Service Time Podcast
Season 1
The Owners: Nine men who shaped how we see the game
The Commissioners: The 10 men in charge of baseball
by Dominic Cotroneo & Scott Sweeney
There are many names to remember across baseball's history, but a handful tend to stick around longer than you realize. Sometimes the names adorn stadiums that stood for decades, or television channels bringing their teams to the masses, or their names can live in infamy depending on the city that you ask. Episode 3 focuses on nine owners we picked that fit this description. The owners we discuss are (in order) Connie Mack, Charles Comiskey, Philip Wrigley Jr., Branch Rickey/Walter O'Malley, Bill Veeck Jr., Charlie Finley, Ted Turner, George Steinbrenner. We wanted to focus on how these men rose to power, and how they maintained their image and legacy during their time as owners - and their impact on labor negotiations to this day. There's only so much we can dissect from each owner, but a few of these owners will keep popping up throughout the rest of the series. Connect with the show: ServiceTimePod@Gmail.com Subscribe to the substack (free or premium) ServiceTimePodcast.Substack.com
From Landis to Manfred, the “unknown soldier” to hardball, and everything in-between. This month’s episode focuses on the origins of the commissionership and how each man tweaked the role for their time in office. We try to touch on as much as possible, but for the sake of future episodes (starting with Episode 6: The Strike) we held back on Bud Selig and Rob Manfred, and focused more on the first eight commissioners of the game. There was even plenty left on the cutting room floor for Kuhn and Ueberroth for the sake of the split season of 1981 and the rest of the 80s episode coming in Augus for Episode 5. Our goal for this podcast is still to entertain and educate, not spin. You may disagree with the legacies of some commissioners, who actually helped the “good of the game.” We as a society like to point to singular villains, but in Episode 3 next month, we’ll explain how sometimes the owners were really handling the marionette strings for some commissioners. Thank you so much for listening to two episodes already, the support has been astounding to starting this from scratch. More ancillary content will come from the episodes as we start preparing for the negotiations for 2027 - which are already underway. Email: ServiceTimePod@Gmail.com Website: ServiceTimePodcast.Substack.com
The MLB Players Association has a reputation as one of the strongest unions in the world ... but it did not start with that moniker. In fact, it took a near century for baseball players to be represented as a group to bring the playing population forward. That man was Marvin Miller, but he had a long road ahead of him to help the players realize their value collectively versus individually. But during baseball's infancy, restrictive rules and savvy businessmen kept the players down as much as possible. The reserve clause, MLB's antitrust exemption, grievance hearings, suspensions, legal maneuvers, the list goes on how baseball operated sometimes without its players' best intentions. Welcome to the Service Time Podcast, hosted by Dominic Cotroneo and Scott Sweeney. We'd love to hear from you as we embark on these deep dives together. Website: ServiceTimePodcast.Substack.com Email: ServiceTimePod@Gmail.com Instagram: @ServiceTimePod
Welcome to our introductory episode of the Service Time Podcast. In this prologue we lay out the schedule ahead for the show and what we hope to gain out of the time we take to present what we've learned to you. We hope to create a full audiobook-length catalog by the end of the nine episodes we have scheduled, ready to deliver the history of baseball's labor negotiations and what it means for the future of the 2027 CBA. Hosts: Dominic Cotroneo & Scott Sweeney Website: ServiceTimePodcast.Substack.com Email: ServiceTimePod@gmail.com