When Marvin Miller Almost Hired Richard Nixon

by Matt Welch

Hit & Run Blog at reason.com

Nov. 27, 2012

Marvin Miller, a labor economist, liberal Democrat, and former top United Steelworkers Union negotiator who revolutionized the economics of professional sports during his 1966-82 run as head of the Major League Players Association, died today at the ripe old age of 95.

Miller is as responsible as any other American for the concept of free agency in professional sports. As the New York Times obit puts it:

When Mr. Miller was named executive director of the association in 1966, club owners ruled much as they had since the 19th century. The reserve clause bound players to their teams for as long as the owners wanted them, leaving them with little bargaining power. Come contract time, a player could expect an ultimatum but not much more. The minimum salary was $6,000 and had barely budged for two decades. The average salary was $19,000. The pension plan was feeble, and player grievances could be heard only by the commissioner, who worked for the owners.

Through a series of hard-fought negotiating sessions, court decisions, arbitrations, press conferences, and strikes, Miller, in constant warfare with buffoonishly autocrat MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, won the right for players of qualifying tenure to shop their services to the highest bidder in a (mostly) open labor market. Salaries boomed, but so did competition, quality, and overall industry revenue. By 2012, the minimum salary had grown to $480,000 (over 10 times the inflation-adjusted amount in 1966), and the average salary to $3.4 million (x25), while the number of pro teams had nearly doubled. 

But like any big change between 1966 and 1982, baseball's economic revolution wasn't just about money–it was also about race. Miller, a refined, thin-mustache type (and a very knowledgeable New York baseball fan), had a keen sensitivity of how vestigial racism among owners, the press, and various regions of the country poisoned the experience of black and Latino ballplayers. His great memoir, A Whole Different Ball Game: The Sport and Business of Baseball, is filled with poignant anecdotes about vilified black players such as Alex Johnson, Dick Allen, and Curt Flood, reminding us that with newfound economic liberty came the ability at long last to speak, act, and even dress like free men.

The result, I argued in a 2005 Reason piece titled "Locker-Room Liberty," was liberating (and hugely entertaining) for the country as a whole:

Operating in a subculture far more socially conservative than those surrounding the professional arts, athletes of the mid-to-late '60s and '70s forced their reluctant and occasionally hostile audiences to confront issues of race, war, and free expression, and we are all better for their efforts.

Muhammad Ali opposed Vietnam and the military draft years before it was cool, while encouraging a generation of kids to give themselves new names and manipulate the formerly all-powerful media.  Three decades before metrosexual was a word, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath shocked male football fans by parading around in mink coats, posing as an "Olivetti Girl" in a sexually charged typewriter ad, and filming commercials for pantyhose.

Knuckleball pitcher Jim Bouton ripped the lid off of professional baseball's Ward Cleaver packaging with his pussy-and-pills 1970 memoir Ball Four; two years later Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich became the most famous wife swappers in the country. Bill Walton convinced the notoriously square UCLA coach John Wooden that smoking dope and attending Grateful Dead shows could be every bit as crucial to the legendary motivator's "Pyramid of Success" as hard work and respecting your teammates (provided you could still shoot 21 for 22 in the NCAA finals). And just about every star of the time had to grapple on a daily basis, in full view of the newly national television audience, with America's combustible conflict between black and white

In a single generation--between John Kennedy's assassination and the fall of Saigon--the archetype for the pro athlete was transformed from lantern-jawed Midwesterners like Mickey Mantle to pot-gobbling longhairs like Bill "Spaceman" Lee. Earthbound sidemen like Bob Cousy found their game passed over by skywalking soloists like Dr. J. The era of Johnny Unitas buzz-cuts and Jackie Robinson no-comments was replaced by athletes who looked, played, and spoke however they damn well pleased, injecting creativity and innovation on the field while puncturing mythologies and ditching racist baggage outside the stadium walls.

So what does this all have to do with Richard Nixon?

In 1966, as he was consolidating his position as union chief, Marvin Miller got a call from influential player representative and soon-to-be Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. From A Whole Different Ball Game:

"Have you picked your general counsel yet?" he asked hesitantly.

