minor league baseball salaries Aug 17, 2017; Memphis, TN, USA; Memphis Redbirds infielder Breyvic Valera observes the game against the Nashville Sounds at AutoZone Park. Mandatory Credit: Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal via USA TODAY NETWORK

Fun as playing a game for a living may sound, doing so at baseball’s lower levels is not a cushy gig. Minor-league players lead unglamorous lives, often in small towns; they endure long bus rides and tight quarters; they can be traded or reassigned with no notice; and in the end, most of them don’t even receive a Major-League payoff. And for all that, minor-leaguers are paid literal poverty-level wages, between $1,100 and $2,150 a month. In other words, they get screwed.

In recent years, the plight of the minor-leaguer has gone public, with numerous deep dives into the subject and one federal lawsuit, filed by a former pitcher, alleging that Major League Baseball has violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay players minimum wage and overtime.

But instead of responding to public pressure and paying minor-leaguers more significant salaries, MLB is looking to codify the low wages through a congressional spending bill. Via the Washington Post:

A massive government spending bill that Congress is expected to consider this week could include a provision exempting Minor League Baseball players from federal labor laws, according to three congressional officials familiar with the talks.

The exemption would represent the culmination of more than two years of lobbying by Major League Baseball, which has sought to preempt a spate of lawsuits that have been filed by minor leaguers alleging they have been illegally underpaid.

An executive from Minor League Baseball told the Post that the exemption was not about tamping down salaries, but about protecting the minors’ business model. However, that explanation doesn’t quite pass the sniff test given that it’s fabulously wealthy Major-League owners who are responsible for paying the minor-leaguers in their organizations. Surely, they could afford to pay their labor-force fairly.

Minor-leaguers and their representatives argue that denying minimum wage to baseball players is no different from denying minimum wage to service workers. Via the Post:

But Garrett R. Broshuis, a St. Louis lawyer representing a group of players who have alleged violations of federal wage and hour laws, said congressional action would deny players their basic rights.

“This is about billionaire owners using their clout to try to pass something that isn’t going through the normal procedures of legislature and that is only going to make thousands of minor leaguers suffer even more,” he said. “We’re just talking about basic minimum wage laws here — the same laws that McDonald’s has to comply with, the same laws that Walmart has to comply with. And so surely if Walmart or McDonald’s can find a way to comply with those laws, then Major League Baseball can find a way to comply with them, too.”

The spending bill still has to pass through both houses of Congress and could change along the way, so this exemption remains far from a done deal. But the very fact that MLB has successful lobbied for it shows that tiny salaries for minor-league players are not any sort of accident. They are the result of a conscious effort on the part of MLB to keep minor-leaguers broke.

[Washington Post]

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.