When ‘love of the game’ goes wrong
America’s Pastime, I am thrilled to report, is alive and well. Thriving, even.
That’s really the only conclusion to be drawn from a night of delightful dingers in Southern California. Monday’s Home Run Derby, from San Diego’s Petco Park, ended the only way that was truly proper, with Giancarlo Stanton, baseball’s reigning king of the moon shot, victorious, after crushing a total of 61 long balls over three rounds of competition. The handsome, charming, supremely talented Stanton, as well-equipped as anyone to be the “face of baseball,” holding the Derby trophy at night’s end was a reminder that there’s still plenty of joy and excitement to be found on the diamond.
And here I thought the game needed saving.
That’s what I remember reading, at least, a few weeks back, when Congresspersons Brett Guthrie and Cheri Bustos authored the “Save America’s Pastime Act,” so named presumably because the “Keep Minor Leaguers Among The Working Poor Act” didn’t test all that well. For anyone who missed it, the bill was a rather shameless attempt to carve out an exception, in ballparks around the country, to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires employers to pay overtime rates to all those who make less than a certain yearly threshold, (set to jump to $47,476 in December of this year). Or, to quote from the press release in which Minor League Baseball offered its full-throated support:
"The legislation would amend the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to clarify that Minor League Baseball players are not subject to a law that was intended to protect workers in traditional hourly-rate jobs. A pending lawsuit in a California federal court makes a first-of-its-kind claim that the federal overtime laws should apply to Minor League Baseball players.This suit threatens baseball’s decades-old player development system with an unprecedented cost increase, which would jeopardize the skills-enhancement role of the minor leagues and the existence of Minor League Baseball itself. As a result of this lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of current and former players, many cities would be in jeopardy of losing their Minor League Baseball teams, resulting in the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs nationwide, shuttering taxpayer-funded ballparks and creating a void in affordable family-friendly entertainment."
“Save us!” said baseball’s minor leagues, “because paying a living wage, and playing by the same rules as the rest of the country, would jeopardize our entire business model.” Of course, the only problem with that line of reasoning, as pointed out by Ryan Fagan at Sporting News, Grant Brisbee at SBNation, Patrick Redford at Deadspin and, well, basically everyone in the sports media, is that minor league baseball doesn’t actually pay the salaries of its players. The money comes, instead, from major league owners, and it’s safe to say that bumping every single-A farm-hand’s pay by a few thousand dollars a year wouldn’t have too much of an impact on the $9 billion or so in revenue generated in 2015.
The outrage over H.R. 5580 was so immediate, so universal and so widespread, it actually sparked a rather unusual retreat, with Bustos, one of the original authors of the legislation, completely washing her hands of it in less than a week. As baseball gets set for the second half, it’s fair to say that the “Save America’s Pastime Act” is about as dead on arrival as the Atlanta Braves’ season. But still the question remains, if the bill wasn’t really about preserving the viability of the minor league system, then what was the point? Well, preserving MLB’s antitrust exemption, for one thing.
And more broadly? Continuing to use “the love of the game” as unfortunate leverage in sports’ labor wars.
At first glance, Dwyane Wade probably doesn’t appear to have much in common with your typical minor league lifer. While ballplayers around the country try to cobble together a living, Wade has earned more than $150 million throughout his career. While journeymen fight to keep their dream of the big-time alive, Wade has been living his, collecting twelve All-Star appearances, and three NBA titles. And while Congress injected itself into the debate over farm-team wages, Wade, along with many others, was a part of the biggest boom in the history of NBA free agency, with revenue from a brand new television deal pushing the salary cap to $94 million, a jump of more than 33 percent. Wade, for his part, signed a two year, $47.5 million deal.
Suffice it to say he won’t be concerning himself with federal overtime rules anytime soon.
And yet, in a way, there is still a parallel to be drawn between the glamorous superstardom of Wade and the blue collar grind of America’s minor leaguers. Because while his paycheck may be a few orders of magnitude larger, Wade too has been asked to sacrifice in the name of the game he loves.
