Major League Baseball owners across the country were silently celebrating Monday when ESPN broke the news that Donald Fehr was retiring as the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association.
Nobody was a bigger pain in the owners wallets than Fehr, who took over the players union in 1986.
Fehr was the handpicked successor of Marvin Miller, the man who won free agency for Major League players in the mid-1970s.
Fehr worked as counsel to Miller during that same time. The two helped strike down the reserve clause, the century old rule that bound a player to a team for life unless he was traded or released.
When Fehr took over the union, the owners found out that he was more ferocious than Miller ever was.
He led the players through the 1994 strike that lasted from the beginning of April that season until May 1995.
The World Series was lost in 1994 and the owners went to spring training with replacement players.
Before he took over the union, Fehr took the owners to court in 1983 for collusion in their attempt to fix the free agent market and keep salaries in check.
The owners ended up paying $280 million in damages.
Curt Flood the Start of Baseball Players Union Fight
The baseball players started to gain leverage in the late 1960s when Miller took over the union after leading the United Steel Workers.
The key event triggering free agency came in 1970 when Curt Flood refused to report after being traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies, along with catcher Tim McCarver, in exchange for Richie Allen.
Flood challenged the reserve clause and lost, but it set the tone for future cases.
Fehr Works on Messersmith-McNally Arbitration Case
Fehr first made a name for himself when the worked on the Andy Messersmith-Dave McNally arbitration case in 1975. The two challenged the reserve clause rule and won free agency.
Miller rewarded Fehr by making him the union’s general council to the union in 1977. Fehr took over the union eight years later and gave the players strong leadership ever since.
For the most part, Fehr as fought any mention of baseball implementing a salary cap.
Thanks to him, players like Alex Rodriquez and Manny Rameriz to earn contracts up to $50 million a season.
Michael Weiner, the union’s general council, will take over for Fehr pending the owners approval.
