Touring The Bases With…Doug Gladstone

Doug Gladstone is the author of A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB and The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve , in which he champions the cause of former major league players who don’t qualify for a pension because they didn’t meet the required service time.  An excerpt from an article Doug wrote for Seamheads.com spells out the plight of these men: “874 retirees who played between 1947 and 1979 are classified as inactive, non-vested ballplayers. None of them receive pensions for their contributions to the game, all because neither Major League Baseball (MLB) nor the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) want to retroactively amend the vesting requirement that conferred instant pension eligibility on every ballplayer who’s had even a day’s worth of service credit in the big leagues since 1980.”

To hear more about Doug’s book and the struggles of the 874 retirees, click here .