In the second installment of Explain it Like I’m 5 (ELI5), Eugene Freedman, union lawyer and top voice of baseball labor relations, joins me to discuss a retrospective of, as well as future implications created by, the 2021-22 MLB lockout and collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
“Not a lot of people grow up in union households, but I did,” Freedman says. Freedman proudly points out his maternal grandfather went to work for a sewage disposal plant. “He literally worked knee-deep in shit,” says Freedman with a laugh.
In 1981, Freedman experienced formative personal events in both his union and baseball experience: He joined his first picket line, and went to his first baseball game.