A Baseball Buff's Brief Memoir Bernard Meltzer I / was a boy Philadelphia in the late team gives him another. The arbitrator narrow and then eliminate the gap be­ 1920s-thein.glory days of the Phil­ picks one figure or the other-no split­ tween them and to avoid the need for I adelphia Athletics. They sparkled ting the difference. In addition, the arbitration. with stars-Lefty Grove, Rube Wal- arbitrator is not to give any reason for When negotiations don't work out berg, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane. his award and is supposed to keep the that way, the arbitrator is on the hot In 1929 they went all the way to win proceedings secret. seat. One side typically thinks that he the American League pennant and the has hit a home run, the other that he World Series. In second place were has struck out (and broken his bat their the New York Yan­ while big rivals, "For a time-a very brief doing so). kees, with their awesome Murderers' I shouldn't and won't tell you what Row-Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob time-I had my personal happened during the hearings. But I Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri. dreams of baseball glory, will tell you what happened after I For a time-a very brief time-I had gave my award. Some reporters said I but a weak arm and bat my personal dreams of baseball glory, was ignorant; others said I was dumb. but a weak arm and bat brought me brought me down to I preferred the first batch. down to earth. That was also the time " I about all this flak and the earth. thought when the members of my gang were fact that, for the first time in my pro­ walking encyclopedias of baseball sta­ fessional life, I had been told to state tistics. only my conclusion and to skip any It was a dangerous time; one could The one-or-the-other idea-which reasons. I smiled as I realized the posi­ lose face by missing on Rogers Horns­ in a different context I helped popular­ tion that I had somehow achieved. I by's batting averages. With that kind ize-is, of course, to put pressure on had-for one golden moment-be­ of information and a newspaper re­ both parties to be reasonable so as to come an umpire. • porter's ability to second guess mana­ gers, I mused about becoming a mana­ ger. But reality again intervened, and so I went to law school and, after a while, became a law teacher, with a special interest in labor law and labor arbitration. In 1981-a little more than 50 years after those youthful baseball dreams­ I played a role that involved me with the real thing. To end the suspense, let me say that I served as a salary arbitra­ tor for the 1981 season. You may already know how that arbitration works. The player gives the arbitrator one salary figure, and the Mr. Meltzer is Distinguished Service Pro­ fessor of Law and a 1937 alumnus of the Law School. These reflections first appeared in the Chicago Tribune's column "The Observer," April 19, 1981, when baseball buffs thought they had a whole season be­ fore them. VOLUME 27IFALL, 1981 37.