Like Apprenticeship Programs or Artistic Pursuits: Minor League Baseball reporting 2017

(shit, i forgot nunez was just traded to the bucs)

The Major League Baseball Players Association has launched a campaign to unionize Minor League Players across the country #1u #FairBall pic.twitter.com/DDq4Q8NOXI

— MLBPA Communications (@MLBPA_News) August 29, 2022

possibly a big deal?

also it is amusing that milb.com, the official website of minor league baseball, doesn't mention this in any way

and, the campaign is pretty much done? they got >50% to sign the union cards

And just like that, minor league baseball players are on the verge of unionizing.

More than 50 percent of minor leaguers signed authorization cards in support of unionization under the guidance of the Major League Baseball Players Association, the organization announced Tuesday. As such, the players union has asked MLB to voluntarily recognize it as the representative for minor league players. The league had yet to comment as of early Tuesday afternoon.

The announcement came just one week after the union made the surprising move to send out the cards to gauge interest, a move made to seize the momentum created by two-plus years of advocacy that pushed the low pay and challenging working conditions of the minors into a brighter spotlight than ever before. That minor leaguers would unionize never seemed imminent. That the MLBPA would serve as the organizing force behind their unionization was never obvious.

But as of Tuesday morning, their combined efforts had hurtled minor leaguers one step closer to unionization.

“Minor league Players have made it unmistakably clear they want the MLBPA to represent them and are ready to begin collective bargaining in order to positively affect the upcoming season,” Tony Clark, executive director of the players union, said in a statement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/06/minor-league-unionization-mlbpa-authorization-cards/

thumbs up

That's an F7 on your scorecard, but a home run in Delvin Pérez's heart 🤣 pic.twitter.com/05EIE3gH1R

— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) September 23, 2022

In 2002, 186 MiLB pitchers threw 150+ innings. This year, five MiLB pitchers threw 150+ innings. We want to honor great pitching seasons (and Painter's is a great season). So that has led to the BA MiLB Pitcher of the Year award.

— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) September 29, 2022

When we said “World’s Largest Horseshoe,” we really meant it. pic.twitter.com/FfgZGCdKmZ

— Springfield Lucky Horseshoes (@ShoesBaseball) October 16, 2022

there once was a minor league team called the Fargo Divorcees

it was way back when. also, i just learned that Fargo used to be well known as a particularly easy and quick place to get a divorce

nice

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/35998626/minor-leaguers-mlb-reach-tentative-deal-historic-1st-cba

4-HR game for Eduardo De Oleo of the Intercounty League's London Majors:

https://lfpress.com/sports/local-sports/london-majors-slugger-rips-four-home-runs-in-one-game#:~:text=De%20Oleo's%20historic%20four%2Dhomer,London%20Free%20Press

Not an important league anymore, but many major leaguers have passed through there, including Fergie Jenkins and Denny McClain.

https://www.theibl.ca/mlb-alumni

(Actually, come to think of it, some of these guys, including Fergie, played there after retirement.)_

on how loaded triple-a teams might fare in the majors (spoiler: not well)

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/terrible-mlb-teams-are-pretty-good-at-baseball