"No," I said, though I planned to offer the job to Dick Moss as soon as our funding was in place.

"Well, try this suggestion on for size. Richard Nixon is still interested in the job. I know you're not a big fan of his," Roberts said, "but he's in New York. Will you at least go talk to him as a favor to me?"

True, I had never rooted for Dick Nixon, but I was a big Robin Roberts fan. I agreed to call Nixon and arrange an appointment after Robin assured me that this was not an attempt to limit my authority to name my general counsel. [...]

Drinks in hand, Nixon, his associate, and I amiably rambled on about the 1966 season. Thirty minutes passed. I didn't want to discuss politics, and I certainly was not going to bring up the matter of the next general counsel of the Players Association. Just before I was set to leave, Nixon's expression turned serious, or rather more serious. Here it comes, I thought. "Mr. Miller," he said, "you have a very difficult job in front of you. Let me know if I can do anything to help you. I am on very good terms with the owners." I thought to myself, "Yes, I bet you are." I expressed my thanks and headed home. He did not mention the appointment of a general counsel. And except for the gaffe about his closeness to the owners, I found him to be a lot brighter than I had guessed.

Three years later Nixon and I met again at a White House reception honoring baseball's All-Star teams and commemorating baseball's hundredth annniversary. When the crowd thinned, I approached President Richard M. Nixon. I was glad to see he had managed to find work after losing out on the Players Association job.

RIP.

When Marichal and Spahn Dueled for a Game and a Half

                                          Associated Press

A homer by the Giants’ Willie Mays, right, in the

16th inning gave Juan Marichal a 1-0 complete-game

victory over the Milwaukee Braves and Warren Spahn,

who also went the distance, on July 2, 1963.

From July 2, 2008, NY Times
By Richard Sandomir

From the ninth inning on, Juan Marichal pleaded with his manager, Alvin Dark, to stay in the game. Why shouldn’t he keep pitching? Marichal, the San Francisco Giants right-hander with the high leg kick, had held the Milwaukee Braves scoreless. And the Giants had not scored against the ancient left-hander Warren Spahn.

“I begged Mr. Dark to let me stay a few more innings, and he did,” Marichal said of the game 45 years ago Wednesday. “In the 12th or 13th, he wanted to take me out, and I said, ‘Please, please, let me stay.’ Then in the 14th, he said, ‘No more for you,’ and I said, ‘Do you see that man on the mound?’ and I was pointing at Warren. ‘That man is 42, and I’m 25. I’m not ready for you to take me out.’ ”

Marichal said his catcher, Ed Bailey, was telling him: “Don’t let him take you out. Win or lose, this is great.”

Marichal was tired of arguing with Dark — he said he told Willie Mays that he thought Dark was angry at him — but not of pitching as the innings piled up.

“I felt good,” Marichal said Tuesday by telephone from the Dominican Republic. “The weather was nice. It was cool. I was strong.”

Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey said in interviews that a delectable tension was building in the field behind Marichal at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.

“They were the types of pitcher who kept you on your toes,” McCovey said.

McCovey nearly ended the game in the ninth with a fly ball he stroked far over the right-field foul pole that was ruled foul by the first-base umpire Chris Pelekoudas.

“It appeared to go out fair and wind up foul,” said Lon Simmons, who called the game for the Giants on radio with Russ Hodges. McCovey said: “I think Chris was admiring it so much that he forgot it was fair. You had to admire it. I hit it pretty good.”

The duel continued, with neither pitcher losing his control or leaving.

“After the 10th, they threw nothing but fastballs,” Cepeda said.

“Maybe,” McCovey said. “But I can’t imagine Juan throwing only fastballs.”

In the 16th, Marichal retired Frank Bolling and Hank Aaron on flyouts. Denis Menke singled to left, but Norm Larker grounded out to end the inning.

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Mays slammed Spahn’s first pitch over the left-field fence. The Giants won, 1-0. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Spahn as saying that he threw Mays a screwball that “didn’t break worth a damn.”

