Former Major League Baseball Players’ Association chief Marvin Miller died today, aged 95. A union organizer by nature, Miller became the head of the MLBPA all the way back in 1966, despite never having been involved with baseball as a sport or business before. Over the course of his subsequent 16-year leadership, he won major victories for the players’ union, perhaps none more significant than the abolishment of the reserve clause in 1975. In place for a staggering 94 years, the clause stripped players of autonomy in terms of where they played, forcing them to re-up with the same team that employed them the previous year, or stop playing altogether. Nowadays, thanks in large part to Miller, players get to sign where they please — “free agency,” as it’s called. source