Sunday, November 25, 2018

Why is MLB donating to racist Senate candidates? Same reason as most greedy corporations

The shot

The chaser



But why would MLB want to buy influence from a racist dingbat in Mississippi in the first place? That's the more interesting story to me, and the reason why MLB lobbies and donates to politicians came up again in court cases from this Summer. And yes, it involves a certain mega-donor to Scott Walker's campaigns.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to reconsider rulings that give Major League Baseball a broad exemption from federal antitrust laws, turning away two appeals.

The justices rejected arguments from two major league scouts who claimed the 30 teams were colluding to suppress wages. The court also declined to hear from property owners who say their rights were violated when the Chicago Cubs and owner Tom Ricketts blocked some rooftop views of Wrigley Field.

The dual rebuffs leave intact a line of Supreme Court rulings, dating from 1922 to 1972, that largely insulate the business side of baseball from antitrust lawsuits. Congress overturned the rulings with regard to players and their salaries, but left the exemption in place in other contexts....

"This court has consistently held that if the exemption is to be altered or curtailed, only Congress can do so," the league and its clubs argued.
The Cubs said Congress made a decision to keep most of the exemption when it passed a 1998 law to let players file antitrust suits.

"Congress explicitly stated that the act leaves this court’s exemption jurisprudence in place in all respects other than major-league player employment," the Cubs and Ricketts argued.
And if MLB can buy off potential members of Congress, no matter how racist and foolish they may be, then they can continue to make more money for their business due to the lack of competition from this anti-trust exemption.

It's especially ironic that the controversial MLB donation involved a race in Mississippi, because it was a player for the Brewers-affiliated Biloxi Shuckers that drew attention to another sketchy MLB business practice earlier this year.





Perrin is an interesting case, as he has a History degree from Oklahoma State, has gotten into the Law School at the University of Kansas, and is a licensed Financial Investment Advisor. After his statements about the low wages of minor league players, he expounded on those comments in an interview this April with UW-Madison student radio WSUM, and said that many other minor leaguers are barely making minimum wage.
[Jonathan Perrin]: … In the minor leagues, you play a 140-game schedule and that’s from April to the first week of September. You’re playing 140 games in basically five and a quarter months, so it’s 140 games in 160-165 days. If you think about that, a normal person goes, works their Monday through Friday, you get the weekend off, 40-hour-per-week type deal, so in baseball, you’re going 10 to 15 to 20 days between off days and then you get one off day and usually that off day is more often than not a day where you’d be on the bus traveling and going to your next site, so a lot of times, it’s not even a true off day and then you take into account that we’re at the field for a 7 o’clock game– most guys are going to show up at 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m. or 2 o’clock at the latest and you’re not going to get out of there once you’re showered up until 10:30 or 11 o’clock at night. You’re looking at 10 hours a day, six to seven days a week, so it’s a very grueling travel schedule. It’s a very grueling day-to-day schedule with not a lot of off days during the season.”

[Jacob Swanson, WSUM]: Brandon Lawson of the Rays’ minor league season tweeted that he’s making $1,180 a month. Is that just during the season. That’s just March through September?

[Perrin]: “Right. It kind of scaled depending on what level you’re at. I think, just being in the Brewers organization, we start at $1,100 a month and now with the new act that got passed, the Save America’s Pastime Act, it’s like a $60 raise, so the minimum salary in baseball is like $1,160 or $1,180. It equates to $7.25 an hour at 40 hours a week per month, the absolute minimum you can pay according to the 40 hour times $7.25 rule. That’s basically the starting salary for a minor league player would be right around $1,100 a month.”
And if Major League Baseball (as the overseers of the minors) were forced to adhere to minimum wage and/or overtime provisions, especially in places where minimum wage is higher than $7.25 an hour, they'd have to pay those minor league players more. But with the antitrust exemption and other (in)actions from Congress and the White House, they don't have to worry much about that.

Pitching more than just sliders

Milwaukeeans won't see much from Perrin any time soon unless you follow him on social media, as he was traded from the Brew Crew to the Royals' organization last August. But let's see if his comments from last Spring on underpaid minor leaguers come back up as more people ask why MLB was giving money to a horrible Senate candidate in Mississippi.
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