Rob Manfred’s recent comments on minor league pay reflect greed, apathy

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If you walk up to just about anyone on the street and ask them who they think is the worst commissioner in North American professional sports, the answer would be fairly consistent.

Sure, while NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has done plenty of questionable things — helping cover up football’s link with CTE, handing Ray Rice just a two-game suspension for domestic violence in 2014, among others — he doesn’t even hold a candle to the worst of the bunch.

That title, to no one’s surprise, goes to Rob Manfred, the leader of Major League Baseball. And I’m sure most people would agree with me.

Manfred has held on firmly to that title since his appointment in 2015 thanks to a laundry list of blunders, gaffes and boneheaded decisions.

During his seven years in office, Manfred has:

• had a desire to constantly change — or “juice” — the baseball in an attempt to create more offense, despite also expressing interest in speeding up pace of play

• botched the handling of the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal, refusing to punish any players involved — despite handing out year-long suspensions to the general manager and head coach — and allowing them to keep their World Series trophy

• decided to suddenly crack down on pitchers’ use of grip-assisting foreign substances in the middle of the 2021 season, leading to pitchers having to adjust the way they played and, in cases like that of Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Tyler Glasgow, potentially led to injury

• blamed the players for the lockout in late 2021/early 2022 and was called out by multiple players for lying about the collective-bargaining negotiations between the players and the league

And those are just some of the most notable things.

His tenure has also brought about minute annoyances that people, including myself, have with him, stemming from distasteful comments he’s made or a clear lack of leadership or consistency coming from his office.

The latest issue I have with Manfred, however, deals with the former.

On July 19, ahead of the 2022 MLB All-Star Game, Manfred had a press conference with the Baseball Writers Association of America, where a reporter asked him if he saw any issues with the way the league compensates minor league players.

“Look, I kind of reject the premise of the question that minor league players are not paid a living wage,” Manfred answered. “I think that we’ve made real strides in the last three years in terms of what minor league players are paid, even putting to one side the signing bonuses that many of them have already received. They received housing, which obviously is another form of compensation. So, you know, I just reject the question. I don’t know what else to say.”

It’s the phrasing of Manfred’s response — not the opinion we already knew he shared — that truly gets me.

“I reject the question,” said the man in charge of a league that made upwards of $10 billion in 2019.

Meanwhile, minor leaguers have been in a years-long battle for the right to simply negotiate their contracts. Thanks to the 1922 Supreme Court ruling on Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the MLB has antitrust exemption that, effectively, prevents minor leaguers from forming unions or gaining any protections against labor-law violations.

And, thanks to MLB’s stranglehold on minor leaguers’ non-negotiable contracts, they’ve become part a profession that hardly pays players a livable wage.

The average minor league salary ranges from $400 (in rookie-ball leagues) to $700 (Triple-A) per week, thanks to a minor (no pun intended) bump in salary during the 2021 season. That’s a range of about $8,000 to $14,000 per five-month season. If minor leaguers got paid during the offseason, which they don’t, they’d only be making between $19,200 and $33,600 per year before taxes. Depending on the amount of people in their household, that’s either just above or just under the Federal Poverty Line.

Earlier this year, I read a Washington Post op-ed that’s since resurfaced entitled “I’m a minor-league pitcher. Why can’t baseball pay a living wage?” by former Montgomery Biscuits (Rays Double-A affiliate) pitcher Simon Rosenblum-Larson.

In the op-ed, he discusses the things he’s both experienced and witnessed as a low-level minor leaguer.

He writes of teammates having to skip meals to make rent, share apartments with seven other players and work multiple jobs in the offseason just to make ends meet.

“After my first game as a professional ballplayer, I went home to a cot squeezed into a 10-by-12-foot room that I shared with a teammate in a house set up by our team. A few weeks later, I received my first check, for two weeks of work: $550, before taxes and clubhouse dues,” Rosenblum-Larson said in the op-ed. “Was that worth it for a shot at a dream? Absolutely. But was it fair? Absolutely not.”

And therein lies the true issue here.

When a new crop of players are drafted, as was the case last week during the 2022 MLB Draft, they report to their respective teams, hoping that one day, they’ll get a shot at the Show.

From there, they go through years of grueling spring trainings (which teams aren’t required to pay them for), long seasons and financial hardships in smaller towns and cities across the country. Some may do this for five, six or seven years before eventually making it to the big stage and getting a piece of the $700,000 major-league minimum salary.

But some will flame out. Either their ability will decline, forcing them to fall out of baseball entirely, or they simply won’t be able to handle the restricting, exhausting life of a minor leaguer with no reward in sight, being paid very little by a league worth so much money.

Fortunately, there are actions being taken to potentially lessen the financial struggles of minor leaguers.

The day before Manfred’s press conference last week — and the reason for which the question was asked in the first place — the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the MLB’s commissioner requesting information on the league’s antitrust exemption.

The organization Advocates for Minor Leaguers has played a major role in fueling the committee’s most recent inquiry into the exemption — far from the first — and the organization’s executive director, Harry Marino, told Sports Illustrated that bipartisan support for minor leaguers’ labor rights gives them hope that this may actually yield results down the road.

Manfred had until Tuesday to give his response to the committee.

Regardless of what happens with this inquiry or any other political approach to the issue, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) Save American Baseball Act, introduced in March, this is an issue that all baseball fans and most North Carolinians should care about.

We live in a state with 10 MiLB teams, a few of which — the Greensboro Grasshoppers, Winston-Salem Dash, Durham Bulls, etc. — are just a short drive from Chatham County. These are folks living in our communities that, in an effort to live out their dreams, are being neglected and exploited by one of the wealthiest sports leagues in the country.

Manfred’s comments last week not only signaled that he’s as out-of-touch as a pro sports commissioner can be, but he’s also a profits-first businessman with little concern for the players, big and small, that he oversees.

Maybe one day, we’ll wake up in a world where minor leaguers can be adequately compensated for the endless amount of entertainment and revenue they bring to small American towns and cities.

Until then, though, we’re forced to watch Manfred embarrass himself while stuffing his pockets with cash amounting to more than 800-times that of the average minor leaguer.

As goes the wonderful world of American pro sports.

Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.