The 1972 Major League Baseball strike: When ballplayers struck out on their own

Don Kessinger belted a two-run homer to lead the Cubs to a 7-3 win over Cleveland in an exhibition game in New Orleans on March 31, 1972.

But an exhibition of a different kind was taking place that same day in Dallas, as Kessinger's teammate Milt Pappas and other player reps from the Major League Baseball Players Association put on their own display of power, voting 47-0 with one abstention in favor of major league baseball's first strike.

During the ensuing week, Kessinger and several Cubs teammates would be forced to work out in the gym at Holy Cross High School in River Grove while waiting for the end of the labor standoff.

It was no joke when the headlines informed readers of the strike on April 1. It was, in fact, the coming of age for the players, who were sending the message to management, used to treating them as privileged children, that they had grown up and were leaving the nest.

The catalyst was Marvin Miller, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, who, in his pre-baseball life, had been chief economist and assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers of America.

In 1966, the players picked Miller to lead the union. His predecessor, Milwaukee judge Robert Cannon, was a puppet of the owners and once told Congress that the thinking of the average major league ballplayer was "We have it so good we don't know what to ask for next."

Miller would sever that cozy relationship, gradually chipping away at the owners' castle of privilege, educating players on their rights and building consensus within the ranks.

In 1968, his efforts were rewarded with baseball's first collective bargaining agreement, which set the minimum salary at $10,000, reduced the maximum pay cut to 20% and boosted meal money and spring training stipends.

Two years later, in the second Basic Agreement, baseball would finally accept an independent arbitrator for "nickels and dimes" issues.

In his book, "Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball," John Helyar wrote that arbitration had been "the law of the land and standard operating procedure in any number of industries. But not in baseball. The commissioner remained the absolute authority - in disputes between leagues, between teams, and between players and teams. It mattered not that he reigned at the pleasure of the Lords and thus was less than neutral."

The wedge issue in the 1972 strike was the players' demand for an increase in the owners' contribution to the players' health, dental, life insurance, and pension plan, set to expire March 31.

The owners offered to pay an additional $400,000 to their current contribution of $5,450,000 per year. The players wanted a 17% percent increase, $1,000,072, to cover the cost of living increase in the three years the plan had been in effect. The players maintained the increase could be covered by an $817,000 surplus in the pension fund, plus a contribution of $11,000 per club.

Owners like the Cardinals' August A. Busch Jr. staunchly resisted, saying, "We're not going to give them another damn cent."

The colorful A's owner, Charles O. Finley, vilified Miller, saying, "The players have just shot the goose that laid the golden egg. I think Marvin the Great and his followers are very foolish."

But one of the White Sox player representatives, Jay Johnstone, said Miller was far from a cheerleader for a strike and pleaded "at least 10 times" not to strike unless there was complete unanimity.

Another Sox player rep, Rick Reichardt, said, "Miller was not the instigator at all. This was what the players wanted. We don't want to hurt the owners or the fans. We just felt we had to take a stand."

The strike would only last 13 days. Baseball would not make up the 86 games it had lost.

Ultimately, the owners agreed to contribute $500,000 to the players' pension fund and $490,000 to the health care fund in addition to the $5,450,000 contribution they already were making.

In Miller's words, "Clearly the players have triumphed in something that few people thought they could or would do. They have stood together." It wouldn't be the last labor standoff, as strikes and lockouts became part of the permanent fabric of baseball.

And now, as baseball approaches the 50th anniversary of the 1972 strike, the National Pastime once again finds itself confronted by the specter of a shortened season.