Nowadays, baseball's biggest stars make up to $32 million a season, the average salary is more than $3 million and the major league minimum is $480,000. While the NFL, NBA and NHL have salary caps, baseball does not.
Miller's biggest legacy — free agency — represented one of the most significant off-the-field changes in the game's history. The reserve clause that had been in place since 1878 bound a player to the team holding his contract. Miller viewed it as little more than 20th-century slavery.
"Before Marvin, there were no such things as the negotiations. It was take it or leave it," Hall of Famer Joe Morgan said. "What was your recourse, to quit?"
Acting with union backing, outfielder Curt Flood finally challenged the reserve clause when he refused to report to his new team when he was traded in 1969 from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies. Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the reserve clause by a 5-3 vote, keeping intact baseball's antitrust exemption.
In 1975, however, the union found a new test case, when pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally refused to re-sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Montreal Expos, respectively. Arbitrator Peter Seitz sided with the players.
The owners went to court, saying the reserve system was not subject to arbitration. Two months later, U.S. District Judge John Watkins Oliver upheld Seitz, and a federal appeals court did the same.
In 1976, management and labor agreed to a contract that allowed players with six years of major league service to become free agents and sell their services to any team willing to pay. In a 1982 letter to The New York Times, Seitz called Miller "the Moses who had led Baseball's Children of Israel out of the land of bondage."
"Marvin possessed a combination of integrity, intelligence, eloquence, courage and grace that is simply unmatched in my experience," said Donald Fehr, a successor to Miller as union head. "Without question, Marvin had more positive influence on Major League Baseball than any other person in the last half of the 20th century."
Yet baseball's Hall of Fame refused to vote him in, despite five appearances on the ballot.
"I and the union of players have received far more support, publicity and appreciation from countless fans, former players, writers, scholars, experts in labor management relations, than if the Hall had not embarked on its futile and fraudulent attempt to rewrite history," Miller said after falling one vote shy in 2010. "It is an amusing anomaly that the Hall of Fame has made me famous by keeping me out."
Miller's next opportunity for election is December 2013.
Former Commissioner Peter Ueberroth said Miller should be inducted "without question."
"He changed the game of baseball," Ueberroth said. "He was very tough, but he was very fair in the end."
Miller was born in New York, the son of a salesman in the heavily unionized garment district. He was born with a withered right arm, which didn't prevent him from playing tennis into his 90s. His mother was a schoolteacher. He studied economics at Miami University in Ohio and New York University.
He entered the labor field in 1950 as an associate director of research for the United Steelworkers Union. In 1960, he was promoted to assistant to union president David McDonald. When McDonald lost a hotly contested election, Miller began looking for a new job.
Miller remained current on baseball events right up until his death, never hesitating to criticize owners for collusion and the union for agreeing to drug testing.
While baseball has had labor peace since 1995, turmoil has engulfed the other major U.S. pro leagues in recent years.
"Marvin exemplified guts, tenacity and an undying love for the players he represented," said DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL players union. "He was a mentor to me, and we spoke often and at length. His most powerful message was that players would remain unified during labor strife if they remembered the sacrifices made by previous generations."
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