American Business Law Journal
Volume 60, Issue 2, 289–367, Summer 2023
Stepping Up to the Plate: Minor
Leaguers Attempt to Remedy their
Unconscionable Plight
Lucas W. Loafman
†
and John T. Holden
‡
Professional baseball players are often thought of as making multi-million-dollar
salaries, but most professional baseball players have recently made under
$15,000 a year. Minor league players toiled under an onerous system resulting
from baseball’s judicially created antitrust exemption and lobbying efforts that
exempted them from minimum wage and overtime. These factors allowed teams
to impose a uniform player contract (UPC) on players with numerous unconscio-
nable provisions for years. However, a late-nig ht Tweet in August of 2022 sent
shockwaves through the sports and labor world, announcing that the Major
League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) was sending out authorization
cards to represent minor league players. After years of fighting to maintain the
authority to impose conditions on minor league players, through lobbying and
litigation, Major League Baseball (MLB) turned over a new leaf and recog-
nized the unionization of minor league players under the MLBPA less than three
weeks later. In light of this long sought-after recognition, this article takes a
novel approach. First, it provides historical context for baseball’s unique ability
to impose working conditions on minor leaguers without significant concern for
legal ramifications. Second, it provides an overview of the doctrine of contrac-
tual unconscionability and analyzes the prior UPC as an unconscionable agree-
ment. Finally, it details the historic unionization process and makes detailed
recommendations to ameliorate the unconscionable conditions minor league
players have faced when they negotiate with MLB owners to draft their initial
collective bargaining agreement.
†
Lucas W. Loafman, Associate Professor of Management, Texas A&M University-Central
Texas, Killeen, TX 76549, USA. loafman@tamuct.edu
‡
John T.Holden, Associate Professor of Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,
OK 74078, USA. john.holden@okstate.edu
©2023 The Authors.
American Business Law Journal ©2023 Academy of Legal Studies in Business.
289
INTRODUCTION
Imagine a baseball player receiving the call he has been waiting for since awk-
wardly swinging a bat or trying to throw a ball the first time. A Major League
Baseball (MLB) team is on the line wanting to sign him to a professional con-
tract. This magic moment is seemingly a payoff for all the blood, sweat, tears,
and money spent over the years. He envisions playing on the fields he has
only seen from the stands, hearing the roar of the crowds in a sold-out sta-
dium, and the possibility of lasting financial security, as the minimum salary is
now $700,000 per season,
1
and just forty-three days on a big-league roster
qualifies him for a pension.
2
He later signs without hesitation, instantly trans-
forming into the professional baseball player he had dreamed of becoming.
Until recently, that dream
3
could quickly turn into a nightmare.
4
Once a player signs his minor league uniform player contract (UPC), he
begins a trying journey to prove himself across a multi-level player develop-
ment system in order to fulfill his dream and become an MLB player, a feat
few will ultimately achieve.
5
Players recently drafted or signed as free
agents, particularly younger players, are generally assigned to an organiza-
tion’s “Rookie”level teams in the Arizona Complex League (ACL), Florida
Complex League (FCL), or the Dominican Summer League (DSL).
6
The
ACL and FCL teams operate at the teams’ year-round training facilities in
either Arizona or Florida, where MLB spring training happens as well.
1
See Maury Brown, With MLB Lockout Over, Here Are All the Details of New 2022–26 Labor Deal,
FORBES (Mar. 10, 2022, 10:05 p.m.), https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2022/03/10/
with-mlb-lockout-over-here-are-all-the-details-of-new-2022-26-labor-deal/?sh=1d0f578523e2
(noting that the newminimum salary is “jumping $129,500 from 2021 to $700,000 in 2022”).
2
Kevin Baumer, MLB Players Earn a Pension After Just 43 Days in the Majors,BUS.INSIDER
(Jan. 26, 2011, 11:07 A.M.), https://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-nhl-nba-mlb-retirement-
pension-plans-lockout-2011-1.
