A war appears to be brewing inside the Major League Baseball Players Association, that has the possibility of fracturing the players union.
Player leadership at the minor league and major league levels has called for the ousting of deputy director Bruce Meyer and replacing him with former MLBPA lawyer Harry Marino, according to a shocking report by The Athletic.
The pressure was ramped up on executive director Tony Clark during a Monday night call, which reportedly was “long and sometimes heated” and had a number of the player reps from the majors and minors.
An informal vote was held on the call, but no action had been taken, according to the report which also stated that Clark organized the call after the circulation of a text chain among player reps that doubted Meyer’s leadership.
Discontent appears to have something to do with concern over the apparent influence that super agent Scott Boris wields within the union, which other agents have claimed for some time, but Boris and the MLBPA leadership have denied.
There appeared to be discontent with the direction of the players union and other players wanted to see more financial resources put toward the union’s bargaining team.
A low-spending free agency by most teams this offseason hasn’t helped the matter either, especially with players that aren’t in the upper echelon still struggling.
Meyer and Marino don’t have the best of relationships and the former accused the latter of coming for his job during Monday night’s call.
Only Meyer was on the call, according to The Athletic.
The frostiness between the two men comes from their time working on the minor league collective bargaining agreement last year.
Marino and Meyer butted heads with one another during the minor league bargaining.
Marino, who had been leading the nonprofit Advocates for Minor Leaguers before joining the MLBPA, left the union last year after helping to secure minor league players a CBA.
Meyer had joined the MLBPA in 2018 ahead of the 2021-22 negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement with Major League Baseball.
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