A Whole Different Ball Game: The Inside Story of the Baseball Revolution

$18.95

Miller, Marvin (Author)

ISBN: 1566635993

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher

Binding: Paperback; 464 pages

Pub Date: August 12, 2004

For more than a century the owners of baseball franchises conducted their business like feudal barons, with the players in the role of serfs. This situation began to change in 1966, when the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed and Marvin Miller, who had been chief economist and assistant to the president of the steelworkers' union, became its first executive director. Here he recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever, and thereby raised salaries enormously. Candid in his assessments of the characters involved in this drama, Mr. Miller is nonetheless generous in his comments about the ballplayers who made sacrifices for their union.

Biographical Note: As executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966 to 1983, Marvin Miller revolutionized the relationship between players and owners, and forever changed the nature of the game. He lives in New York City.

Miller, Marvin (Author)

ISBN: 1566635993

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher

Binding: Paperback; 464 pages

Pub Date: August 12, 2004

For more than a century the owners of baseball franchises conducted their business like feudal barons, with the players in the role of serfs. This situation began to change in 1966, when the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed and Marvin Miller, who had been chief economist and assistant to the president of the steelworkers' union, became its first executive director. Here he recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever, and thereby raised salaries enormously. Candid in his assessments of the characters involved in this drama, Mr. Miller is nonetheless generous in his comments about the ballplayers who made sacrifices for their union.

Biographical Note: As executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966 to 1983, Marvin Miller revolutionized the relationship between players and owners, and forever changed the nature of the game. He lives in New York City.

Review Quotes:

During his sixteen years in the game Marvin Miller was the true commissioner of baseball.--Jim Bouton

[After Babe Ruth, ] the second most influential man in the history of baseball.--Red Barber

There is no man in our time who has had more impact on the business of baseball than Marvin Miller.--Tom Seaver

Marvin Miller took on the establishment and whipped them.--Reggie Jackson

The man did more to change the game in the last 25 years than anyone else.--Bill Madden "New York Daily News "

Marvin Miller is as important to the history of baseball as Jackie Robinson.--Hank Aaron

One of the most important [books] ever published about baseball.--Stephen Jay Gould "The New York Review Of Books "

Baseball fans may...have more fun spending their money on this new edition of the book...--Star Democrat, Easton, Md

A fascinating account...very well written by the man at the center of it all.... Spiced with hilarious behind-the-scenes anecdotes.--Bookcrossing.Com

Provides an 'inside' story of baseball....outlines [Miller's] influence and baseball history.--The Bookwatch

Brutally frank and immensely engrossing.--Kirkus