Unionized minor-leaguers change pro landscape

With a smile on his face and assurance that amazing history was about to take place, Kris Bryant fielded the final ball hit in the 2016 World Series and threw to first base to give the Chicago Cubs their first championship in 108 years.

It was Bryant’s first full season. It should have been his second, but the Cubs undermined him and the entire industry by manipulating the service-time guidelines and intentionally delaying his callup from the minors to keep him in Chicago an extra year.

Bryant had nowhere to go to fight for his cause because baseball’s union represented only players on 40-man rosters, and Bryant’s status as a minorleaguer left him at the mercy of the Cubs’ shenanigans.

Now there’s protection for anyone following in Bryant’s footsteps or with any other workplace issues that need addressing, because minorleaguers are joining the Major League Baseball Players Association as unionized members.

It became official Wednesday when MLB signed off on MLBPA representing all players throughout each team’s farm system after the majority of minor-leaguers gave their support. Suddenly, a membership of 1,200 is growing to more than 5,000, all of whom will have their pay and working conditions collectively bargained, albeit separate from major-leaguers.

A wonderful development and something that should have been in effect long ago. After all, the San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics and all other teams have been the employers for all players throughout their systems, not just their big-leaguers. It was pathetic how MLB and teams treated minor-leaguers, paying wages below poverty levels and letting them fend for themselves with housing and working conditions that were often horrid.

Not that the MLBPA was quick to assist minor-leaguers in need. Tireless work from groups such as Advocates for Minor Leaguers, which pushed to improve conditions for minor-league players, with former Giants prospect Garrett Broshuis taking a lead role, turned this into a talking point, and politicians got involved. MLB raised weekly pay last year, but it wasn’t close to satisfactory.

Unionization changes everything. A collective bargaining agreement will be in place. No longer will MLB have a unilateral say. We’ve seen MLB bully the minor-league system, such as trimming 42 teams before the 2021 season. What’s to prevent another round of cuts if salaries are going to rise? Well, it is settling that a 10-year professional development license exists that should keep all teams afloat through 2030.

Don’t think for a moment that this is a charity case. MLB will want a cut of the action, and there will be plenty of action, whether it’s future TV rights or simply marketing the minor-league game better. Why else would the Giants’ top farm team, the Sacramento River Cats, and their ballpark be sold for nearly $100 million to the owners of the Sacramento Kings?

A union makes it less likely a team can treat a future star like the Cubs treated Bryant, who lost a year of service time because he was strategically called up to accrue 171 days of service time in his first MLB season, one short of what was needed to be considered a full season. Therefore, his clock to free agency was delayed a year. Mechanisms in the new CBA will help combat the manipulation, but there’s nothing like a union that’ll help create a level of across-the-board fairness, not just for the Kris Bryants but for the players at the lower ends of the depth charts on the lowest-level teams.

Around the majors

Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey were an iconic battery, teaming for 226 starts over their decade together, which helps put the special Adam Wainwright-Yadier Molina relationship in perspective. They were St. Louis’ starting battery Wednesday for the 325th time, surpassing Detroit’s Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan for most in history. BumgarnerPosey has an edge over Wainwright-Molina on another front, three World Series titles to two. Can anyone explain the Padres? They loaded up at the trade deadline, adding Juan Soto, Josh Bell, Brandon Drury and Josh Hader, yet they have a losing record with those guys. After Thursday’s loss, their fourth in five games, manager Bob Melvin expressed frustration and not only questioned the team’s fight but said, “I need to inspire them more.” If bigleague players need inspiration at this point of a playoff run, the problem runs deeper than wins and losses. No team ever celebrated Roberto Clemente Day like the Rays, who had a lineup with all nine position players from Latin American countries Thursday, a first in MLB history. It turned out to be a coincidence with manager Kevin Cash using predominantly a right-handed lineup, but it was bound to happen with 12 of 14 position players on the roster being Latin American. All wore Clemente’s No. 21, and perhaps it’s time for MLB to seriously consider universally retiring the number worn by Clemente in this 50th anniversary year of his death in a plane crash on a relief mission to help victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. At 73, Dusty Baker is living the good life, guiding the Astros to another postseason appearance and joining Joe McCarthy, Sparky Anderson and Tony La Russa as the only managers to win 2,000 games, a pennant in each league and at least 95 games in eight seasons. This is his 12th season with 90-plus wins, and only six other managers have pulled that off. A case can be made that Dave Stewart, whose number 34 was retired last weekend, is among the three most important Oakland A’s in history along with Reggie Jackson, who ushered in the West Coast era with his superstardom, and Rickey Henderson, the greatest player in franchise history dating to Philadelphia and Kansas City. The heart and soul of those pennant-winning teams, Stewart has his fingerprints all over the organization. Not just as a 20-game winner four straight years but with his community work (an award named in his honor goes to one communityminded player every year). He’s a studio analyst on the broadcasts, and he was the agent who arranged the biggest deal in team history, Eric Chavez’s way back in 2004. Dennis Eckersley had more than 150 wins and a no-hitter when he arrived. Catfish Hunter fled to the Bronx, where Reggie became Mr. October. Stewart did his finest work in Oakland. Speaking of which, the A’s whiffed on a huge opportunity by not hiring Stewart many years ago as a frontman for their ballpark pursuit. Instead, he heads a minority ownership group seeking an expansion team for Nashville. Imagine the trust and faith fans and politicians in Oakland would have had for Stewart.