re: the reserve clause

there never really was a reserve clause.

a clause in an employment contract that says your employer has the right to renew your employment contract in perpetuity year after year is, in effect, a contract for involuntary servitude.

New York and California each have laws limiting personal services agreements to a maximum length of seven years, specifically applicable to the entertainment field, and those laws have been in effect for dozens of years prior to the Messersmith decision.

no one in any other field of work, if they decided at the end of the year to change jobs within the industry, would be compelled to give their former employer a first option to hire them back at the same salary.

this argument was made repeatedly, first by Monte Ward and the players union back in the 1800s and during the players league dispute of 1890, and again during the federal league dispute of 1915-23. Getting corrupt federal judges to uphold the reserve clause was one of organized baseball's primary weapons against the incipient labor movement in baseball in the late 1800s and early 1900s when there were multiple leagues and salary wars.

by getting the supreme court decision in 1922 and upholding the reserve clause, salaries could remain stable until the mexican league in the 1940s.

indeed, it could be argued that the owners decimated the negro leagues for the same reason, to control salaries by destroying possible competition during the late 1940s for their product as negro ball was outdrawing organized baseball during wwII.

this all has to do with labor issues. nothing more nothing less.

if you read the standard players contract and read what is claimed to have been the reserve clause, you might blink and miss it.

it's just a few words and hardly constitutes a binding contract between two people freely entered into.

in my opinion, it never was a binding contract clause, in the 1800s, the early 1900s or now. There never was a reserve clause, and the decisions upholding such a clause were all wrongly decided on bad legal grounds, but perhaps on sound policy grounds and labor grounds. After all, Judge Landis ruled in favor of baseball and against the federal league as a federal judge in the 1910s as a federal district court judge--and was rewarded with a job as commissioner just six years later.

today we'd call that a bribe.

--art kyriazis

re: the reserve clause

there never really was a reserve clause.

a clause in an employment contract that says your employer has the right to renew your employment contract in perpetuity year after year is, in effect, a contract for involuntary servitude.

New York and California each have laws limiting personal services agreements to a maximum length of seven years, specifically applicable to the entertainment field, and those laws have been in effect for dozens of years prior to the Messersmith decision.

no one in any other field of work, if they decided at the end of the year to change jobs within the industry, would be compelled to give their former employer a first option to hire them back at the same salary.

this argument was made repeatedly, first by Monte Ward and the players union back in the 1800s and during the players league dispute of 1890, and again during the federal league dispute of 1915-23. Getting corrupt federal judges to uphold the reserve clause was one of organized baseball's primary weapons against the incipient labor movement in baseball in the late 1800s and early 1900s when there were multiple leagues and salary wars.

by getting the supreme court decision in 1922 and upholding the reserve clause, salaries could remain stable until the mexican league in the 1940s.

indeed, it could be argued that the owners decimated the negro leagues for the same reason, to control salaries by destroying possible competition during the late 1940s for their product as negro ball was outdrawing organized baseball during wwII.

this all has to do with labor issues. nothing more nothing less.

if you read the standard players contract and read what is claimed to have been the reserve clause, you might blink and miss it.

it's just a few words and hardly constitutes a binding contract between two people freely entered into.

in my opinion, it never was a binding contract clause, in the 1800s, the early 1900s or now. There never was a reserve clause, and the decisions upholding such a clause were all wrongly decided on bad legal grounds, but perhaps on sound policy grounds and labor grounds. After all, Judge Landis ruled in favor of baseball and against the federal league as a federal judge in the 1910s as a federal district court judge--and was rewarded with a job as commissioner just six years later.

today we'd call that a bribe.

--art kyriazis

re: the reserve clause

there never really was a reserve clause.

a clause in an employment contract that says your employer has the right to renew your employment contract in perpetuity year after year is, in effect, a contract for involuntary servitude.

New York and California each have laws limiting personal services agreements to a maximum length of seven years, specifically applicable to the entertainment field, and those laws have been in effect for dozens of years prior to the Messersmith decision.

no one in any other field of work, if they decided at the end of the year to change jobs within the industry, would be compelled to give their former employer a first option to hire them back at the same salary.

this argument was made repeatedly, first by Monte Ward and the players union back in the 1800s and during the players league dispute of 1890, and again during the federal league dispute of 1915-23. Getting corrupt federal judges to uphold the reserve clause was one of organized baseball's primary weapons against the incipient labor movement in baseball in the late 1800s and early 1900s when there were multiple leagues and salary wars.

by getting the supreme court decision in 1922 and upholding the reserve clause, salaries could remain stable until the mexican league in the 1940s.

indeed, it could be argued that the owners decimated the negro leagues for the same reason, to control salaries by destroying possible competition during the late 1940s for their product as negro ball was outdrawing organized baseball during wwII.

this all has to do with labor issues. nothing more nothing less.

if you read the standard players contract and read what is claimed to have been the reserve clause, you might blink and miss it.

it's just a few words and hardly constitutes a binding contract between two people freely entered into.

in my opinion, it never was a binding contract clause, in the 1800s, the early 1900s or now. There never was a reserve clause, and the decisions upholding such a clause were all wrongly decided on bad legal grounds, but perhaps on sound policy grounds and labor grounds. After all, Judge Landis ruled in favor of baseball and against the federal league as a federal judge in the 1910s as a federal district court judge--and was rewarded with a job as commissioner just six years later.

today we'd call that a bribe.

--art kyriazis