Former Baseball Union Head Miller Dead at 95
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
(Courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)
Marvin Miller, the labor leader who forever changed major league baseball and professional sports, died Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 95.
Miller served as executive director of Major League Baseball's Players union from 1966 to 1984. During that time, he led the union to its first collective bargaining agreement and won free agency for the players.
The New Yorker's Roger Angell says Miller came out of a labor background and thought players at the time were the “most exploited workers.”
“But it was so unique of him, it was so startling to hear somebody refer to them as workers,” Angell told WNYC’s Amy Eddings. “He won the labor battles over and over again.”
Angell called Miller the most significant off-the-field figure in American Sports, changing sports into what it is today.
Miller was born in the Bronx and grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. He is survived by a son, daughter and grandson.
Listen to Amy Edding’s full interview with Roger Angell above.
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