WINTER OF DISCONTENT

@JJCOOP36

When Major League Baseball Players Association president Marvin Miller was negotiating with major league owners at the dawn of free agency in the mid 1970s, he knew something that many of the myopic owners failed to grasp.

Miller wanted free agency for players—but not all at once.

The Athletics’ Charlie Finley was the lone owner who seemed to grasp the concept. He proposed that all major league players be granted free agency annually. That was Miller’s nightmare scenario. Free agency would unleash salaries for players who had long been hamstrung by the reserve clause that bound players