Tuesday’s question: Does Marvin Miller belong in baseball’s Hall of Fame?

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Reporters from around the Tribune family tackle to question of the day, then you get a chance to chime in and tell them why they are wrong.

Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune

For Marvin Miller, it used to be a good thing to have baseball owners insult his intelligence. The brilliant labor lawyer, recruited from the steel mills by Robin Roberts and others, always got the last laugh as he built the players union from a toothless idea to an uncompromising force, and in the process started player salaries on their climb above $3 million a year. But there’s nothing Miller can do about the latest insult to his – and our – intelligence. He’s a perennial candidate for the Hall of Fame but stays on the outside looking in, his fate decided by a 12-member committee including seven management representatives, many of whom were on the receiving end of his power as a leader. Who’s kidding whom in this arrangement? Tom Seaver says Miller is as deserving of the Hall as the men like Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, and he’s right. Stop the charade. Put him in.

Dom Amore, Hartford Courant

Once again, the Hall of Fame’s veterans committee missed its chance to do the right thing. Marvin Miller fell two votes short.
Miller deserves to be in Cooperstown. Yes, he is a polarizing figure, and those who believe a baseball player should have been bound to his team forever if the team so desired, will never forgive Miller for bringing baseball into the 20th Century and striking down the reserve clause. Of course, that is saying an employee should be bound to an employer forever. Saying it that way hits home a bit differently.
No figure has had more impact, brought more change to baseball. And the fact is, free agency, if that is Miller’s legacy, has not ruined baseball. It has earned players their share of the revenue the game generates, and despite the hand-wringing in the 1970s, it has, along with the amateur draft, expansion and added playoffs, brought better balance than existed in the old days. The work stoppages were painful, but progress doesn’t come without pain. There are many polarizing figures in Cooperstown; they’re the ones who usually get things done.