You might have heard about the federal lawsuit that three former ***** league players filed against MLB a couple years ago, alleging that ***** league pay scales violate minimum wage laws. That lawsuit is still going through the courts, but MLB has found allies in Congress. Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) and Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) introduced a piece of legislation called "Save America's Pastime Act."
That sounds like something we'd all approve of, right? I mean, who doesn't want to save baseball? I bet you didn't realize baseball needed saving! Here's what the act would do: H.R. 5580 would clarify that ***** league baseball players are exempt from federal wage laws. How does that affect MLB? If the lawsuit succeeds in increasing ***** league wages, that's money out of the pockets of MLB owners. MLB teams -- not the ***** league owners/operators -- pay the salaries of ***** league players.
On her website, Bustos issued a news release that stated, in part: "***** League teams are critically important, not just to the players and their parent teams, but to the communities they serve like Peoria and the Quad-Cities. This common sense proposal will close a loophole to ensure the long-term viability of ***** League teams in communities across our nation and I look forward to working with Congressman Guthrie to get it done."
The viability of ***** league teams has nothing to do with player wages; the ***** league teams don't pay the wages. Because MLB teams need ***** league teams to produce their major leaguers, it's not like the ***** leagues will be suddenly wiped out if players make a few hundred bucks extra per month. What's going on here? Why would a Democratic Congresswoman want to enforce these wages for ***** leaguers? Bustos is the ******** of a guy named Gene Callahan, a former MLB lobbyist, and both Bustos and Guthrie are among those MLB's PAC donated to, according to FEC filings in February.
Connecting those dots, I say, shame on you, MLB. This is a $9 billion industry. Every MLB team could afford an extra $500,000 to help pay its ***** leaguers, and the MLB Players Association could consider fighting a bit for its ***** league brothers. As Steve Silver wrote in the link above: "So even though there are thousands of non-unionized ***** leaguers living below the poverty line, Major League Baseball can simply phone a friend and ask its former lobbyist’s ******** for some help in Congress. Seems fair, right?"
