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Service Time Podcast

Dominic Cotroneo & Scott Sweeney

A monthly deep dive podcast on the history of baseball labor and what it means ahead of the 2027 Collective Bargaining Agreement. Podcast hosts Dominic Cotroneo and Scott Sweeney take the time to research singular topics over the years that pertain to the business of the game and the battles in boardrooms rather than the diamond.

SHOW SCHEDULE (Subject to change)

  1. April: Introducing the Players Association & the rise of Marvin Miller (1800s to 1976) — RELEASING FRIDAY 4/3
  2. May: The Commissioners: The 10 in charge, from Landis to Manfred
  3. June: The Owners, aka The Lords (the men who shaped the game before Marvin)
  4. July: The Business (Television, licensing, and expansion changing cash flow for teams & players)
  5. August: The Chaos of the 80s: A split-season, classic World Series matchups, major drug trials impacting reputations
  6. September: The Strike that changed baseball: Revisiting the 1994 strike and what we learned from it (1990-1996)
  7. October: The New Millennium: Home run races, new ballparks, and nearly another labor war through PED testing (1997-2014)
  8. November: The Modern Game: Technology, rule changes, and parity dominating the game (2015-2025)
  9. December: The 2027 CBA negotiations: Who is involved and what are they asking for?

More: ServiceTimePodcast.Substack.com

Email: ServiceTimePod@Gmail.com

Scott's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BaseballsNotDead

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  • 5 episodes
  • Updated July 24

Episodes5

Newest first
  • July 24 · 3 hr 5 min

    The Business: How revenue flows from owners to players and beyond

    Major League Basebally as an entity generated over $12B in revenue last season as the Dodgers topped the Blue Jays in a seven-game World Series for the ages. But how does that flow of cash meander between the owners and the players and every licensee, vendor, fan, and rightsholder around the game. Episode 4 lays out the current business landscape as broadly as possible, knowing a lot of the ways players and owners make and share their wealth could change with the new CBA. The purpose of this month's episode is to give you a primer to how things actually work before we tell you why some things are changing for next season. As always, you can find the articles and stories we mentioned in the episode over on our Substack page, servicetimepodcast.substack.com. You can an also upgrade to a paid subscription to support the program with ad-free listening in the substack app. Or you can subscribe for free and be notified via email when a new episode drops. Thanks for listening, up next, we turn back to the birth of free agency in 1976 and through the chaos of the 880s in the August episode on the way. Connect with the show: ServiceTimePod@Gmail.com

  • June 17 · 3 hr 10 min

    The Owners: Nine men who shaped how we see the game

    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

  • May 15 · 3 hr 3 min

    The Commissioners: The 10 men in charge of baseball

    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

  • April 3 · 2 hr 53 min

    The MLBPA and the Rise of Marvin Miller

    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

  • March 30 · 41 min

    The Prologue: Welcome to the Service Time Podcast!

    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