3
See Phillip J. Closius & Joseph S. Stephan, Myth, Manipulation, and Minor League Baseball:
How a Capitalist Democracy Engenders Income Inequality,89U.C
IN.L.REV. 84, 84 (2020) (stat-
ing, in the context of baseball, that “one of America’s most deep-seated dreams: the wish of
a child—and frequently the child’s parents—to play a professional sport”).
4
Id. at 88 (noting that for minor leaguers “the financial realities of everyday life turn the
pursuit of a dream into a financial nightmare”).
5
See J.J. Cooper, How Many MLB Draftees Make It to the Majors,BASEBALL AM. (May 17, 2019),
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/how-many-mlb-draftees-make-it-to-the-majors/.
6
See Rookie Leagues,MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL (MILB), https://www.milb.com/about/rookie (last vis-
ited Oct. 5, 2022) (showing the structure, schedule, and statistics for the three “Rookie”leagues).
290 Vol. 60 / American Business Law Journal
Once promoted beyond the “Rookie”level, players enter what is known as
affiliated baseball. MLB substantially revised this system in 2021, and each
MLB team now has four affiliates
7
––oneateachoftheTriple-A,Double-A,
High-A, and Low-A levels.
8
Daily life in the minor leagues is quite different from the MLB envi-
ronment. While major league teams travel via charter flights and stay in
upscale hotels, minor leaguers venture city to city on long, late-night bus
trips.
9
Major league players get fancy buffets in the clubhouse, while
minor leaguers sometimes receive sandwiches most would not pack in
their children’s school lunch.
10
Minor leaguers also play in an almost
carnival-like environment with games and promotions between every
inning and cheap beer nights to get fans in the stands, and they must
wear whatever promotional jerseys the teams’ marketing group thinks
up.
11
Former minor and major league player Dirk Hayhurst described
life in the minors as a “brutal experience”and that “at its lowest levels,
professional baseball is exploitation.”
12
While major league players made
7
The most notable revisions were eliminating over forty teams and one level of affiliated
baseball. See Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, MLB Realignment Eliminates Short-Season Baseball, But
Volcanoes Will Play in 2021,M
ILB (Dec. 9, 2020), https://www.milb.com/news/mlb-
realignment-eliminates-short-season-baseball-but-volcanoes-will-play-in-2021 (discussing the
elimination of Class-A Short Season affiliated baseball and reduction of affiliated teams).
8
Id.; see also Robert Pannullo, The Struggle for Labor Equality in Minor League Baseball: Explor-
ing Unionization, 34 ABA J. LABOR &EMP. L. 443, 445–49 (2020) (discussing the minor
league system and structure).
9
See Ben Verlander, The Not So Glamorous Life of the Minor League Baseball Player,FOX SPORTS
(June 6, 2021), https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/ben-verlander-minor-league-baseball-
player-not-so-glamorous-life-behind-the-scenes (stating that “[o]ften, we’d spend all night on the
bus, with players just lying in the middle aisle,tryingtogetcomfortableenoughtofallasleep”).
10
See Jeremy Layton, Oakland A’s Minor Leaguers Share Photos of Disgusting Meals They Were
Getting Served,N.Y.P
OST (June 2, 2021, 9:02 a.m.), https://nypost.com/2021/06/02/oakland-as-
minor-leaguers-share-photos-of-disgusting-meals-they-were-getting-served/ (showing pho tos
of a sandwich consisting of cheap white bread, a slice of American cheese, a few pieces of pale
iceberglettuce, and one slice of a partiallyripened tomato, as well as a tortillawith a couple of
small chickenchunks and a few grilled vegetables).
11
See,e.g., Benjamin Hill, Minors’ Outlandish Jerseys Take Spotlight,MILB (July 29, 2014),
https://www.milb.com/news/gcs-86763882.
12
Dirk Hayhurst, An Inside Look into the Harsh Conditions of Minor League Baseball,BLEACHER
REP. (May 14, 2014), https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2062307-an-inside-look-into-the-
harsh-conditions-of-minor-league-baseball.
2023 / Stepping Up to the Plate 291
