Major League Baseball's upcoming CBA negotiations have generally been framed around the question of the salary cap. Owners want it. Players don't. The rest of it—Juan Soto makes $50 million a year, a third of the league's teams keep forgetting to try, so on—is both true enough and primarily noise made for the sake of making noise. Every CBA negotiation is at least a little bit like this.

The question of “which side are you on?” is complicated somewhat by the fact that this is a dispute between the obscenely rich and the extremely rich; we aren’t dealing with the miner’s son against JH Blair here. But the question of where else this money would go is not complicated. It’s not going to the miner’s son, of course.

It’s going into the pockets of people like David Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm with $475 billion in assets, responsible for buying up property and raising rents in New York City, participating in union busting and exploitative labor practices, and investing in the defense industry; he owns the Orioles. And also to Ray Davis, whose company, Energy Transfer, owns the Dakota Access Pipeline that was the subject of protests in 2016 due to its encroachment on Sioux land and disastrous environmental effects; Davis owns the Rangers. That money would go to Giants’ owner, Charles B. Johnson, a billionaire who regularly donates to the political campaigns of right-wing fanatics. You get the point—this money is controlled by 30 cosmetically different versions of JH Blair, all of whom are trying to convince the public that they are on the side of fairness, unlike the greedy players union, which is made up mostly of players who will virtually all never have contracts even close to what Juan Soto is getting, and none of whom to my knowledge own even one oil pipeline. This makes deciding which side you are on a bit easier to answer.

Owners succeed when the public thinks of baseball's labor struggle as separate from the political struggles happening all around them. It isn't, and while the history of unionization in professional baseball has ebbed and flowed alongside the progressive political moments in United States history, the movement has been most successful when the players have realized that connection. What kind of moment does it feel like we're in right now?

The first serious attempt at unionizing professional baseball players took place in 1885, with the formation of the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players. The National League was the leading professional baseball organization at the time and had unchecked power. The players were fed up with the pay plan that capped salaries at $2,500 and set the minimum at $1,500, which meant many players had to get other jobs to support themselves. Not only did the players have measly wages, but the National League’s newly instituted reserve clause meant that they also had little bargaining power. From 1879 on, a player who signed a contract with a team had to remain with that team unless they were traded. In negotiations, players either had to accept their contract or were no longer able to play baseball professionally. The reserve clause would remain a point of contention in labor negotiations for nearly a century.

The owners did not see anything to fix there, and so the Brotherhood took matters into their own hands and formed the Player’s League in 1890. This was designed to be a league collectively run by the players. It may be shocking to find out that Defector did not invent the concept of worker-owned and operated business models, but lest you think the Brotherhood was also made up of fledgling little commies, it's worth noting that the Player’s League wasn’t quite as independent. The league had no owners, but instead “backers” who would invest in the league and share in profits with the players. Those circumstances were far better than the unbridled power of the owners in the National League, but still inhibited full independence from private financial interests. Still, there was no reserve clause or pay cuts, and contracts ran for three years. All teams invested into an emergency fund, and profits were pooled together into a league-wide revenue fund that would be split among teams based on the final standings. Most importantly, the players could determine the fate of the league. The league was governed by a board of directors where power was split evenly between players and backers; each participating team was structured this way as well. The league was far more the players’ than any professional baseball league before or since.

The Player’s League was formed when the mood of the country towards trade unionism and leftist political ideology was beginning to shift, but it was still notably hostile, and these farm boys with handlebar mustaches were by no means ready revolutionaries. The Brotherhood declined to strike or associate with major labor organizations such as the Knights of Labor, a union organization that was a precursor to the American Federation of Labor. But despite their non-radical politics, the Brotherhood was inspired in a very practical way by the progressive movements of the period.

The Player’s League was launched the same year that Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. By the logic of that law, the National League was guilty of price fixing and colluding to inhibit the growth of wages; this was 30 years before baseball was declared exempt from anti-trust laws in the 1922 Supreme Court Case Federal Baseball Club v. National League. While the nascent labor movement was still facing brutal crackdowns, American culture had grown contemptuous of monopolies led by robber barons like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. John Montgomery Ward, a lawyer and baseball player who led the Brotherhood, used this growing anti-trust momentum to the union’s advantage. In a manifesto announcing the league—that’s right, baseball players were writing manifestos—Ward decried the owners of the National League as “a combination among themselves, stronger than the strongest trust.” The American public was fed up with powerful industry, and the National League was one. 

