One of the things in BALL FOUR Batgirl found most interesting was the issue of how management treated the players. With the exception of the stars, it seems the players had to fight for a decent salary--not to mention the hassles of dealing with moving from apartment to apartment when you're called up or traded, and all the rental deposits lost.
In the background of Bouton's narrative lingers Marvin Miller, who transformed the MLB Players' Association from a relatively meaningless organization into a powerful union. (For more on Miller, read here.)
It was Miller who was responsible for free agency and, ultimately, for such modern day horrors as Donald Fehr, who is surely a swollen pimple on the bum of baseball. Nonethless, Bouton feels the owners have no one to blame but themselves, and after reading BALL FOUR, it's hard not to agree.
From p. 408 of the Official Batgirl's Book Club edition:
The irony is that if the owners hadn't abused the players so badly, we wouldn't have gone out and hired Marvin Miller and the players wouldn't be free agents today. If owners had just doubled the minimum salary, say to $14,000, and given us some extra meal money, we would have been more than content to let things ride.