Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement

Baseball collusion refers to owners working together to avoid competitive bidding for player services or players jointly negotiating with team owners.

Collusion in baseball is formally defined in the Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement, which states "Players shall not act in concert with other Players and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs." Major League Baseball went through a period of owner collusion during the off-seasons of 1985, 1986, and 1987.

Historically, owner collusion was often referred to as a "gentleman's agreement". After the 1918 season, owners released all their players – terminating the non-guaranteed contracts, with a "gentleman's agreement" not to sign each other's players, as a means of forcing down player salaries.

Before the 1966 season, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale decided to hold joint negotiations with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Koufax and Drysdale were the team's star pitchers who had helped the Dodgers win the 1965 World Series. The Dodgers needed them if they were to have any chance of returning to the World Series in 1966. After negotiation for the first 32 days of spring training, they agreed on one-year contracts, Koufax for US$125,000 and Drysdale for $110,000, the two largest contracts in baseball history. The owners were fearful that other star players would follow their example.

In 1968, new union leader Marvin Miller negotiated baseball's first Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with team owners. The owners wanted to prohibit players from holding joint negotiations. Miller was willing to agree, provided that the ban applied to the owners as well. The owners readily agreed, and every CBA since then has included the sentence: "Players shall not act in concert with other Players and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs."

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