Marvin Miller Marquee Hall of Fame 2020

Marvin Miller was a steelworkers' economist before major-league players hired him to lead their union in 1966. Born in April 1917 and dead in November 2012, he appeared on nine Hall of Fame ballots from 2001 through 2020 and was elected on the last by the Modern Baseball Era committee.

The minimum salary was $6,000 when he arrived and the reserve clause bound a player to one club for as long as it wanted him. He got the first collective bargaining agreement in 1968, salary arbitration in 1973, and in 1975 the ruling that freed Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, which is where free agency begins. There were work stoppages in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1981.

The men who voted on the Hall of Fame were the owners' side of that argument and their appointees, and he told them near the end to stop putting him on the ballot. His election came eight years after he died. Whether or not it was owed to him is one of the few questions about him that people still disagree on.