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GLOBAL BALLPARK REPAIR STRATEGIES 183 CHAPTER FOURTEEN Baseball Governance in the Global Era The problem of Major League Baseball’s behavior toward children and young men in Latin American countries is a governance problem—controlling and regulating the exercise of power. This book argues that Major League Baseball’s policies and practices in connection with Latin America represent the abuse of power and the exploitation of children. In essence, effective governance of Major League Baseball’s behavior in recruiting and training Latin minor league players in Latin America does not exist. The challenge is to create a governance structure that will provide a more solid foundation for the global ballpark. Analyzing how the major leagues are governed provides insights that can be applied to the problem of major league teams’ practices in Latin America. Political scientist Mark Rosentraub characterizes governance of professional baseball in North America as a power-sharing relationship between private actors—the team owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA)—with little public governmental involvement in how baseball operates .1 The owners control the number and location of baseball franchises, while the owners share governance with the MLBPA over employment matters for major league players, including contracts, salaries, and pensions.2 Other private actors, such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), also play subsidiary roles in professional baseball governance in North America. The NCAA imposes rules, for example, on its member universities that regulate student-athlete contact with sports agents and professional teams (see chapter 3). Rosentraub argues that the public sector—the government—“exercises little control over baseball.”3 A historical example of this limited governmen- 184 repairing the global ballpark tal role would be baseball’s infamous exemption from U.S. antitrust laws.4 Government plays a larger role than Rosentraub indicates. The controversy about the application of U.S. antitrust law to Major League Baseball aside, how major league teams deal with players and with the MLBPA is disciplined by the framework of public law that supports contracts and collective bargaining between companies and unions. None of this law was created specifically to govern professional baseball, but it nonetheless plays a role in baseball governance in North America. Similarly, state laws in the United States and provincial laws in Canada regulating the behavior of sports agents also contribute to the governance structure of professional baseball in North America. By contrast, Rosentraub argues that major league team owners “exercise unfettered international power.”5 This statement is accurate for that part of the global ballpark that includes Latin America, but not for those parts that involve Japan and Korea. As chapter 3 noted, the MLB Commissioner’s Office has entered into formal agreements that structure how professional baseball talent moves back and forth across the Pacific Ocean. Major League Baseball does not have unfettered power, for example, in Japan because of the governance created by the league-to-league agreement. Further, as labor law expert William Gould argues, the existence of these MLB–Asian league agreements may give the MLBPA a say in the governance of trans-Pacific baseball relations as they relate to employment conditions.6 Similarly, MLB and the professional leagues in Latin America have entered into the Winter League Agreement that regulates playing conditions for major and minor league players who play in the Latin Winter Leagues, as previously analyzed in chapter 3.7 Major League Baseball does, however, exercise nearly unfettered power in the recruiting and training of Latin children and young men in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. The Latin children and young men recruited by major league teams are not represented by any labor union. As Rosentraub observes, “the MLBPA has no authority to deal with the working conditions for major or minor league prospects in foreign countries, even when the teams and MLB are involved in these nations. MLBPA jurisdiction is limited to players signed to MLB contracts and on the roster of a MLB team.”8 The Venezuelan Baseball Players Association (VBPA) similarly does not have jurisdiction over Latin children and young men signed to Major League Baseball minor league contracts and who play in academies and the Summer League in Venezuela.9 The VBPA only has jurisdiction over players under contract to Venezuelan professional teams.10 Although Dominican players signed to Major League Baseball minor league contracts technically join the professional baseball players union in the Dominican Republic, the union itself apparently does not represent the interests of those Dominicans playing minor league ball...

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