3/31/18

Reese Kaplan -- Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?



Minor league ballplayers earn approximately what a burger flipper at McDonald’s gets paid.  It is common for someone toiling in Iowa or Nebraska or New Mexico might get paid as little as $5500 for the duration of the season.  If you assume the season is five months long, then you are talking about $1100 per month or about $225 per week.  At Iowa’s prevailing minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, a full time employee would earn over $1160.  Wow.

How could this happen?  I’m glad you asked.  Major League Baseball did what people who want to influence legislation always do…they spend money on professional lobbyists to try to persuade the representatives who are supposed to support their constituents’ interests to take a particular position on one side of the issue.  Now both sides are free to do so, but ballplayers earning under minimum wage have a tough road to hoe when the opposition has spent over $2.6 BILLION to ensure that the payroll situation doesn’t change. 

Just recently, a $1.3 trillion spending bill was submitted to the president and he signed it.  On page 1967 of that bill included something called “Save America’s Pastime Act” which countered the 4-year old lawsuit filed in San Francisco by three minor leaguers alleging that the owners were failing to pay minimum wage to their employees.  In fact, the ugly numbers presented above were actually overly optimistic as they cited typical work weeks of 50-60 hours which would at an average of 55 hours bring their hourly wage down to a mere $5.00 per hour. 


The legislation is very clearly a huge win for the team owners as it specifically exempts them from paying the prevailing minimum wage, “any employee employed to play baseball who is compensated pursuant to a contract that provides for a weekly salary for services performed during the league’s championship season (but not spring training or the offseason) at a rate that is not less than a weekly salary equal to the minimum wage … for a workweek of 40 hours, irrespective of the number of hours the employee devotes to baseball related activities”.  Now I don’t profess to be a lawyer but that sure seems like it gives the owners carte blanche to work the minor leaguers as long as they would like without taking into account overtime or the overall hourly wage guaranteed to people in pretty much any other field of employment.

The players’ lawyer was understandably upset with how things unfolded, “Instead of going through the regular committee process where it has a hearing, all of this was done in secret and a in a very rushed manner. It’s emblematic of how things are getting done in Washington these days, where the people with a lot of money are able to flex their political muscle and make a lot of contributions and get things done in secret that benefit only them.”


Minor league players, unlike, their major league counterparts, are not unionized.  The actual wages paid to aspiring ballplayers is pretty appalling.  The “big bucks” don’t come until someone is added to the 40-man roster at which point the more highly regarded minor leaguer earns a more reasonable $88,900.  Regardless of which level a player finds himself in the minor leagues, he’s also given a per diem of $25 per day to eat.  The General Services Administration provides travelers to my home town of El Paso more than double that amount -- $59 per day for meals, so that means Dom Smith’s predilection for fast food may have in fact been economic necessity.   Throw in the fact that more than half of that per-diem goes to "Clubhouse Dues", well, eating from the Dollar Menu is understandable.  

What’s done is done, and it’s to the detriment of a great many wannabe major leaguers that they are going to have to live well below the poverty level.  After all, businesses will pay as little as humanly possible (and legal) in order to maximize profits.  I’m no different.  If an applicant for a $50,000 job asks me for $35,000, I might kick him a $37,500 starting offer to make him feel good about accepting the job, but I’m now $12,500 ahead of what I’d budgeted.  As the minor leaguers’ lawyer pointed out, “Surely if Walmart or McDonald’s can find a way to comply with those laws, then Major League Baseball can find a way to comply with them, too.” 

Sometimes it’s good to be king.  Or at least an oligarch. 

8 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Just disgraceful...but when it comes to how the government chooses to overspend money in its collective vying for power while it tries hard to bankrupt the country, what does one really expect.

I hope the players get food stamps.

Owners do not care, but if all fans knew about this crap, would they mind a simple $1 per ticket donation that would be solely to boost minor leaguers' pay? I would be happy to pay a buck more.

Eddie from Corona said...

Agreed Tom...
Something like 60k if you reach singles A, 75l for double AA and 90 K for AAA seems very reasonable when you are generating several billion in revenue....

Ernest Dove said...

It just popped in head right now.....at 830am before finishing my coffee to take it FWIW but:

Perhaps one thing MLBPA should fight for is increasing the draft allotment $$$

With this ILLEGAL wage allowed the least owners could and should do is increase $$$ in budget for draft every year.

Although yes I know they are already nickle and diming the draft and manipulating the system as it is now by drafting certain college guys high for nothing to entice high school kids.

But I honestly think can they at least try RAISING the minimum signing bonus on players?

It should be more than $1-10k to sign and have full control over these college picks.

I know there's like a million rounds in draft but jesus there's plenty of money to go around.

Mack Ade said...

IMO -

You can attempt to make this political and blame it on Washington, but it first falls on baseball itself.

If all the minor leaguers on every team were paid a flat $30,000 a year (a fair wage for a young man tossing a ball around for 6 months), it would still collectively cost less that ONE QO per team.

Baseball teams have the money to solve this.

Hobie said...

Had my eyes opened last summer when I connected with my cousin (cousin's kid actually) in Richmond. He's a RP for the Flying Squirrels (SF AA club). 12 hr days (includes down-time between morning workouts & evening games) at the park. 7-days a week if include (bus) travel days.

When bumped up from San Jose, he got no help finding a place to live. Crashe on teammate's couch for a few days until he found a room (took over lease from a demoted teammate). His dad drove his car to Richmond from San Jose so he would have wheels. Loves it though and is realistic that the next 2 years will determine whether he has a shot.

Mack Ade said...

Hobie -

It is a miserable life that only a young kid with a dream could put up with.

I used to go to the Sand Gnats field each day at around 1:30pm (for a 7pm game)... the team had to hit the field for a full workout (sometimes in 100 degree temp.) unti around 5pm... then into the clubhouse to sower, dress, eat, and back on the field for the game, that ended around 11pm.

And imagine what the away games were like after an 8-10 hour bus ride?

Tom Brennan said...

Mack, I agree...the greedy owners are front and center to blame for this pauperish existence for these guys. The modest pay levels you suggest are extremely appropriate.

Mike Freire said...

That is an excellent article, Reese.......I had no idea that the lower level players were treated so poorly. Add to that, a bunch of them are not from our county, so they have language barriers and cultural changes to contend with while trying to make their way in the game.

It may explain why the failure rate is so high?

A multi-billion dollar collection of teams should be able to figure this out.