Although we prefer to see baseball as a game we play or watch for recreation, from almost the beginning it has been a labor-intensive industry whose on-field personnel constitute both the entertainment product we enjoy and men engaged in doing their job. At the very heart of this laborintensive business has been the struggle between on-field employees and management over access to its opportunities, workplace rights, and overarching both of these, administering the industry and defining the relationship— paternalistic, adversarial, or cooperative—between the two sides. This history can be divided into three main eras