Not only was the Player’s League aligned with the public’s attitude about monopolies, but it also had the biggest players in the game. Eighty former National League players flew to the newly established league for better treatment and more control over their fate, a group that included Hall of Famers like Roger Connor and King Kelly. The National League, for its part, did everything in their power to sabotage the Player’s League. National League executive Albert Spalding lambasted the Player’s League as “anarchy” and declared that the two leagues were “waging a war of extermination.” This included scheduling games at the same time and in the same cities as the Player’s League. Even if the National League lost out on profit, the more important goal was making sure that the Player’s League did as well. The new league had far less stability, and the National League struck at that vulnerability. According to estimates, the Player’s League lost $125,000 that season, while the National League lost $234,000.

Players were not fully independent from private financial interests due to the Player's League's design, and the National League executives capitalized on that anxiety when they met with Player’s League backers. Those investors were spooked and pulled their financial backing. The league folded after just that one season, and players were forced to go back to their old working conditions after getting a taste of both the possibilities and limitations of collective action.

For decades, future attempts at unionizing in baseball ranged from radical promise down to politely asking the owners to maybe please perhaps be a little nicer please. The same problems consistently plagued each attempt. A refusal to align with the larger labor movement cut players off from union know-how on the question of most effectively using their collective power and advocating for their rights. In the absence of broader solidarity, players focused more on the possibility of rival leagues and powerful outside investors to force the hand of the National League. That dependence on the fickle and selfish interests of private financiers put a ceiling on progress; players won some small gains but no long-term power, as baseball’s anti-trust exemption allowed owners to gain more and more power over the players.

Then, in 1966, the MLBPA came into being and fairly swiftly put itself on a trajectory to becoming one of the most powerful unions in the country. This happened at least in part by accident.

Marvin Miller’s autobiography, A Whole Different Ballgame, begins with Miller meeting the MLBPA screening committee, where he is told that the union wants to elect Richard Nixon to be his general counsel. Astute readers, general knowers of history, and owners of common sense may wonder why any collection of workers would suggest this, but this was the logic that governed baseball unionization efforts during the 80 years before Miller arrived on the scene. Any suspected influence from "radical elements" might set off conservative players who were distrustful of unions, alienate players from public support, and jeopardize the precious goodwill with owners that players naively believed was a bargaining chip. 

At the time, the MLBPA was essentially a company union, and the players were mostly fine with this. Their main concern was protecting their scant, hard-won pension plan. When they decided to bring in someone with more union experience, and who would have seemed radical to the rank-and-file for that reason, the MLBPA decided that Nixon was the ideal counterweight. Miller said what many Americans in the 1970s later wished they had: No.

Miller had spent decades in the labor movement, starting as a hearing officer for the National War Labor Board and eventually becoming the chief negotiator and principal economic advisor for United Steelworkers before moving to the MLBPA. In his role for United Steelworkers, he had led the union through multiple long and successful strikes, negotiated agreements settled at the White House, and served on a labor-management board appointed by President Kennedy. Before him, the man at the helm of the MLBPA was Robert Cannon, a judge who regularly hobnobbed with owners and frequently told players to appreciate just how lucky they were to get paid to play a children’s game (some pieces of propaganda never change). All of which is to say that Miller was a bit of a step up, and also someone who would not be satisfied to just get the players a better pension plan.

Upon stepping into a hostile environment, Miller did what good union organizers do. He talked to the players, embarking on a tour of spring training camps and asking players about their concerns. He talked about the pension plan that was their main concern, and pointed out how owners had already cheated them out of its full benefits. He asked annoying questions, poked holes in their logic, and provoked the workers he'd represent to think outside the owners' lines. He spoke frankly and honestly about what unionizing would entail, and explained tactics in baseball terms. Despite a smear campaign against him launched by owners, with Robert Cannon as their mouthpiece, Miller was approved by a vote of 489-136. This small victory was a far cry from players accepting their collective power as part of the labor movement, but it was progress.

Before the Miller era, the largest "collective" bargaining action the sport had seen was the joint holdouts of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale in 1966, which happened without the Player’s Association involvement; the two staged their mini-campaign at the suggestion of Drysdale’s wife, who was in the Screen Actors Guild and had an understanding of union tactics. Under Miller, 450 players launched a holdout before the 1969 season unless owners came to the bargaining table. The last straw that convinced the players to take action was the hubris owners displayed in offering an insultingly awful pension plan proposal, which Miller used as an opportunity to teach players how to think as a collective, and to realize how much stronger that approach made them. It worked—130 players attended the Winter Meetings and unanimously supported continuing the holdout until the owners backed down. Just before spring training, they did.

