Harry Marino, the executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers, issued a statement in response to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s 17-page letter defending the sport’s antitrust exemption.
In the letter, submitted on Friday and obtained by Sports Illustrated, Manfred challenged the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquiry into the exemption in a letter sent on July 18 requesting an explanation on its impact on the minor leagues and player wages. Manfred argued that the 100-year-old exemption has benefitted minor leaguers and the sport at-large.
“We respectfully submit that the opposite is true—the baseball antitrust exemption has meaningfully improved the lives of Minor League players, including their terms and conditions of employment, and has enabled the operators of Minor League affiliates to offer professional baseball in certain communities that otherwise could not economically support a professional baseball team,” Manfred stated in the opening paragraph.
The letter also includes a breakdown of the assertions offered by Advocates for Minor Leaguers in its response to the Senate Committee earlier this month, which noted that most “Minor League players are living below the federal poverty level” and are unable to improve their situations because of the exemption. The league asserted Advocates urging the need for congressional action to “help bring players out of poverty” is “inaccurate” and ignores the “bona fide career trajectories of millions of young, non-baseball-playing Americans trying to break into ultra-competitive fields.”
Manfred wrote, “Advocates is mistaken when it claims that all Minor League players would receive higher compensation and better benefits if compensation was determined based on ‘free market principles.’ On the contrary, under such a system, the top prospects – a relatively small number of players who already currently receive the largest signing bonuses – may do better. But the much larger number of non-prospect players likely would do worse.”
Shortly after the league’s response, Marino weighed in on the letter and cited an interesting contrast in tone by Manfred regarding the matter.
“When it comes to the impact of baseball’s antitrust exemption on Minor League players and fans, Major League Baseball cannot get its story straight,” Marino wrote before citing Manfred’s comments during the All-Star break stating he couldn’t “think of a place where the exemption is really meaningful, other than franchise relocation.”
After highlighting Manfred’s remarks regarding the benefits of the exemption, Marino offered a rebuttal, and vowed Advocates for Minor Leaguers would respond “substantively” in the coming days after a thorough review.
“Simply put, both of these statements cannot be true,“ he continued. “Given that MLB continues to pay most Minor League players poverty-level wages and recently eliminated 40 Minor League teams, the positions it has taken today are surprising—to say the very least. We intend to thoroughly review the many claims set forth in today’s 17-page letter and will respond substantively in the days to come.”
Marino and Advocates for Minor Leaguers have been at the forefront of the push for change since receiving a similar request from the Senate Committee, led by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), seeking more information on how the antitrust exemption exploits minor leaguers, and its impact on their contracts and other working conditions.
Established in 1922 following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the antritrust exemption has been under fire in recent months due to its influence on the minor leagues. On July 19, a day after the Senate Committee sent its letter, Manfred rejected the idea that minor league players aren’t properly compensated. Ironically, the comments came on the heels of MLB’s agreement to pay $185 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit filed by minor leaguers, with more than $120 million going directly to eligible players who previously accused teams of violating minimum-wage and overtime laws.
“Look, I kind of reject the premise of the question that minor league players are not paid a living wage,” he said. “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.”
Advocates for Minor Leaguers called Manfred’s assessment “callous and false” in a statement noting that most players work second jobs because their “annual salaries are insufficient to make ends meet.” Despite MLB’s clear opposition against the issues at-hand, however, Marino spoke optimistically about the possibility of potential legislation against the exemption later that same day.
“This isn’t just one politician or even one political party sort of grandstanding or saying they’re going to use this for leverage or publicity,” he said. “I think, honestly, it’s the context in terms of the awareness around the way minor league players are treated … It’s been percolating for a little while, but it’s really come to the forefront in the last year.”
