Major League Baseball, in throes of labor dispute, owes more to former players
Former Major League Baseball reliever Dennis DeBarr has not had an easy life.
When he was a youngster, DeBarr, who lives in Modesto, lost both his parents in a traffic accident. Later, in 2018, DeBarr, who suffers from Type 2 diabetes, developed a blister that wouldn’t heal and it morphed into sepsis. Gangrene followed and, as a result, his left leg was amputated below the knee on Aug. 13 of that year.
I am thinking of DeBarr these days because neither the union representing current ballplayers — the Major League Baseball Players’ Association — nor the league itself give a flying fig about DeBarr.
By now you know that, because both sides have failed to agree on a new labor contract, the players have been locked out. The reported issues the sides can’t agree on include keeping players in the minor leagues for extra weeks in order to slow down their service time, as well as when second- and third-tier players can finally become free agents. The union also feels that rebuilding teams stifles payrolls, because of what has become known as “tanking.”
But I haven’t heard anything about what they’re going to do about the pre-1980 players like DeBarr who, in 1977, made just $19,000 to play the game he loved, for the Toronto Blue Jays.
DeBarr and 608 other men didn’t accrue the four years necessary to be eligible for a pension, which was what you needed in 1980.
Instead of MLB pensions, effective April 2011, all pre-1980 players like DeBarr started receiving is a yearly payment of up to $10,000 for every 43 game days of service they accrued on an active MLB roster.
What’s more, the payment cannot be passed on to anyone. So when DeBarr dies, neither his ex-wife nor his son will receive the bone he’s being thrown.
By comparison, post-1980 players such as Modesto Junior College Pirates Keith Luuloa and Erick Threets only need 43 game days of service on an active roster to get a pension. And their designated beneficiaries get to keep their pensions.
An infielder, Luuloa appeared in six games for the California Angels in 2000. Threets pitched in 21 games with the San Francisco Giants and Chicago White Sox during 2007, 2008 and 2010.
Lockout or not, what makes this unseemly is that the national pastime is doing great financially. The average salary is $3.7 million, the 25th man on the bench makes $575,500 and, in its 2021 edition of MLB team valuation, Forbes reported that each of the 30 big league clubs is valued at an average of $1.9 billion.
Just increase the bone that is being thrown these retirees to $10,000 a year. Are both MLB and the union suggesting they can’t afford to pay these men more?
After all, if it weren’t for the old-timers like DeBarr who walked the picket lines and went without paychecks so free agency could occur in the first place, do you think either Luuloa or Threets would be in line to get a pension when they turn 62?