A guest post from author Douglas J. Gladstone centering on Reggie Baldwin--one of 502 pre-1980 MLB retirees currently ineligible for a pension

 

This is the tale of two Grambling State University Tigers – Reggie Baldwin and Gary Eave.

 

A Magna Cum Laude graduate, Mr. Baldwin, who turned 71-years-old on August 19th, was a catcher who played for the Tigers between 1973 and 1976. Mr. Eave pitched for Grambling a bit later, between 1982 and 1985.

 

Both were lucky enough to play in “The Show”: Mr. Baldwin with the Houston Astros in 1978 and 1979, and Mr. Eave with Atlanta Braves and Seattle Mariners between 1988 and 1990.

 

Yet only one of them is collecting a pension from Major League Baseball (MLB).

 

Regrettably, Mr. Baldwin is among the ever shrinking group of former ballplayers – 502 at last count -- who don’t receive a MLB pension because of the time when they played. See, Baldwin and the 501 other men like him played prior to 1980, when new vesting requirements were implemented in collective bargaining negotiations with the union representing ballplayers, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), which lowered the service credit you needed for a pension from four years to just 43 days. But the men like Baldwin, who all had more than 43 days of service but less than four years, were not retroactively included in this new arrangement.

 

Instead, all the men like Baldwin receive are non-qualified retirement payments of $718.75 for every 43 game days they were on a big league roster, up to a maximum payment of $11,500.

 

However, a vested retiree can receive up to $275,000, according to the IRS.

 

Baldwin, who co-founded Antioch International Ministries with his wife Prophetess Franett Baldwin in 1990, made $21,000 as a rookie catcher for the Astros in 1978. (Eave didn’t fare that much better, by the way; in his rookie year with the Braves, he earned $62,500).  Meanwhile, thanks to the 2022 collective bargaining agreement, the players’ union made sure that the minimum salary for current players rose to $760,000 this season.

 

In the 52 career games he appeared in, Baldwin came up to the plate 87 times, scored five runs, collected 21 hits, including six doubles and one home run, and drove in 12 runs.

 

With the average MLB salary last year reported to be $5.1 million, and with MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark reportedly receiving a yearly salary of $3.41 million, it is my position that the union is forgetting to take care of the men like Baldwin. After all, unions are supposed to help hard working people in this country get a fair shake in life.

 

Since the league doesn’t have to have negotiate about this matter in collective bargaining, it’s essentially up to the union to go to bat for these men. 

 

What makes this especially reprehensible is that Clark, a former ballplayer with the Detroit Tigers and five other teams, received the Negro League Museum’s Jackie Robinson Award in 2016; however, he has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages and having banks foreclose on their homes.

 

Other persons of color affected include Scipio Spinks of the Astros, Joe Gilbert of the Montreal Expos (who wore uniform number 42 as a tribute to Robinson) and Aaron Pointer, an NAACP award winner who was the first African-American linesman in the PAC-10.

 

I have never met Mr. Baldwin – for that matter, I haven’t met Mr. Eave, either – but I have made numerous appearances with Mr. Spinks, who once body doubled the late Oscar winner Louis Gossett, Jr. in a television movie about Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige called “Don’t Look Back.” Like myself, he puts the onus to correct this travesty squarely on the back of the union.

 

It is perhaps ironic that, as we celebrate the contributions of the union movement on Labor Day today, the MLBPA refuses to fight for the men who endured work stoppages, went without paychecks and stood on picket lines all so that today’s players could reap the benefits of free agency. 

 

That’s why, if you want to assist in correcting this egregious error, I urge you to contact Mr. Clark, as well as MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, and tell them exactly what you think of this blight on the national pastime.

 

Clark can be contacted via email at comms@mlbpa.org while the Commissioner can be contacted via email at customerservice@mlb.com.

 

Thank you for anything you can do to remedy this injustice.

 

Douglas J. Gladstone is the author of “A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB & the Players’ Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve.”