Don Fehr

When Donald Fehr took over as acting executive director of the MLBPA in 1983, he faced a two-pronged challenge: Trying to make gains for players amid unyielding resistance from baseball owners while fighting to preserve and expand upon the legacy of the union’s founding father, Marvin Miller. Over the next 26 years, through a combination of long-term vision, effective organizing and tactical legal brilliance, Fehr forged his own path and staked his claim as a seminal figure in MLBPA and sports labor history.

Fehr, a Kansas native, graduated from Indiana University with a political science degree in 1970 and received his J.D. degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.  He worked on the groundbreaking Andy Messersmith-Dave McNally arbitration case as a young lawyer in Kansas City before joining the PA as general counsel in 1977. In December 1985, players voted to remove the “acting’’ designation from Fehr’s title and named him MLBPA executive director.

Under the guidance of Fehr and longtime associate general counsel Gene Orza, Players stood firm through three work stoppages while fending off repeated attempts by ownership to roll back the gains achieved under Miller. Fehr was a master at keeping the membership engaged, informed and united through challenging and often contentious times.

During the 1985 and 1986 off-seasons, baseball owners acted in concert to restrain the free-agent market. Only a handful of players signed with new clubs each winter. In November of 1990, following a four-year process that included three separate grievances filed by the union, Fehr negotiated a $280 million settlement in damages for the players.

Fehr led the way through a 32-day lockout in the spring of 1990 and a 232-day strike in 1994-95, when players fended off attempts by owners to break the union and implement cuts in pay and benefits. Even when owners pursued a misguided plan to use replacement players in spring training, the Players Association would not bend. It was perhaps the greatest show of union solidarity in modern sports history.

In 2002, Fehr secured the first contract between the MLBPA and MLB that did not require a work stoppage, a feat that was repeated in 2006. Those two negotiations were Fehr’s last in charge of the organization and helped ensure an extended run of labor peace in baseball.

During Fehr’s tenure as executive director from 1983 through 2009, when he handed the leadership mantle to Michael Weiner, the average Player salary increased from $289,000 to $3.24 million. No less an authority than Marvin Miller lauded Fehr for his extended run of success in advancing the cause of players. "His biggest accomplishment has to be maintaining the solidarity of a group that is so much more prosperous than when we started way back then," Miller said in a 2002 New York Times interview.

As a keen student of baseball labor history, Fehr could receive no higher praise.