Marichal told reporters that his back ached. “Oh, she hurts,” he said.

His pitching line: 16 innings, 8 hits, 0 runs, 4 walks and 10 strikeouts.

Spahn’s line: 15 1/3 innings, 9 hits, 1 run, 1 walk and 2 strikeouts.

Even by the standards of pitching in the 1960s, when complete games were common and pitch counts irrelevant, the Marichal-Spahn duel was extraordinary.

“In those days, nothing surprised us, but when you look back, it was amazing,” Cepeda said. “In those days, Juan was pitching 25, 26, 28 complete games every year.”

Marichal and Spahn’s performance nearly duplicated an August 1954 game when Jack Harshman of the Chicago White Sox pitched a 16-inning shutout against the Detroit Tigers. Detroit’s starter, Al Aber, gave up the only run of the game in the 16th.

“Pitchers of the generations up until Marichal had a belief that ‘this game is mine,’ ” said Steve Hirdt, executive vice president of the Elias Sports Bureau. He added, “The idea of doing permanent harm to a pitcher’s arm didn’t come into anyone’s mind.”

Spahn had previous experience in losing marathon complete games. According to Hirdt, he lost a game to Brooklyn in 1951 with two outs in the 16th, and a year later, after striking out 18 Cubs and hitting a home run, he lost with nobody out in the 16th.

Marichal’s victory in 16 innings that night in 1963 came less than three weeks after he threw a no-hitter against the Houston Colt .45’s that eluded perfection by two walks. A month before that, Marichal had been knocked out in the sixth inning of Sandy Koufax’s second no-hitter.

Whose no-hitter was better? Unhesitatingly, Marichal said: “He got eight runs and I got one. You work harder with one run.”

McCovey said Marichal’s 16-inning victory was more impressive than the no-hitter.

“Oh sure, to go that many innings, it was amazing,” he said, “but what I liked about the no-hitter was I played left field and made the catch that saved it.”

Marichal was not finished with spectacular long games. In 1966, he beat the Phillies, 1-0, in 14 innings, but in 1969 suffered a fate similar to Spahn’s: he lost to the Mets, 1-0, with one out in the 14th, on a home run by Tommie Agee.

“When I close my eyes,” Marichal said, “I can still see the ball, floating in the air, leaving the park.”

Even in Autumn of Life, You Can Be a Ball Boy for the Giants

The Giants Are Partial to Senior Citizens Who Shag Fouls; Mr. Zarzana's Blooper

                                    Jim Carlton / The Wall Street Journal

Balldudes Daryl Gault (left) and George Zarzana

Sunday at the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park.

By Jim Carlton, Wall Street Journal

October 18, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO—The San Francisco Giants have fielded their top talent for the Major League Baseball playoffs this week, but even some of their most elite have made errors.

There was, for example, veteran George Zarzana's blooper in Sunday's opener in the National League Championship Series. Mr. Zarzana suited up for the game against the St. Louis Cardinals, jogged confidently onto the field and settled into his position.

Then he promptly fell off the stool.

Mr. Zarzana's position was next to the dugout behind first base, and he would be called a ball boy if he were a little younger. At age 72, he last played baseball when Jimmy Carter was president, and that makes him a balldude in Giants parlance.

He is in good company in this club. Most Major League teams field the familiar teenage ball boys and ball girls to shag fouls outside the outfield foul lines. The Giants are partial to a cadre of foul-chasers mostly over the age of 60.

Now, the Giants' most elite balldudes are getting coveted starting positions in the postseason. That sometimes means, said Mr. Zarzana after his tumble, that "we've got 42,000 people watching us make fools of ourselves."

The Giants' roster of about 70 balldudes and 20 balldudettes take to their stools during the regular season. But the postseason dudes are a cut above, says Sue Petersen, who manages the dudes and says she chose the ones she considers her most reliable to take the field for the championship series.

"It's a thrill I only thought about as a kid," says balldude Gary Fralick, 62, who built the wooden stools. "You get the best seats in the house, and people want your autograph, too."

