Forty years ago today, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally were made free agents
Free agency is such a normal fact of life amongst baseball fans that it is kind of amazing for me to realize that MLB free agency is younger than I am.
But it is -- 40 years ago today, an arbitrator found that Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally had played out their options, and were, as a result, free agents, striking the death blow to the reserve clause in MLB.
Craig Calcaterra has a good write-up on the Messersmith and McNally decisions, and the issues leading up to it.