Marvin Miller

At the time I began as executive director of the Players Association in 1966, Walter O’Malley was really running the game. His fellow owners relied on him in terms of direction and major policy decisions to an extent you wouldn’t believe until you looked into it. There’s no question that whatever O’Malley wanted, (Commissioner Bowie) Kuhn did it. First, he was brighter than most of them, if not all of them. Secondly, when I asked an owner why that great influence, he said, ‘The owners come to a meeting and they typically don’t even know what’s on the agenda. They just don’t even pay attention to it, or any of the literature that was sent them.’ In contrast, O’Malley comes not only knowing what’s on the agenda, but prepared to speak on every point. Even O’Malley came around, before he died, in a surprisingly warm fashion. There was no time in the last years before his death when I went to Vero Beach in spring training that he didn’t send somebody out to me to ask, ‘Have you forgotten to visit me?’ Dick Moss (the player agent and a key union lawyer) made it a habit that after we visited with the players, we went to O’Malley’s house. I saw him when he was in really bad shape his last year, and our relationship was very cordial.