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Balls and Strikes: The Money Game in Professional Baseball | 
 enlarge | Author: Kenneth M. Jennings
Publisher: Praeger Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $117.95
Buy Used: $4.95
You Save: $113.00 (96%)
New (3) Used (17) Collectible (2) from $4.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1105031
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 283
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0275934411
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.890417963570973
EAN: 9780275934415
ASIN: 0275934411
Publication Date: February 15, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Ex-library with stamps. Text is clean & tight. Cover in Mylar good.
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Product Description
Kenneth M. Jennings examines union-management relations in professional baseball, bringing together all the information the sports fan needs to follow the issues surrounding player-management arbitration in this unique industry. Covering the history of collective bargaining action in baseball from 1869 to the 1990 season, this book examines the issues that influence those high-profile player-management-owner negotiations. Balls and Strikes reveals: how in recent years the Major League Baseball Players' Association (MLBPA) has successfully parlayed owner disunity into substantial gains for its members; that baseball, in a statistical sense, surprisingly exhibits little discrimination against black and Hispanic players; how there is very little relationship between pay and performance in professional baseball. Baseball fans and sports journalists as well as professionals in management and labor relations, will find Balls and Strikes a fresh and exciting look at America's favorite pastime. Balls and Strikes presents the confrontations and relationships between players and management from the perspective of several hundred collective bargaining participants--the union and management officials who negotiate the labor agreement and the players who must approve and live with it. Kenneth M. Jennings derives his perspective from a variety of media sources, related biographies, autobiographies, and articles. The result is a highly readable book about owners, commissioners, agents, the media, manager-player relations, player pressures including drug and alcohol problems, race and ethnic issues, and player mobility and salaries. The book discusses the history of collective bargaining action in baseball from 1869 to 1966; the year Marvin Miller became president of the MLBPA, through the 1970s and Miller's successful bargaining efforts, into the 1980s and the opening of the 1990 season. Balls and Strikes discusses key participants in the collective bargaining process--owners, agents, the media, managers, and players--and concludes with a look at contemporary industrial relations issues in professional baseball: drug and alcohol abuse; racial discrimination; and the relationship between pay and performance.
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THE ECONOMIC REALITY OF BASEBALL February 10, 2000
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is an intense and pretty thorough historical contemplation of the economic aspects of Major League Baseball. For someone interested in learning more about how baseball functions as a business and not just as a pastime, Jennings's book is a helpful starting point, because not a lot of books have been written which focus solely on the various labor and business issues in baseball. He gives many different aspects of the business of baseball their due, including a thorough analysis of the reserve clause, the aftermath of free agency, and Marvin Miller's success (with the help of the Major League Baseball Players Association) in cultivating a union consciousness among the players. I read this book right before Marvin Miller's autobiography, and it provided me with a lot of background information on free agency and the various labor disputes which have surfaced in baseball over the years. Jennings has a flair for writing history, and integrating his analysis with anecdotes which draw the reader into the reality of the business world of baseball. Jennings's one downfall in this book is that he kind of leaves it blowing in the wind- I would have liked for him to speculate more on the future of the economics of baseball. After such a thorough critique of the various elements and events which have become pivotal in baseball's business, I expected him to carry it further. Still, I would reccommend it to anyone interested in examining baseball from a more business or labor-oriented perspective.
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