April 14, 1917, 100 years ago: Marvin Julian Miller is born. In Brooklyn. So, to Walter O'Malley, the man who was de facto dictator of baseball from 1955 to 1979, that alone was Strike 1.
While O'Malley, part owner of the Dodgers starting in 1942, and controlling owner from 1950 until his death in 1979, made his fortune foreclosing on houses as a lawyer for the Brooklyn Trust Company during the Great Depression, Miller took a different path, with his career as a lawyer, representing people who actually worked for a living, in his case the United Steel Workers. For O'Malley, that was Strike 2.
Then Miller became Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1966. A union that directly challenged the team owners. For O'Malley, that was Strike 3. But Miller would end up hitting a home run off him. And you wonder why O'Malley is in the Baseball Hall of Fame and Miller isn't.
In 1992, Red Barber said, "Marvin Miller, along with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, is one of the two or three most important men in baseball history." At the very least, Red was right as far as the last 100 years are concerned.
The Executive Director of the MLBPA from 1966 until 1982, Miller died on November 27, 2012. He was 95. He still wasn't yet elected to the Hall of Fame.
UPDATE: He was finally elected to the Hall of Fame in 2020.
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