Grantland.com: The Beginning of the End for the NCAA

[OmahaBlueDog]

In June of 1970, Bill Veeck, a renegade baseball owner, took the stand for the plaintiff in the case of Flood v. Kuhn, in which St. Louis Cardinal outfielder Curt Flood essentially sued major league baseball to break the power of the "reserve system," a pernicious practice that bound a player to one team for as long as that one team wanted to keep him. It was this system of, at best, involuntary servitude on which the business of baseball had remained a rigged game in favor of management for over a century.

Veeck thought the system doomed. Sooner or later, he believed, a judge, or somebody else in authority that didn't give a damn about sitting in the owner's box for Opening Day, was going to get a good look at the system. That person probably then would spend four or five minutes laughing so hard that they nearly fainted, and then that person would throw out the whole system for the fraud that it was. Better to eliminate the reserve system gradually, Veeck testified. (He recommended a system of seven-year contracts, much like the system that had prevailed at one time in Hollywood.) That way, he thought, the owners could control the transition between the reserve system and whatever came next. Veeck also pointed out that the reserve system, as it was practiced at the time, ran counter to some cherished American beliefs about the country's values.

"I think it would certainly help the players and the game itself to no longer be one of the few places in which there is human bondage," Veeck testified, according to the account in Brad Snyder's A Well-Paid Slave, an exemplary book on the Flood case. "I think it would be to the benefit of the reputation of the game of baseball … At least, it would be fair."

The owners didn't listen. Veeck was not one of them. He had a predilection for putting midgets on the field. And black people. And, as far as the authoritarian exercise of whiteness went, baseball management made the Politburo look like the O'Jays. They ignored Veeck. They even beat the Flood case in the Supreme Court. Then, in 1975, an arbitrator named Peter Seitz threw out the reserve clause and free agency fell onto baseball all at once and everywhere. The system utterly collapsed and, just as Veeck had predicted, it was not a soft landing.

Read More at: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7177921/the-beginning-end-ncaa

[Doctor_J]

1. Some sage told the MLB owners 40 years ago,

"Give them their free agency in return for not insisting on arbitration. The binding arbitration will break you". they didn't listen to that either, and so it went.

[Doctor_J]

2. Suggestion: Click on the link at the link

The one titled "My Memories of The National". Outstanding reminiscence of a wonderful, short-lived sports daily from 20 years ago.

[elleng]

3. More than interesting; Thank you, Omaha.

'Sports have always played an important role in the construction of that part of our national self-image. Sports as a "way out of poverty" is one of our more cherished national myths, and it always ran headlong into the British concept of amateurism, which was based on a class system that didn't believe in ways out of poverty for the lower orders, or the Irish. But I repeat myself. Basically, amateurism offends against this country's image of itself and, therefore, its support here always has been tenuous.

Which is part of the reason why every major "scandal" in college sports begins with the crash of a cymbal and ends with a stifled yawn. What we have in college sports at the moment is a perfect example of a functioning underground economy. People tolerate that economy because, fundamentally, we believe that, if you work a 40-hour-a-week job that requires travel all over the country, you ought to get paid for it. We also love the games. Hence, out of both selfishness and a kind of innate sense of fairness, most people are more satisfied with the sausage than they are horrified at how it's made. Give Americans a chance to be greedy and noble at the same time, and the cultural momentum becomes unstoppable. . .

These people may have a moral right to their ticket sales based on the scholarships they provide, but they don't have a moral right to every last nickel they can squeeze out of their labor force. That's absurd. It's un-American. And it cannot last.

The NCAA is floundering now, proposing a cheap pay-for-play scheme while denying it is doing so, and hoping to buy a little more time against the looming inevitable. Eventually, one night, they'll throw up the ball at an NCAA tournament game and none of the players will jump. Or, a judge will rule on one or another of the lawsuits. Let's look at the history of one of the plaintiffs.

In 1963, Bill Russell went to Jackson, Mississippi, and, in the face of the worst America had to offer, conducted integrated basketball clinics. In his way he helped redeem the distance between this country's promise and this country's reality. Bill Russell's been threatened by experts, boys, and now he's suing you. If I were you, I wouldn't screw with Bill Russell.'

[OmahaBlueDog]

5. I love that quote: "Bill Russell's been threatened by experts, boys, and now he's suing you"

If I were you, I wouldn't screw with Bill Russell.

[musiclawyer]

4. Professional soccer pays and schools their teens

For the most part. Those who don't make the big club at least get some education and real cash for their families. Abuses on the African continent aside
If I was the NCAA I would demand that the NBA and NFL contribute at least a small percentage of their profits to help pay real wages and tutorial assistance or else......stop using their school names and NCAA as a quasi partnership in the draft

[classysassy]

6. Coaches get paid and the players get paid under the table

.Stop pretending college athletes are given an education when so few graduate,call it what it is a minor league for the pros.The coaches are paid millions and the players get crumbs from the tables of the coaches.TV control the games of football and basketball on colleges campuses,split the TV revenue among the players and coaches,by doing so the colleges would not have to pay those over paid coaches and that money could help the other sports on campuses such as swimming,track and field etc:.Greed on the part of the NCAA need to be curtailed,they make the rules and make sure they and their pals are handsomely paid.