“Save America’s pastime act” may be the death blow for indy leagues

Earlier this week, US Congress approved the “Save America’s pastime act”. This act will keep grossly underpaid affiliated minor league players underpaid. Major League Baseball lobbied and spent about $1,320,000 to get this bill passed.

For years, former minor league players are trying to start a case against MLB to force them to pay minor league players a fair share of overtime money and the minimum wage. Currently, minor leaguers are not getting paid for spring training, instructional leagues, and extra innings. They only got paid for the season.

The purpose of the act is simple: to exempt minor league baseball from being subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act. This arises out of a lawsuit filed in California by 20 former minor league players that seek to apply minimum wage and overtime laws to minor league baseball. In other words, to keep affiliated minor leaguers underpaid.

It may look like there is one good point in this act (but very tiny though). Minor leaguers are now regarded seasonal workers and they will receive the minimum wage. But since MiLB players aren’t paid for spring training and instructional leagues but only for the season itself, they are literally being paid less than the minimum wage. It is working for peanuts. For the lowest level of affiliated baseball, a player received $1,100 a month. Under the new act, this would be $1,160 so it is still very hard to make ends meet.

MiLB president Pat O’Conner once stated that without such a bill, minor leagues or teams could shut down because of increased labor costs. Player advocates have said that as a $10 billion a year industry, they believe baseball could easily afford to pay minor league players higher wages.

Republicans in Congress sneaked the bill through. It is a perfect example how they keep the millionaires/billionaires rich and the poor poor. The lobby by Major League baseball was very successful indeed.

The most important line of the act, which counts over 2,000 pages, is this: [A]ny employee employed to play baseball who is compensated pursuant to a contract that provides for a weekly salary for services performed during the league’s championship season (but not on spring training or the offseason) at a rate that is not less than a weekly salary equal to the minimum wage under section 6(a) for a workweek of 40 hours, irrespective of the number of hours the employee devotes to baseball-related activities.

At the same time, this new act may be the death blow for independent minor leagues. Small leagues like the Pecos League cannot afford to pay their players the minimum wage. For years they considered themselves to be “an apprenticeship for these players, to help them rise in the ranks, and therefore not subject to minimum wage.”
Players in the Pecos League earned a meager $750 per month. As result of this new act, players will get a raise of $410. An indy league like the Atlantic League pays more than the minimum wage so this bill will not endanger its existence.

A league like the Frontier League, which is one of the best-known indy leagues in the US, will also be hit. Teams have a $75,000 salary cap which means players are paid around $725 per month… The CanAm League has a similar salary structure but the salary cap of that league stretches to a six-figure amount.

But be honest, if the four minor leaguers who sued MLB for better wages would have won, the same problem would have arisen and the problem for indy ball might have been even worse. Nevertheless, minor league players deserve a wage with which they can make ends meet. With the “Save America’s pastime act” that is still not the case. The act only favors Major League owners.