Fun with Money: Part I
As a fan, I have no problem extolling the importance of the fan in sports. It is the most important role. The fan is the heralder, the bookkeeper, the archivist, and the backbone to the whole system. But in today’s world of sports, with huge contracts, expensive tickets and merchandise, and greed all around, there is much talk about the average fan being priced out of their pastime.
So let’s look at the institution of free-agency in baseball, arguably a big piece of the inflating contracts bubble.
The set-up is pretty simple. For years and years, owners dictated what their players were paid and 
where they played. Superstars had some more power, but really we’re talking about maybe a handful of guys over a period of roughly sixty years or so (we’re talking Babe Ruth caliber). The contract situation revolved around something known as the reserve clause. Basically contracts were handed out yearly, with the owners retaining a period of time in which they could renew their players. This essentially forced players to accept whatever they were offered as their was no window for them to test the market. It also kept promising players in the minors with no chance to play elsewhere and get a shot at the bigs.
The level of transparency that we have now was virtually nonexistent. We are able today to get all the information on a player’s contract, how much of is guaranteed, how the options are, how many years, and so forth. All of that is made public. Jim Bouton in Ball Four explained that players were not permitted to talk about their contracts, presumably because if player A made more than player B, and player B found out, well then player B would want more money and that tended to put the owner out. So basically, when ball players were accepting these contracts because they had no option, they really had no idea of what they were worth.
Richard Bradley, in his book The Greatest Game, sums up the situation succinctly. Players had to take whatever the owners offered because most were not Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, or Ted Williams, and they didn’t want to be put out of baseball and they had families to support. Even still, bereft of super agents, most players lacked the skills or even the desire to negotiate better contracts. And it wasn’t such a big deal to fans, as these guys were getting paid to play baseball.
A number of players sued Major League baseball over the years, with cases going to the Supreme Court in the 20s, 50s, and again in 1972, just before the instiution of free-agency, when veteran St. Louis Cardinal Curt Flood sued Comishiner Bowie Kuhn after Flood was traded to the Phillies against his wishes. The court ruled in favor of Kuhn, and Flood faded out of baseball and left the country. 1974 saw Catfish Hunter 
become the first free-agent, and it would show everyone just how valuable a baseball player on the open market could be.
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