Major League Baseball is seeking to have dismissed a class-action lawsuit filed by a group of white former players who say the league discriminated against them in denying them pensions that were awarded to Negro Leagues players.
Howard Ganz, MLB outside counsel, said he was preparing a motion to dismiss the case on technical grounds, claiming that the statute of limitations to file such a claim had expired and that the plaintiffs failed to adequately state a legal claim. Ganz said he intended to file the motion last Friday, after press time for this story.
"There is no discrimination," said Ganz, a labor law partner at law firm Proskauer Rose.
The suit, filed in October in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges that MLB racially discriminated against a group of former players by granting pension benefits to former Negro Leagues players while denying the same benefits to their white contemporaries. The class of players includes more than 1,000 players who played in MLB between 1947 and 1979 for less than four years. Four years of major league service were needed for pension eligibility under pre-1980 MLB rules.
The claim stems from the fact that in 1997, MLB granted $10,000-a-year pensions to a group of former Negro Leagues players even though they didn't meet the old requirements.
Ganz said the benefits were granted to Negro Leagues players who played for four years or more in either the Negro Leagues or a combination of MLB and the Negro Leagues.
"The reason the Negro Leagues players get the money is ... they were excluded from the major leagues," Ganz said. "Baseball, in 1997, was trying to make a little bit of an amends for a discriminatory policy. Now it is being accused of discrimination because it was trying to make amends. This is what this case is about."
MLB employed its first black player, Jackie Robinson, in 1947.
John DaCorsi, attorney for the players, did not return repeated phone calls.
The lawsuit also claims that MLB clubs systematically injected players with dangerous amounts of cortisone and other drugs, leaving many of them with ailments that they cannot afford to treat because of their lack of eligibility for medical benefits.
Ganz said "it doesn't make sense" for players to complain now of alleged medical problems they are suffering because of cortisone shots they took 25 or more years ago.
