​PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – JULY 12: Bruce Meyer attends the Game Changers Celebration at Vie on July 12, 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The Players Alliance) | Getty Images for The Players All In 1885, John Montgomery Ward established the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, which began as a benevolent society but by 1887 had morphed into the first union for professional athletes in history. It was crushed in 1890 along with the Players League and dissolved. Attempts to unionize took place in 1900, 1912, 1922, and 1946, all of which failed. In 1954, the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed, not as a union but to manage the MLB Pension Plan and licensing concerns. In 1966, the MLBPA hired Marvin Miller, an experienced labour leader, who would lead the union for 16 years, transforming it into the strongest athletes union in the world and under his watch, resisted multiple attempts to cap salaries and payroll, struck down the hated reserve clause, and worked to create the modern systems for free agency, arbitration and a host of the labour rights that protect players today.Since then, the MLBPA has been remarkably lucky with their leadership, with the exception of Tony Clark, in selecting smart negotiators and being able to largely thwart attempts by owners to divide and conquer amongst the players. But the 99 day lockout between 2021-2022 that ended with the Player Representatives voting to accept a deal over the unanimous vote to reject it by the Executive Subcommittee was treated as a warning shot for the union. Under current Executive Director Bruce Meyer, they have spent the last five seasons focused on increasing communications, prioritizing the issues of younger players over veteran’s perks and building up a war chest estimated to be close to $600M with the knowledge that if the owners sensed weakness in 2021, they would absolutely use the expiration of the CBA in 2026 as their chance to land the great white whale of a hard salary cap.Caps have always been a priority of the owners and a bane for the players. The ill-fated Players League was formed primarily in response to the owners implementing a salary cap of $2000 on players wages. That was 136 years ago. When Miller was hired, the priority of the players was mostly focused on the pension plan, but he taught them that any cap in any circumstance would negatively impact their overall chances to earn more money. In 1994, the players went on strike in large part due to owners’ intention to impose a salary cap. The stated reason was that without a cap, small market teams couldn’t compete. Plus de change plus la meme chose.It cannot be overstated just how much of a trust deficit exists between players and ownership. Players have seen the same numbers about baseball’s revenue increasing year over year while some owners have cried poor while pocketing revenue sharing that could be put towards competing. Simply pu