Marvin Miller's 'revolutionary impact on sports'

>>> hank aaron , the true home run king , said marvin miller 's role in the history of baseball was as pornts a jackie robinson 's, but you don't have to care about baseball to care about the story of miller because the story of unions and the triumph of free market capitalism . he died this week at 95 and he changed the history of sports . it's a good time to tell his story. once upon a time back in the '60s baseball had a thing call the reserve clause that bound players to their teams as long as owners wanted them. owners could renew contracts without players consent and players had no say in where they played. marvin miller was working his way up through the machinist union, the united autoworkers and the united steel workers . he knew the power of a strong union and if all the players walked, they could not be replaced. as the head of baseball's union he led them to strike three times and negotiated the end of the reserve clause . despite losing when his challenge to fre agency went to the supreme court he won it for the players in 1975 . the minimum salary was $6,000 and the average was $52,000. he unleashed the players' earning potential by creating the free market we have today. he knew a finite free agent pool would drive up players value. now the minimum salary is about half a million and the ample is over $3 million. that may seem a lot to play a game and it is, but these men are almost all working class guys who hit the life lottery and have their lifetime earning potential max out in their early 30s. many athletes go broke after they finish playing and while owners can will their spot to their kids, players can't. so i'm always rooting for athletes to make as much as possible while they can and marvin miller is responsible for that modern economic landscape. that said, the union miller built and ran for 16 years would become too strong for its own good in the steroid era and helped block necessary reform for years. before the roud problem was really known, players were getting towering home runs and getting contracts and strengthening the union. miller whats a consultant to the union then but he was against testing which is a bizarre failure of vision from a visionary. this year barry bonds , roger clements, and sammy sosa are unlikely to make the hall of fame despite their gaudy numbers and rightly so. the bill for the roi d era has come due. for them the bill is cheap compared to those who will lose their lived because of years of steroid