think the teams around Joey Votto or Ken Griffey Jr).

You might get a lucky year and make the playoffs. But you cannot sustain it.

Not when the Dodgers can literally spend a billion dollars a year on free agents.

In the NBA, the cap, luxury tax, and aprons would force the Dodgers, Yankees, etc to blow up their teams.
In the NFL, the league would have vetoed the contract the Dodgers wrote with 90 percent of the pay deferred and likely fined the team for violating the CBA (union contract)S. Every team would have a salary floor and a salary cap. There would be no way for the Dodgers to give out all those contracts.

But in MLB, the handful of bottomless pits of cash in the large markets can treat the small market clubs like glorified farm teams.

The best players from places like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh will find their way to New York or LA or Chicago.

Someone will likely say, the Yankees haven't won a world series in over a decade, so the system isn't broken. But in the last 25 years, the dodgers and yankees have made the playoffs 33 out of 50 chances. An unbalanced schedule that forces the Yankees to play extra games against the Red Sox contributed to some of their misses. But the playoffs to quote Moneyball "are a crap shoot". Getting in is money and roster. Winning the playoffs is health, hot streaks, and cold streaks.

If MLB played a balanced schedule the disparities would be even more obvious as the big money teams would play more against the farm teams in small markets.

Free agency is better for the players. With a salary cap, it is better for competition. But without a cap, it is just a way to make a two tier MLB.