Dick Moss, lawyer who won baseball’s free agency, dies at 93

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NEW YORK (AP) – Dick Moss, the attorney who won an arbitration case that created free agency for baseball players and changed salaries for professional athletes, has died. He was 93 years old.

Moss died Saturday at an assisted-living facility in Santa Monica, California, the Major League Baseball Players Association said Sunday. He had been in poor health for several years.

Hired by union executive Marvin Miller as general counsel in 1967, Moss argued a 1975 lawsuit involving strikers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally that resulted in arbitrator Peter Seitz striking down the clause. That one-year collective renewal provision has been included in all contracts since 1878 and has enabled teams to control players by keeping those contracts from being extended indefinitely.

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Seitz decided on Dec. 23, 1975, the provision meant a one-year renewal only. His decision was upheld in the US District Court and the US 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, where Moss made oral arguments on behalf of the union. This decision affected all sports across North America and led to the collective bargaining provisions of baseball’s free association.

At the time of the decision, the average salary in Major League Baseball was less than $45,000. It rose to $76,000 in 1977 and by 2023 it was $4.5 million, a 1,000-fold increase.

MLB’s revenue increased at a very low rate, from $163 million in 1975 to more than $11 billion in 2023, a 70-fold increase.

“The difference between winning and losing was billions and billions of dollars, maybe tens of billions of dollars,” Moss said at the 25th anniversary of his founding in December 2000.

Baseball’s gains were closely followed by other sports, with unions gaining free agency rights in the NBA in 1976 and the NFL in 1993.

Richard Maurice Moss III was born in Pittsburgh on July 30, 1931. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Law School.

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After two years in the Army, Moss worked for a Pittsburgh law firm, became an assistant attorney general of Pennsylvania and in 1963 joined the United Steelworkers as general counsel of labor where Miller was an assistant to union president David McDonald.

Miller was hired by the baseball union in 1966 and Moss joined him six months later. As Miller organized the players into a tough club, Moss negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in 1968, raising the minimum wage from $6,000 to $10,000. The 1970 agreement added grievance arbitration and the 1973 agreement established wage arbitration.

“Marvin was the perfect man at the time,” Moss told the Associated Press in 1991. “The players trusted him. He instilled confidence and respect in the players and was a father figure to them.”

The players showed their determination during the 1972 and 1973 strikes and the 1976 lockout. Curt Flood’s case to end baseball’s antitrust exemption was lost to the US Supreme Court in 1972.

The first major breakthrough came in December 1974, when Seitz ruled that Oakland had breached Catfish Hunter’s contract by failing to make a $50,000 payment into the long-term pension fund and declared Hunter a free agent. The New York Yankees signed him to a five-year, $3.2 million contract, which is a sign of what players can earn without restrictions.

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While Messersmith and McNally played seasons without contracts, the union filed appeals and Moss argued the charges before Seitz on Nov. 21 and 24 and Dec. 1, 1975. Seitz issued his decision on December 23, ruling “there is no contractual obligation between these players and the Los Angeles and Montreal clubs, respectively. Without such a contract, their clubs had no right or power … to withhold their services for use only for any period beyond the ‘renewal year’ of the contracts these players had previously signed.”

Seitz’s decision was upheld by US District Judge John W. Oliver in Kansas City, Missouri, and the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The rules of free agency were agreed upon in the July 1976 labor contract, and the first free agent class to acquire wealth included future Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers.

Moss left the union in July 1977 to become an agent, and his clients included future Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan, Jack Morris and Gary Carter. He negotiated Ryan’s $1 million settlement in 1979 and argued the case that earned Fernando Valenzuela a $1 million settlement in 1982.

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In 1987, he helped expose the owners’ collusive activities by giving the Chicago Cubs a blank contract for Andre Dawson, which the team filled with a $500,000 base salary and bonus opportunities. The owners lost three appeals and settled the lawsuits with the union in 1990 for $280 million.

In 1992, he helped argue the appeal that led referee George Nicolau to overturn Steve Howe’s lifetime ban, the footballer’s seventh suspension for drug abuse. In both 1989 and 1994, he worked to organize a new league without getting teams on the field.

He is survived by his third wife, the former Carol Freis, and a daughter from his second marriage, Rolinda, Nancy Moss Ephron. Another daughter from his second marriage, Betsy, predeceased him.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

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