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View from the Catwalks: How did we get here? 1880s to WW2

I am going to forgo the usual link dump. Partly because, there just isn’t much non-lockout news. And second, the lockout news is soooooooo depressing. Today is the last chance for a deal before the owners blow it all up. So how the heck did we get here? Below I’m going to try and give you a (mostly) quick rundown of pre-MLBPA labor conflicts. In a later post, I’ll bring us up to the present.

So who’s ready for some history!

The Reserve Clause

Briefly, the reserve clause was a clause in player contracts that bound a player to a single team from year to year.