There’s a reason, after all, Wade is on his way to the Windy City, after spending the first thirteen years of his career in Miami. At no point during that tenure was Wade the highest paid player on his own team, the result of consistently being asked to take less money, and facilitate the signing of other big ticket acquisitions. In 2010, it was to form the “Big Three” with LeBron James and Chris Bosh. In 2014, it was to enable the Heat to keep Bosh, and add Luol Deng. And in recent years, it’s been, plainly enough, the fact that the now 34-year-old shooting guard’s game is in decline, and the Miami front office apparently felt no need to “make good” on all the money that Wade left on the table in previous negotiations.
It’s a familiar, and rather regrettable trend in the world of NBA roster construction. It’s not enough that the league’s maximum contracts put an artificial lid on what top players are able to earn. (Indeed, plenty analysis has shown that players like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and yes, an in-his-prime Wade are worth far more than the value of a max deal.) But what’s more, these superstars are then expected to further reduce their own earnings, voluntarily, to allow for a stronger supporting cast. It’s why players like Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki and yes, Wade, have not always demanded the top dollar that their play clearly justified. And generally speaking, they are rewarded within the sports’ narrative, hailed as having their priorities in the right place, and caring more about wins than dollars.
The only question is, why on earth should they be forced to make this choice? It’s not Wade’s job, after all, to continue to provide Heat owner Micky Arison and President Pat Riley with the salary space to keep Miami at the top of the standings. And after years of reportedly more tense negotiations between player and team, this was the offseason in which Wade finally called the Heat’s bluff, heading to his hometown team in Chicago, and collecting every single dollar of the best offer sent his way.
Wade’s contract situation highlighted an important, and problematic tendency in the NBA’s compensation conversation, because generally speaking, the criticism, the jealousy, the outright salary scorn over the dollars involved, is almost always directed at the players. This played out, in stark relief, during this year’s free agency bonanza, as one commentator after another questioned how even those at the back end of the roster were suddenly collecting major paydays.
Never mind that in the most recent round of collective bargaining, the players’ share of basketball income actually decreased significantly. Never mind that these athletes, the ones actually doing the entertaining, are merely capitalizing on a boom in the television value of live sports. Never mind that, based on the sale prices for franchises that have changed hands recently, there’s never been a better time to be an NBA owner.
Despite all of that, the fact remains that whenever there’s a dialog about how the business of sports has completely detached itself from the economic realities of the real world, it’s always the players who are shamed, the players who are labeled as “greedy,” the players who are expected to sacrifice. “What’s more important,” we ask the superstars of the sport, “making money, or winning games?”
The question that’s never asked, of course, is why they’re stuck in a system that forces them to choose.
It’s fair to say, of course, that the young men toiling away as minor leaguers would would gladly sign up for the chance to choose between vast riches and championship glory. Heck, most would probably give everything they had simply for a brief cup of coffee on the big league level. The hundreds and hundreds of journeymen who fill out baseball’s developmental system are playing an entirely different ball game (no pun intended).
But it’s worth noting that some of the same language, and the same leverage is used, against all of America’s athletes, no matter what place on the sporting totem pole they occupy. At the highest level, stars are told to give back a few million, because after all, that’s the only real path to a championship. And, as demonstrated by tortured legislation like the “Save America’s Pastime Act,” there are those who believe that at the very bottom, there’s no real need to guarantee ballplayers a decent wage, because after all, this isn’t a job really, it’s a chance to chase a dream, and isn’t that more important than money?
Yes, making a living by playing a game is a fairy tale to many. But it’s long past time that owners stop weaponizing our love of sports to exact larger profit margins. It’s how stadiums get built with public money, strictly out of fear that a wealthy owner will pull up the stakes and head for greener pastures. It’s how pro athletes, even at the highest levels, are forced to take smaller and smaller pieces of the pie, because hey, this is still a dream job, after all.
And it’s how, with the help of a few misguided members of Congress, baseball attempted to put the screws to some of the most dedicated, most tenacious, most admirable competitors in all of sports … the ones holding on to the game for dear life. They’re the ones who need protecting, not a group of owners that are doing quite well, actually, when it comes to generating profits from all levels of the game.
And if continuing to squeeze the players who make the game what it is, even the most vulnerable among, is what “America’s Pastime” is really all about, well then it probably doesn’t deserve to be saved.