Within the first decade of Miller’s tenure, the union had launched the first strike in the history of American professional sports and walked away with big wins—a major contribution to the players' pension plan as well as a process for salary arbitration. In 1974, after years of litigation and ownership intransigence, the union won the right to free agency. By the time Miller retired in 1982, MLB's average salary was $240,000, a major increase from the $19,000 average in 1967, and players had six-figure pensions, proper grievance processes, and the right to pick their own employers. Most importantly, the players had learned to understand the power they held when they took collective action and were willing to wield that power for their own benefit.

The MLBPA gained its power because of athletes who recognized that their struggles and successes did not exist separately from the broader social upheaval around them, and its success still depends to a great extent on that. That's not to say that the MLBPA has to turn players into Democratic Socialists. It just means that they have to see themselves as workers, and as part of a community of workers.

Aside from Marvin Miller, the most influential person in the history of baseball labor negotiations is undoubtedly Curt Flood—a (very good) baseball player with no union or organizing experience. As a black athlete in the 1960s, his worldview was influenced both by the racism he had experienced in the league and the larger political movements of the decade. When he was traded from the Cardinals to the Phillies at the end of the 1969 season, perhaps in retaliation for his contract holdout that spring, he refused to go. St. Louis was his home, and he had experienced intense racism from fans in Philadelphia. Angered at the lack of freedom to decide his own career, Flood met with Miller looking for support to do what players had been trying to do since 1890: put an end to the reserve clause.

Flood's stand was both unsuccessful and ultimately career-ending; he never did suit up for the Phillies, but he would make just 40 more plate appearances with the Washington Senators in 1971 before he was done as a big leaguer. His legacy far surpasses his fine career as a player, though, and his struggle set the union on the path to eventually ending the reserve clause and establishing free agency.

Apparent in both Marvin Miller and Curt Flood’s recollection of the lawsuit against the reserve clause was how Flood’s experience as a black baseball player and the political unrest of the 1960s had influenced his outlook. When Flood asked for the support of the MLBPA, a player rep asked if his action was part of a black militant movement. According to Miller’s recollection, Flood assured that he was making the stand for all players, but added: "I think the change in black consciousness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life."

In his autobiography, The Way It Is, Flood went further, explaining: "The hypocrisies of the baseball industry could not possibly have been sustained unless they were symptoms of a wider affliction. Where I turned, I found fresh evidence that this was so. Baseball was socially relevant, and so was my rebellion against it. The knowledge fueled and fortified me."

He also understood something that inspired Miller’s decision to lead the MLBPA, and which was also in the manifesto John Montgomery Ward wrote all the way back in 1890. Flood recalls: "During the unquiet spring of 1970, only one man acknowledged in public that my attack on baseball bore implications beyond the game itself…With considerable emotion, [Cardinals owner August Busch] advised reporters that he could not fathom what was happening in our country. He declared that my recalcitrance was somehow related to the unrest on American campuses. He was absolutely right."

While Busch was blaming Curt Flood for Kent State, Flood knew that by taking his stand against the power of the owners, he was aligning with those participating in protests against a ruling class that wielded power through racism, exploitation, and war. Just like protesters on college campuses, he was asserting the rights given to him in the Constitution in the face of a very real threat that such an assertion could make his life much harder and worse. By taking a stand, Flood also made sure that baseball could not be a place for the American public to look away from the struggles of the decade. The fight against the power of reactionary owners and elites, which was everywhere in the culture at that moment, would be in baseball, too. Flood's definition of glory meant creating a better world for the people after him; that he is remembered more for that than his three All-Star teams and seven Gold Gloves suggests that he was right on, there.

Towards the end of his life, Miller worried about backsliding on the gains the MLBPA won under his leadership. He hoped that players would remember the "unity and solidarity and struggles of the past that made [the MLBPA] successful." Today, the sacrifices and successes of that era feel nearly unfathomable; every Dodgers player explaining their visit to a president that unleashed a brutal paramilitary organization on the immigrant population of their city as "not a political decision" feels like not just a failure of solidarity but something worse. Very few players have ever recognized their role in the broader struggle for dignity in the workplace with the same clarity as Curt Flood, of course, but not every player needs to be that heroic. The realization might arrive in Cody Bellinger-style syntax and diction, and it will never be uniform or perfect. It doesn't have to be. Players just need to remember that recognizing how much their strange jobs aligned with broader movements for civil and labor rights helped make their union one of the strongest in the country, and that sticking with the union until every battle's won is what got them this far.