Marvin Miller, man behind free agency, dies at 95

>> talk about mr. marvin miller . now the late marvin miller died a couple of nights ago on tuesday actually. he was a legendary figure not just in baseball but in the history of sports . revolutionized the games with free agency . yes, that comes from marvin miller . died yesterday after a battle with cancer and served as the executive director of the major league players association for 16 years starting in 1966 . led a series of strikes, legal battles that resulted in free agency for players in 1975 . let's explain this a little bit. i think people who follow sports now assume professional athletes are multimillionaires and can get money from the highest bidder. before marvin miller came along, that wasn't the case. there was the reserve clause where a team could keep a player for as long as they wanted.

>> for real like property. chattel.

>> you were an indentured servant of the organization you played for and they tried and marvin miller tipped it over the reserve clause . the reserve clause held them to a club forever so you couldn't move and that was turned over because of marvin miller and changed the nature not only of baseball, every sport. every professional sport . marvin miller taught players, the players association , what they call themselves, what it meant to be a member of the union.

>> and the thing about so incredible, we think about unions being opponents to the free market . marvin miller brought the free market to sports. there was no -- there was nothing like market economics in baseball until marvin miller .

>> a huge, huge figure in the history of american sports not only just baseball.

>> somebody said yesterday he tried to get big league ball players to think like factory workers. marvin had been --

>> to their great benefit.

>> and had been in the general counsel's office and brought that to the locker room, that mentality and it's been maintained ever since.

>> every major league player making 32 million or utility player making 5 million this year ought to be thankful for the man right there.

>> do you think there will come a day when the antitrust exemption gets overturned. that's still one of the weird things in the world. antitrust laws don't apply to professional sport .

>> not as long as the influence of the present commission of bud selig is felt, another pivotal figure. he's maintained labor peace for years for decades, huge profitability and is very weary of even getting close to a point where that clause would be overturned.

>> that would change the game --

>> profoundly.

>> marvin miller should be in the hall of fame , shouldn't he?

>> it's a disgrace he's not in the hall of fame .

>> let's fix that. harold ford jr . meets us for mika's opinion pages. repair restore revive rejuvenate rebuild rebuild rebuild [ male announcer ] introducing the new dell xps 12. part of a whole new line of tablets from dell. it's changing the conversation.

>> marvin miller should be in have a good night. here you go. you, too. i'm going to dream about that steak. i'm going to dream about that tiramisu. what a