Tony Clark’s Shameful Downfall Prompts More Questions for MLBPA Leadership

The Major League Baseball owners’ representatives have spent the run-up to the most consequential labor negotiations in a generation consolidating factions, staging a public-relations battle and trying to break up their opponents. The players’ chief representative has, apparently, been spending this span conducting an affair with a relative. Doesn’t seem like a very fair fight, does it?

The executive director of the players’ association, Tony Clark, stepped down Tuesday after more than a decade at the helm. The union’s statement said only that he had resigned; ESPN reported that an internal investigation—which had been spurred by a federal investigation by the Eastern District of New York into, among other accusations, alleged financial improprieties, abuse of power and nepotism—found evidence that Clark had been engaged in an improper relationship with his sister-in-law, whom the union had hired in 2023.

Clark is a pioneer who served as the first former player in his role. He is also, if the reporting is accurate—and neither he nor the union has denied it—staggeringly irresponsible. The union is embarking on an existential fight, one that could determine whether baseball breaks with a century of precedent and imposes a salary cap, long considered a wage-suppressing red line for the players, and his decisions have jeopardized their solidarity at the moment they need it most.

The players have done their part, staging an exhilarating postseason that culminated in the most-watched game globally in 34 years. The level of play has never been higher, and the pitch clock has casual fans engaged again. Despite all that, the league is prepared to argue that the sport is fundamentally broken, and that a cap is the only way to fix it. And on the eve of the final season before the collective-bargaining agreement expires in December, while the players should be taking pitchers’ fielding practice and getting measured for the automatic ball-strike system, they are scheduling afternoon Zoom calls and scrambling to decide who will lead them.

Lead negotiator Bruce Meyer would be an obvious choice, so it is notable that he has not yet been elevated to replace Clark. His judgment has not been perfect, either; he declined to comment as to when he learned of Clark’s relationship, but either he knew and allowed it to reach this point or he lacked oversight of the operation. “On a personal level,” Meyer told reporters Wednesday morning, “I think we’re all fairly devastated by things that have happened in the last 48, 72 hours.” (Meyer also barely survived an attempted coup in spring training 2024; it was Clark who protected him.) And the entire organization must eventually answer for the fact that it apparently spent the 15 months since the federal investigation began and the eight months since the internal investigation began making absolutely no contingency plans.

Even the sudden timing of Clark’s resignation should prompt questions. According to The Athletic, after the firm Morrison Foerster’s review turned up incriminating messages between Clark and his sister-in-law-slash-coworker, Clark sat for an interview with the firm on Friday. Over the weekend, the union’s executive subcommittee learned of the messages. On Monday, the players asked Clark to resign. He was already in Arizona for the union’s annual tour of spring training clubhouses; he abruptly cancelled his Tuesday meeting with the Guardians, scheduled for 6 a.m. local time. Clark should have known the investigation would dig up evidence of his relationship—which, again, was with a family member he hired to work for him. That Clark waited to step down until the players forced him out is unforgivable.

Meanwhile, commissioner Rob Manfred has been shoring up support from owners in different economic tiers. He has been insisting both publicly and privately that the Dodgers, who seem to break a new spending record and win a World Series every year, are a threat to the league. He has even made that argument to players on his annual clubhouse tours, hoping that discussions of competitive balance pique their interest. (That last strategy has produced mixed results, but you have to give the guy credit for trying.)

Clark’s ouster may indeed, as players and the union spent Tuesday and Wednesday contending, have no effect on bargaining, which is expected to begin this spring. “I’m not going to say this is a great thing,” Meyer said. “But at the end of the day, bargaining is the most important thing.” That will be Meyer’s job no matter who leads the union. And ultimately, Meyer answers to the players. In its statement announcing Clark’s resignation, the union said, “The strength of this union is—and will always be—the solidarity of our membership.” It better be. It’s clearly not leadership.

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