Marvin Miller

Marvin Julian Miller was an economist and leading negotiator for the United Steelworkers union before the players of Major League Baseball elected him as executive director of their fledgling union in 1966. At the time, players were bound to team owners indefinitely by the restrictive reserve clause.

Miller transformed the MLBPA into the most powerful labor union in professional sports history. Through disciplined collective bargaining and arbitration victories—notably the 1975 Seitz decision involving Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally—he struck down the reserve clause, ushered in free agency, established salary arbitration, and caused player salaries to rise exponentially. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020.