A Minor League Baseball player (pictured above) slides into home plate during a game. He is one of many players in the minor leagues who struggle to earn a liveable wage (Chad Cooper/Creative commons).
Baseball is as American a pastime as there is. Like America, baseball encounters issues with providing protections for civil rights and ensuring economic stability to its participants.
In a sport where the highest paid players can make as much as $36 million per season and where the Major League Baseball minimum is over half a million dollars, low pay may seem like a low priority concern. The MLB, however, does not represent the totality of professional baseball.
Right below the MLB is a league devoted to players and teams that aren’t ready for the major leagues. In Minor League Baseball—MiLB—there are more than 250 professional teams across the country and the continent.
While players on these teams can hold out hope for one of the approximately 900 spots on an MLB roster, most professional players will likely spend a lot of time in the MiLB without the glitz and glamour of the MLB.
In fact, if you are not one of the 900 or so players lucky enough to make it into the MLB, you may not even make a living wage.
In March of 2018, an omnibus bill in Congress included a portion entitled “Save America’s Pastime Act” which exempted minor league players from standard wage rules that apply to the majors. The MLB lobbied hard for the bill so that it could increase earnings for the billionaires who actually own teams.
When the bill passed, it harmed players. Most minor leaguers already make as low as $1,150 a month, according to CBS Sports. Over a season, these minor leaguers may not even earn wages above the poverty line.
Beyond unjustly paying people a wage they cannot live on, the rules would also equate a minor league baseball player, who has spent years or even decades training for their spot, with a seasonal worker in an entry-level job like cashiering. All jobs deserve a fair wage but paying the few millions and the many pennies is especially absurd.
MLB players make higher wages because they work in highly specialized positions and because they put their bodies on the line for people’s amusement. MiLB players do the same thing and they often do not receive sponsorship deals or large signing bonuses. Owners write the paychecks for players in both leagues; there is no reason why fair wages could not extend to all.
As minor leaguers fight for paychecks that can cover their livelihoods, major league players and fans must recognize their plight. So far, MLB players have not done the best job of standing in solidarity with unfairly paid workers.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees crossed picket lines for a strike by Boston hotel workers during the 2018 post-season, according to The Boston Globe.
Hotel workers, fast-food workers, teachers and postal workers have all fought their fair wage and won. The pillars of America’s pastime deserve attention as well.