baseball has viewed them that way. they are a traditional union and performs many functions in ottawa steel or electronics would not perform because what the union does is simply baseball another spores are a good minimum standards on salary. a minimum wage. as we know, the owners frequently do negotiate sometimes to their everlasting regret as is the case of the yankees now with rodriguez, amounts of money sounds, which are considerably above the minimum and as well they negotiate the pension, one of the things as well as health benefits and talk about in this book is the fact the year that i

fell in love with baseball was the air the players became interested in a union in 1946 when a farmer and al irby lawyer tried to guide the players and give them advice while they reject that. out of that came what we would call a company in hand, an organization which created the first pension plan, something always vital for athletes who have such an abbreviated career and are concerned about what's going to happen to them beyond it. >> host: who are some of the players active in 1946 and pushing the so-called union? >> guest: some of them -- one of them was dixie walker. these are called in the people's

choice with burke remains who patrol the outfield for the brooklyn dodgers. johnny murphy at the new york yankees. montemayor and, shortstop of the road champion 1946 world champion st. louis cardinals. these were some of the pioneers. of course the players that year, the first year 1946 that i fell in love with the game were trying to protest their conditions, not simply by negotiating new pension schemes, not simply by trying to be involved with the union, but also some of them are going south of the border to join the mexican league, which was enticing some of the outstanding star south of the border and i talk in the book about what we

as kids saw him observed that some of these fellows went down there. they were disappointed and they try to come back and reclaim their status and they initiated antitrust litigation, antitrust laws and or to import the gore argument that players have used beyond the collective bargaining process is self. >> host: mr. gould, why since 1995 have we not seen a baseball straight? what did you hope to place? >> guest: would see no baseball strike since i'm teen 95 for a number of reasons. as a result of their settlement, revenues have escalated

enormously. at the time we intervened in 1995, the total revenues for baseball were 1 billion. at the time of the last collective bargaining agreement, does have increased sevenfold to martha's 7 billion. so in an era of prosperity, the players and the owners had something to share and bad ways who adopt the strikes of marcos became the paragon, became the model. now this is in sharp contrast to football and hockey with a series of blackouts. this highlights another feature and bad is that the players were smart. they realized they had something

to give the owners. donors who are concerned about keeping down the cost not only for the veteran experienced players, but also the newcomers. for the guys coming out of stanford who are claiming that bonuses. i talk about one of our players who got one of the highest bonuses every obtain a major league baseball. the owners concerned about suppressing the cost of so-called international players. players coming from far beyond. the book talks a great deal about globalization and now we're at a stage where major league baseball has negotiated agreements with japan and korea and is attracting players from what america have large numbers and concerned about holding

costs in those areas and they had been giving a quid pro quo to the owners, which i describe in the book. there's a book, we want more free agency, less unencumbered mobility for players who want to choose new teams. the owners had been conceding that in in exchange they been getting some kind of control, some kind of limit on the cost associated with the newcomers. this is a matter of great concern to the owners svc cuba about to open up, cuba in many ways along with japan is the greatest player market in the world. already we see the cuban players on an ad hoc basis commanding from baseball and this has been

the subject of negotiations since that 1995 settlement. >> host: in your book bargaining with labor relations and prosperous turmoil coming of a chapter on declining but participation in baseball. why is that chapter in this book? >> guest: because another theme in this book is the way in which the game has changed both on and off the field since i was a child in the 1940s. one of the greatest moments when i was a child was of coors the advent of jackie robinson, which is receiving a good deal of attention with the newfound 42. i talk in the book about the dave robinson came up and how my father who had no interest in baseball whatsoever.

i was simply a guy who offer my own with my group played the game every day. but of course we have a black family in new jersey had a great interest in the breaking the code are baseball in my father said to me as i describe in the book, the dave robinson came up to the dinner table, robinson knocked one in today. you know robinson got an rbi here against the yankees? he knew all of that as well. we were very excited about jackie robinson's pioneering in 1947 people at dan bank and larry david and mike campanella who followed them. so i read about them. what has happened is they, that we've made great advances in

integrating the game. but those advances have stopped. they then stop a fight corporative reasons, which i talk about in the book. to the extent the number of black players in the game today has diminished appreciably from the 1970s, from the 40s to the seven days, he kind of quota system is in effect in which only the black superstars were able to get in the game. that began to diminish in the 1970s and you've got it. where more than 20% of the players in baseball were black. while that's been going down systematically ever since the 1970s. during the past decade, we have moved down to about 8%. this is true i think for a number of reasons, which i discuss in the book.

one of them is the lack of equipment. the great competitiveness that exists for kids who are younger. when we were kids, we had no adult supervision. we had no uniforms. we had no umpires. of course that's unheard of for now for you people. all these things, particularly for this travel teams which were so cost money. when i was at the mlr be in washington tend, i wanted to go into the batting cage. there were no batting cages and wash it in. there were no baseball fields. so that's an important factor which i talk about in the book. another factor as well as the fact that colleges have become the avenue for more than 50% of players going into the

professional ring. colleges only give a small number of scholarships for baseball is supposed to football and basketball. baseball completers of baseball say perhaps are not interested in baseball. they're interested in football and basketball. well, there's 80 scholarships for folk law and needs a complete free ride and the poor kid, the kid who is more likely to be black and half athletic ability and a number of sports is going to choose that sport and not a small. there are no full scholarships in baseball. the reason is because you don't have comparable revenues. well, that we have to overcome.

just regard to redness words, where women were denied full scholarships in their sport. so we cannot track as well as wade into the game who don't have the economic resources that dominate at the suburbs possess. >> host: at chairman of the nlrb, did you make the more controversial decision when it came to the baseball decision, a well-known decision? >> guest: we made many decisions they seem to be controversial. you know, we held for instant that documented workers at the supreme court had already said they are employees are entitled to backpay. that drew a great deal of

attention and controversy as to ice. i think no decision got the attention of the entire nation as much as our involvement in that case i'll strike when hundreds of reporters were camped out at headquarters weekend, lining the street, where the national need new sneakers for talking about us. and with the national labor relations board, on how to probably most of the population suddenly received a great deal of attention. jalisco at the watchword be inside story, here's the book. william b. gould is the author, former chair of the national labor relations board. the book, "bargaining with baseball: labor relations in an age of prosperous turmoil."

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