Why Marvin Miller Does NOT Belong in Cooperstown
Contributions to the game? He gave us the $600 box seat ticket, player strikes, and eliminated the idea of all but big market heroes to play their entire careers with one club, thus sacrificing fan loyalty.
On Sunday Alan Trammell and Jack Morris were named as Modern Day inductees to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown.
They’re legitimate selections. Morris won more games in the 1980s than any other pitcher and was the Detroit Tigers’ workhorse. While his lifetime ERA of 3.90 is the highest ERA of any pitcher enshrined, it can be attributed to staying around at least two years too long as well as playing in the designated hitter era.
It’s also difficult to say he was primarily a pitcher who won 5–4 games when the most memorable game of his career was his 1–0, 10-inning victory against the Braves in the 7th Game of the World Series.
Trammel was easily a top shortstops of his era. He made up half of the longest running double play combination in baseball history with Lou Whitaker, beginning first in 1977 and extending through 1995.
The ballot was strong. For instance, if Trammel makes it with a career .285 average and 185 lifetime home runs as a shortstop, what about Ted Simmons, the cleanup hitter on the powerful 1982 American League champion Milwaukee Brewers, who hit .285 with 243 career home runs as a catcher and was also up for induction?
Other players consider include Steve Garvey, who holds the National League record for consecutive games played and went the entire 1984 season without making an error while hitting a walk-off home run in Game Four of that year’s NLCS that propelled the San Diego Padres to their first pennant.
Tommy John and Luis Tiant had significantly lower ERAs than Morris, and John won 34 more lifetime games.
In the mid-’80s, both Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy were the best players in their respective leagues. In the late ’70s Dave Parker was the best player in all of baseball.
All of these players should be considered for enshrinement in the future.
But there was one name on the ballot that doesn’t belong; Marvin Miller.
A vote for Miller reveals more about one’s politics than anything else. And as sports become polarized politically, enshrining a union leader who compared an attempt to keep players’ salaries at bay, which would have increased competitive balance, with the 1919 Black Sox scandal in Ken Burns’ Baseball would be the most polarizing statement imaginable.
It would essentially make a statement that baseball was a game not for fans of every political persuasion but one for union sympathizers.
Bill Lee also said in Baseball that Miller’s contributions to the game made the game better for everyone but the fans and Planet Earth.
Gone, because of Miller, is not only the hope that a small market franchise can really stay at the top for an extended period of time, as Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Oakland, and Kansas City did in the 1970s, but the affordability of baseball.
Thirty years ago one could go to a Dodgers game and sit in the box seats for $6. Today that seat, even after a season ticket discount, has a face value of more than $100.
Inflation hasn’t gone up that much. Except in baseball.
And that’s a reasonable price for baseball tickets. A trip to a Texas Rangers game four years ago saw box seats selling for $595. Even the cheapest parking spaces at Sun Trust Park, ones that provide shuttle service, sell for $18.
As a union leader, Miller didn’t help the little guy. He took baseball away from them.
But he did take the players out of Cadillacs and into Bentleys.
For this he deserves enshrinement?
One fan told me if it weren’t for Miller, we might still have the reserve clause. Yes, that was unfair to players, but even Miller agreed it was necessary for six years.
Because of Miller, personnel and strategic decisions are now made by agents instead of managers, player identity is sacrificed as transactions increase, and frankly the game has been in decline since he arrived on the scene. Miller put his hands in both the American Steel Industry and Baseball and did a pretty good job of destroying them both.
From a baseball fan’s standpoint, I can think of no one who deserves praise less than Marvin Miller.
Marky Billson Hosts Tri-Cities Sports NOW on 1420 NBC Sports Radio Tri-Cities Weekdays from 12–2 p.m. ET. His show is streamed live and is archived on Facebook. Like the 1420 NBC Sports Radio Tri-Cities page today!
