Former Jays reliever Dirk Hayhurst (above) has chronicled the grim minor league experience in “The Bullpen Gospels” (his third book “Bigger Than The Game” is published next week), and as such, the journeyman-turned analyst/journalist is uniquely qualified to weigh in on 3 former minor leaguers’ class action lawsuit against MLB, claiming the Uniform Players Contract is sham. In a blog post from last week, Hayhurst bemoans the moment “it became out of fashion for minor leaguers, who truly do get paid like shit, treated like shit, worked like dogs, and screwed when injured, to complain about any of it.”
Baseball has the money to at least alleviate the minor league struggle. It just doesn’t have anyone telling it that it must. In fact, it will tell you that if it did alleviate things players wouldn’t work as hard to make it to the top; that they wouldn’t want it as badly if the minors were comfortable. Gosh, thank you, MLB, for being so considerate.
And thank you, major league players, for not speaking up and allowing this wonderful, character building cycle to continue. For those who may not know, the MLBPA routinely bargains away the rights of minor leaguers and amateurs even though minor leaguers and amateurs have no say at, representation on, or power over the MLBPA’s negotiating table.
Odd, isn’t it, that Baseball will tout it’s charitable efforts and desire to see change in suffering communities. That it will set up institutions to help kids break out of poverty and punch their tickets to its meat grinder, wherein it will turn them into live stock, expect them to behave as such, and toss them right back into the dirt when they fail?