Dick Moss, the attorney who played a pivotal role in creating free agency for baseball players and forever altering the financial landscape for professional athletes, has passed away at the age of 93.
Moss died on Saturday at an assisted-living residence in Santa Monica, California, according to an announcement from the Major League Baseball Players Association on Sunday. He had been in declining health for several years.
In 1967, Moss was hired by union executive director Marvin Miller to serve as general counsel. Moss would go on to argue the landmark 1975 arbitration case involving pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally. This case led to arbitrator Peter Seitz’s decision to strike down the reserve clause, a provision that had been a staple in every contract since 1878, enabling teams to indefinitely extend contracts without granting players free agency.
On December 23, 1975, Seitz ruled that the clause allowed for only a single one-year renewal, a decision that reverberated through all North American sports, ultimately leading to negotiated free agency in baseball.
“A titan of the industry. He impacted the industry at that time like few others,” said David Cone, a pitcher and union leader who was also a client of Moss. “A bit eccentric, but very fun-loving, just a gregarious personality, great guy to be around. Life of the party, a great guy to have a drink with.”
At the time of Seitz’s ruling, the average Major League Baseball salary was just under $45,000. By 1977, it had risen to $76,000, and by 2023, it had soared to $4.5 million—a 1,000-fold increase. During the same period, MLB’s revenues increased from $163 million in 1975 to over $11 billion in 2023, a 70-fold rise.
“The difference between winning and losing was billions and billions of dollars, maybe tens of billions of dollars,” Moss said at a 25th anniversary celebration in December 2000.
The gains achieved by baseball players influenced other sports as well, with liberalized free agency rights being established in the NBA in 1976 and the NFL in 1993.
Richard Myron Moss was born in Pittsburgh on July 30, 1931. He earned degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Law School. After two years of service in the Army, Moss worked for a Pittsburgh law firm, became a Pennsylvania assistant attorney general, and in 1963, joined the United Steelworkers as an associate general counsel alongside Miller.
When Miller joined the baseball union in 1966, Moss followed six months later. Together, they negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in 1968, which raised the minimum salary from $6,000 to $10,000. Subsequent agreements in 1970 and 1973 introduced grievance arbitration and salary arbitration, respectively.
“Marvin was really the perfect man for that time,” Moss recalled in a 1991 interview with The Associated Press. “The players trusted him. He instilled confidence and respect in the players, and he was something of a father figure to them.”
Players demonstrated their commitment through strikes in 1972 and ’73 and a lockout in 1976. Although Curt Flood’s lawsuit to end baseball’s antitrust exemption was unsuccessful at the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, a major breakthrough came in December 1974. Seitz ruled that the Oakland Athletics had breached Catfish Hunter’s contract, making Hunter a free agent. The New York Yankees signed him to a then-unprecedented $3.2 million, five-year deal.
“Dick managed to win that case establishing something novel for baseball, the first real free agent who didn’t get there by being released,” said Donald Fehr, a former colleague of Moss and later head of the players’ association. “The magnitude of the restraint was demonstrated.”
When Messersmith and McNally played without contracts through the 1975 season, the union filed grievances. Moss presented the cases before Seitz on several occasions in late 1975, leading to Seitz’s ruling on December 23 that year: “there is no contractual bond between these players and the Los Angeles and the Montreal clubs, respectively. Absent such a contract, their clubs had no right or power … to reserve their services for their exclusive use for any period beyond the ‘renewal year’ in the contracts which these players had heretofore signed.”
Seitz’s decision was upheld by U.S. District Judge John W. Oliver and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where Moss argued on behalf of the union. The first collectively bargained free-agency rules were established in July 1976, and the inaugural free-agent class included future Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers.
“Working in tandem was exactly what built the solid foundation,” said former pitcher Steve Rogers. “None of what is happening today exists without the solid foundation.”
Moss left the union in July 1977 to become an agent, representing future Hall of Famers such as Nolan Ryan, Jack Morris, and Gary Carter. He negotiated Ryan’s historic $1 million annual salary in 1979 and argued successfully for Fernando Valenzuela’s $1 million salary in arbitration in 1982.
In 1987, Moss exposed owners’ collusive activities, aiding in the grievances that ultimately settled for $280 million in 1990. He also played a crucial role in the 1992 grievance that overturned Steve Howe’s lifetime ban from baseball.
Moss is survived by his third wife, Carol Freis, whom he married in 1980, and a daughter, Nancy Moss Ephron, from his second marriage to Rolinda. Another daughter, Betsy, predeceased him.
