Fun with Money: Part II
By Stephen Turk
Curt Flood reintroduced the argument for free-agency to baseball, but was ultimately denied. Two years later, in 1974, Catfish Hunter would become the first free-agent due to a unique situation and a contract dispute. Hunter was prolific with the Oakland A’s, but owner Charlie Finley failed to make a payment. Hunter’s contract was deemed void and with no reserve clause to keep him, he was the first major league ball player on the open market, free to go wherever he pleased.
A bidding war ensued, reaching offers as high as five years, $4.5 million. Hunter took a deal with the Yankees, five years at $3.5 million with incentives. The nightmare scenario that Bouton talked about in Ball Four had happened, players knew how much they were worth. If a great pitcher could get that money, then other great pitchers should be getting it. And if that was the case then great position players and hitters should make comparable amounts, if not more for their everyday play. And if that was to be the going rate for great players, then certainly the pay gap between great players and good players should be smaller. But perhaps the greatest new feature going on here was the fact that this was a multi-year deal. That meant guaranteed money, that meant stability and wealth that ball players had never experienced and were quick to welcome.
The next year, an arbitrator ruled that the reserve clause was only binding for one year. Owners could no longer string along their players year to year, and at the end of their contracts, players could put themselves on the market. Player compensation skyrocketed. But all was not well.
An assertion that Richard Bradley makes in The Greatest Game is that the post free-agency years created a void between the players and the fans and media. Players found how valuable they were on the open market, owners couldn’t take advantage of them, and this was great for the players and their futures. But like anything, a whole host of new problems previously not seen came about.
There was suddenly the concept of a player being overpaid. And there is no greater sense of 
resentment than seeing someone who makes so much money fail at their job. Add in the fact that fans knew that players for their team could excuse themselves whenever they felt like it, and you have a very unfulfilled group of people watching sports. Fans now wanted production immediately. Bradley writes “If fans were going to be digging deeper into their pockets to walk through the turnstiles, an inevitable consequence of free agency, then they wanted more bang for their bucks. The sport was becoming less sporting, all about winning and less about fun.”
The resentment extended to the press as well. Before, sportswriters got to know players because they were there year after year, they were working stiffs just like everyone else. So writers wrote favorably about them, rolled over their transgressions and extolled the virtues of the sports, which fans liked to read, so everyone was happy. But after free-agency players were more insulated from the media with more at stake for them, and fans were more critical, so the media represented that.
And then there was the new breed of player. Hard work was the primary way of sticking around on a baseball team before, but now a players only really needed one marketable skill. If you could hit homeruns, you were pretty much set. Then came the idea of playing for the contract year, where players found that it was better to focus on individual stats to pump up their value rather than team goals.
And that’s the story of the development of free-agency, a large part of the baseball business. It finishes off like a horror tale, where we expect everything to get worse and worse. Obviously in the 34 years since free-agency, sports have done fine. Better than ever some might argue. And even with a change in overall attitude, there have been plenty of hard working players, and plenty of amazing games and moments. Not everything went directly out the window, so it doesn’t really help much to get to alarmist over everything.
As with everything the situation has a lot of sides to it. Contracts go up every year but no longer do owners hold them back. The Sports media some days seems more like a collective gossip rag but at least we get more truth rather than have everything be sugar coated. And there are players who selfishly milk free agency, and while they’ll get their money, fans will stamp out the love for them swiftly. The productive hard worker in sports will always be adulated, and if the home team doesn’t compete in free agency to keep that player, then fans will turn their ire to the ownership.
Such is the life of a fan. I don’t want the players paid too much, but I don’t want the owners pocketing too much either. I want the media to take to the guys I don’t like, and I want them to hold up the guys I do. So fans might be getting priced out of sports, but they can’t be gotten rid of that easily.
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