San Francisco is believed to be the first team in the Majors to start using old ball boys, in 1993, and since then some other clubs have copied parts of the program. The club originally called them the "Spry Seniors," but the team, fans and broadcasters now all call them balldudes. "The team was under new ownership back then, and they were looking for creative ways to do things," says Ms. Petersen, executive director of the Giants' Community Fund nonprofit arm.

The dudes program, which the team expanded to include some younger friends and relatives of old-timers, has attracted some controversy. The two dudes who work the games—one behind first base and the other behind third—used to sit on folding chairs. But after season-ticket holders complained that their views were being obstructed, Ms. Petersen put the dudes on tiny milking stools that make them look even funnier to some.

"You've got these 73-year-old men sitting in these ridiculous little chairs like 5-year-olds," says Jon Miller, Giants broadcaster for radio station KNBR-AM, who often points out balldude antics during his broadcasts.

"You try not to make a fool out of yourself, but the more you do, the more the crowd loves it," says Mr. Zarzana, the balldude manning the first Giants-Cardinals game.

For the balldudes, though, this is serious business. Some pay up to $500 to attend Giants' Balldude Camp, usually in June, at the team's AT&T Park, where as many as 60 balldude hopefuls shag pop-ups and grounders and answer Giants trivia questions. Training includes sitting on the balldude stools while batters hit grounders down the line to them.

Camp also instills balldude rules. Example: Never approach a player or official on the field. Still, there are some dude faux pas. Once, a dudette accidentally grabbed the glove belonging to former star outfielder Barry Bonds when she trotted off to take her post behind third base, Ms. Petersen says; "We can laugh about it, now."

Balldudes can make $15 for each of the three or four games they work each season. For the most part, they are on hand to shag fouls and give the balls to children. But some add a personal touch. Until he retired at age 88 this year, balldude Len Herztein was famous for dancing and preening between innings.

No balldudes have been seriously hurt so far. "It's fun watching them make plays," says Giants right fielder Hunter Pence. "They help us out a lot."

Ms. Petersen chooses her balldudes from several hundred applicants each year. She looks for team loyalty, and something unique.

"I once had an organ donor and an organ recipient on the field at the same time," she says.

Knowledge of the game and quick reflexes are prerequisites, Ms. Petersen says, although actual playing skills are not. "I want them to have enough experience to know what to do—or not to do—in a variety of situations," she says.

At Monday's Game 2 of the Championship Series, for example, balldude Glenn Casias, 54, jumped up from his stool when he saw a pop fly foul from a Cardinals batter hurtling his way. "We're told to grab the stool and get out of the way," says Mr. Casias, a technology executive from Sonoma, Calif. He threw himself partway over a rail—backside protruding—in time for Giants first baseman Brandon Belt to make the catch. "That was one of the best plays we have ever seen by a balldude," says Mike Krukow, a TV commentator for the Giants.

At the Sunday game, after falling off his stool, Mr. Zarzana settled in for the game. He made one play in the second inning, scooping up a grounder from a Giants batter and handing it off to a young boy. Ms. Petersen, observing nearby, said he "looked solid."

Mr. Zarzana, a retired elementary school principal from Fair Oaks, Calif., got his big break when a buddy, Daryl Gault, put his name in to become a balldude about eight years ago as a surprise retirement gift. In 2008, Mr. Zarzana's name came off the waiting list, and Ms. Petersen later selected Mr. Gault, 65, too, so they could work games together.

Mr. Zarzana has family ties to pro baseball. A nephew from a former marriage is Mark McGwire, the Cardinals' hitting coach and former all-star slugger. Mr. McGwire didn't know Mr. Zarzana was a balldude until this week.

"I think it's awesome" Mr. McGwire said before Monday's game, which the Giants went on to win. "It makes them feel young. Where else can you do that?"

After Thursday night's game, the Giants trailed the Cardinals 3-1 in the best of seven series.

Bob Uecker Is Still On the Active Roster

Mark Yost, Wall Street Journal
March 31, 2011
Maryvale, Arizona

'Who's chuckin' today?"

