Minor League Pay
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2022
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the Frisco RoughRiders to the Dayton Dragons, minor league baseball teams are a classic American tradition. But their players are not covered by some classic American laws: Players can earn less than the equivalent of minimum wage and don’t get paid overtime.
We explore how that’s even possible with the podcast The Uncertain Hour from our colleagues at Marketplace. This season, they’re looking at how certain companies – and whole industries – maneuver around basic worker protections.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letton. |
| 0:11.2 | Anthony Shoe started driving Uber and Lyft to help make ends meet. He had another job, |
| 0:17.2 | but it wasn't paying the bills. So he'd get in his car, fire up the app, and get ready |
| 0:22.2 | to talk with his customers. |
| 0:23.2 | It's part of the culture there in San Francisco, so get in, hey, how's it going, blah, blah, |
| 0:28.0 | blah. |
| 0:29.0 | It sounds good. Yeah, I'm just on my way to work. |
| 0:31.9 | People would ask if he drove full time and he'd be like, um, no. |
| 0:36.0 | He actually played professional baseball. |
| 0:38.0 | Yeah, he was a professional ball player, a minor league pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. |
| 0:43.3 | There's a moment where people are, you know, a little bit baffled. Yeah, but you're driving |
| 0:47.5 | my Uber. What do you mean you're a professional athlete? Well, sir, I make about 400 bucks |
| 0:53.4 | every two weeks and that's only half the year. But isn't that like a multi-billion dollar |
| 0:57.6 | industry? Yeah. And I have skills that only 0.001 percent of people have in a multi-billion |
| 1:04.6 | dollar industry. But, you know, the economics of it don't work out apparently. |
| 1:10.0 | The economics of professional baseball makes some players millions while most end up |
| 1:15.4 | paying a big price to pursue a dream. With playoffs just days away, we're bringing you |
| 1:21.3 | a show about minor league baseball and a battle over minimum wage. It's one we first |
| 1:27.0 | brought you last year and there are some surprising new updates. Today's episode is in partnership |
| 1:32.8 | with the podcast The Uncertain Hour from our colleagues over at Marketplace. Season 5 looks |
| 1:39.0 | at how businesses legally get around providing basic employment protections like the minimum |
| 1:44.3 | wage. To start, Peter Balanon-Rosen, a producer for The Uncertain Hour, takes us out to a minor |
... |
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