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Reply to "milb wages may be exempted by lobbyists"

luv baseball posted:
RJM posted:

Pointing out players played for a lot less before free agency isn’t romantic nostalgia. Who wouldn’t want to be paid more? But because they loved the game pro athletes played for what they could get rather than chose other careers less physically demanding. 

RJM - players didn't play for less money before Free Agency for any more or less love of the game than current players.  The Reserve Clause simply gave them no choice. 

The Romantic Nostalgia people have is that guys like Williams, DiMaAggio, Mantel, Mays, Musial, Aaron spent entire careers having to take whatever the club offered and that somehow they liked it that way.  We like it that Teddy Ballgame always has a Red Sox jersey on and not a Yankee one like say Clemons or Boggs later on when they took Steinbrenners dough and the chance to win the World Series. 

The Reserve Clause didn’t force them to choose baseball as a career. They chose to play baseball even though there may have been less physically demanding and higher paid jobs elsewhere.

Jim Lonborg went to Stanford. He eventually went to Tufts Dental School. He made more as a dentist than he did as a baseball player. But he played baseball until his arm and knees wouldn’t let him even though it paid less.

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