That's all the pregame preparation Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcaster Bob Uecker put in before the start of a recent spring-training game between the Brewers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. But entering his 41st season in the booth for his hometown ball club, he was more than ready.

"It's all up here," he said, tapping the side of his head.

"Up here" can be an interesting place. Mr. Uecker is in a league of his own when it comes to baseball play-by-play men. Part comic, part encyclopedia, he can recall an amazing number of pertinent facts when the game is on the line, and have a heck of a lot of fun when it isn't. His crazy side tends to win out more often than not.

Most of his humor is self-deprecating, like his oft-repeated line that during his playing career he once went "O-for-June."

"I never make fun of the players," he said. "I make fun of situations and try and find the humor in things, but it's never at the expense of the other guy."

No one's more amazed than Mr. Uecker that he's hung around baseball this long. When he speaks to Little League groups, he says to parents, "Hey, if I can make it, your kid's got a shot."

Mr. Uecker was born in Milwaukee, but in the Uecker mind simple facts take on a life of their own. By his telling, he was born on an oleo run to Illinois because the family couldn't get colored margarine in Wisconsin.

"I remember it was a nativity-type setting," he said during his 2003 acceptance speech for the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence. "An exit light shining down. There were three truck drivers there. One guy was carrying butter, one guy had frankfurters and the other guy was a retired baseball scout who told my folks that I probably had a chance to play somewhere down the line."

He grew up watching the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers. In 1956, he signed with the major-league Milwaukee Braves, which had relocated from Boston in 1953. His playing career, which spanned four teams, including the 1964 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, was less than stellar. He's still in the top 10 for most passed balls by a catcher in a season (1967). But in his defense, he was catching for Atlanta Braves pitcher Phil Niekro, whose specialty was the knuckleball, a very difficult ball to catch. After retiring in 1967, Mr. Uecker was briefly a scout for the Brewers. But he was notorious for turning in reports that were unreadable and covered with food stains.

"I knew then that he wasn't going to make it as a scout," said former Brewers team owner Bud Selig, now the commissioner of Major League Baseball. "So we decided to try him as a broadcaster."

Mr. Uecker quickly became a fan favorite. He gained nationwide fame as one of the Miller Lite All Stars in an ad campaign during the 1970s and '80s for Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co.; as Harry Doyle, the play-by-play man in all three "Major League" films; as George Owens on the 1985-90 sitcom "Mr. Belvedere"; and as a frequent guest on "The Tonight Show," where Johnny Carson dubbed him "Mr. Baseball."

But that national recognition pales next to the icon status Mr. Uecker has achieved in Milwaukee, which he dismisses with an "aw shucks" wave of the hand.

"He's such a big part of summer in Wisconsin," said Brewers infielder Craig Counsell, who grew up in Whitefish Bay. "It's really almost like he's a friend or a member of your family."

His "family" was shaken last year when Mr. Uecker announced the first of two heart surgeries on April 27. In classic Ueckerian fashion, he started the press conference by saying, "I have been added to the active roster."

He was out for three months and underwent a second heart operation in October, but is now "doing better than I was a few months ago." And by all measures, for a guy who just turned 76, he is.

Walking into the radio booth at the Brewers' spring-training facility about a half hour before game time, Mr. Uecker was well tanned and wearing white slacks, a polo shirt, ball cap and sunglasses. It wasn't until about 10 seconds before airtime that he turned to his on-air partner and straight man, 32-year-old Cory Provus, and asked who was pitching.

A foul tip to catcher Wil Nieves started a half-inning dialogue about how catching—and the game—has changed. In Mr. Uecker's day, he told Mr. Provus and the listening audience, catchers caught with two hands, and the mitts were rounder but didn't provide much padding.

"I used to soak my mitts in a bucket of water for about two days. Then I'd put a couple of baseballs in the pocket and wrap it up with a rubber band," Mr. Uecker said before updating the pitch count. "Today you don't have to do that, because catchers' mitts are more like first baseman's gloves."

And that's how each broadcast goes. A bevy of classic Uecker stories, interspersed with facts and figures—batting averages, RBIs, home runs—that he doesn't need to look up.

"The game hasn't changed," Mr. Uecker said in a pregame interview, "but the circumstances around it have."

He doesn't like the playoff system, thinks fans expect their team to win "more than is humanly possible," and thinks St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Albert Pujols's request for a $300 million, 10-year contract is no more ridiculous than some of the pay CEOs receive.

"Do the CEOs deserve all the money they make? If Albert can get it, good for him. But I wouldn't want to be paying him $30 million when he's 41."

Forget 10 years. What does he want fans to think about Bob Uecker in 100 years?

"That I'm still workin'."

Asked what it's like to work alongside Mr. Uecker, Mr. Provus said, "He's the best remedy for a bad day."

I suspect that's how a lot of the listeners back in Milwaukee feel.

Eddie Mayo - 1945 World Series MVP

Eddie in 1945 with the Tigers - photo courtesy
of Wikipedia Credit Mary McGrath

A famous athlete becomes my stepfather.

 

By Mary McGrath

October 20, 2012

studiocity.patch.com

Baseball is in full bloom right now. We’re rooting for the Tigers. Why? Among other reasons, my stepfather, Eddie Mayo also played for them. In fact, he was World Series MVP in 1945. How cool is that?

My mom started seeing Eddie around 1975, after his wife passed away. Eddie had always admired his “Ginny”, largely because he was also her brother-in-law. Yes, you guessed it. Eddie married his wife’s sister.

Hey, it kept the family intact. If you marry your sister-in-law, you don’t have to explain yourself over and over again. Mom and Eddie had known each other for decades, so it made perfect sense. After the wedding, they spent many years on Pacoima Court, spending summers in Maryland where Eddie had a home, before they finally moved to the desert in 1989.

In watching these riveting baseball games, I wonder what it must have been like for Eddie to be a professional athlete. There’s the discipline, the traveling, the fans, and all the pressures from the crowds. I’m sure the celebrity status was trying at times, along with the challenges of raising a family and supporting a wife.

Eddie used to say that baseball was the most difficult sport. You had 1/10^th of a second to assess the pitch and decide whether to swing or let it go by. As I watch the pitchers on TV, I wonder about the recipe of a ball before it is thrown. Will it be a fastball, a curve, slider, changeup or something else? Teresa and I used to play softball, and even those slow pitches were sometimes impossible to hit.

Imagine a hardball hurling toward you at 100+ mph, and you can see how difficult it would be for any professional athlete to execute a swing correctly.

One of Eddie's many baseball cards. Photo
courtesy of Morguefile Credit Mary McGrath

According to the Internet, Edward Joseph Mayo, nicknamed "Hotshot" and "Steady Eddie," was an infielder for nine seasons in Major League Baseball, playing for the New York Giants, Boston Braves, Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers.

But Eddie’s best years were with the Tigers, where he played second base from 1944 through 1948. In 1945, he helped lead the Tigers to the American League pennant and to victory over the Cubs in the seven-game World Series. That year, the Sporting News crowned him MVP. The gold and diamond ring he wore was like a large satellite on his hand, and a physical tribute to his athletic accomplishments.

After his career in baseball ended, Eddie ran a very successful tile business, and then did very well as a restaurateur. The competitive spirit was always with him, and after marrying my mom, he even taught my twin sister Teresa and I the fundamentals of golf. Now that’s the toughest game in my book!

Eddie was married to my mom for about 24 years and deeply devoted to her. After she passed in 2000, he continued with life without her, until he passed away in 2006 in Banning, California. At the time, he was 96, and considered the oldest living former Detroit Tiger, and the eighth oldest living former Major League Baseball player.

Eddie and I had our tough moments at times, especially after my mom died, but for the most part, we got along pretty well. And it’s the good times that I try to remember. Life’s too short to harbor negativity.

So, here’s to you Eddie, wherever you may be. May your Tigers be victorious!