MLBPA: Clark pay nearly doubled to $4.25M in ’23
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark received more than $4.25 million in compensation in 2023, with a $3.25 million salary and $1 million bonus, nearly doubling his total the previous year, according to a union financial report released Monday.
The revelation of Clark’s salary, which was $2.25 million in 2022, comes in the wake of an uprising at the union in which attorney Harry Marino attempted to garner support from players to replace the union’s deputy executive director, Bruce Meyer.
While Marino could not rally the necessary backing to oust Meyer, his efforts calling for an internal audit on union finances gained significant traction among player leadership, sources told ESPN.
Clark’s salary is in the range of his contemporaries who have run major sports unions. Former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith made $4.5 million in 2021 and $2.72 million in 2022. Former NBPA executive director Tamika Tremaglio received $3.1 million in her final year on the job. And NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh has a reported salary of $3 million after his predecessor, Donald Fehr, reportedly made $3.5 million per year.
In his first full year as executive director of the union in 2014, Clark received a salary of $1,993,525, according to the MLBPA’s LM-2, an annual filing that details union spending. The salary was nearly double that of his predecessor, Michael Weiner, who died of cancer in November 2013. Weiner and Fehr, the previous union executive director, capped their salaries at $1 million going back to the 1990s. Clark is expected to receive slight increases in his annual salary for the remainder of his contract, which runs through 2027.
The union’s revenues have grown significantly since Clark’s appointment. In 2014, the MLBPA’s total receipts were $64.7 million, according to the LM-2. Last year, the number was $191.8 million. The largest payments from 2023 include $49.6 million from Topps, $44 million from Fanatics, $28.6 million from the group licensing firm OneTeam Partners and $10.2 million from trading-card manufacturer Panini.
MLBPA spending on employee salaries has increased in recent years, according to the LM-2. In 2021, employees received $11.9 million, in 2022 it jumped to $15.4 million, and last year it was $16.6 million.
Marino, who helped organize minor league players and eventually integrate them into the MLBPA, worked for the union for less than a year before leaving amid clashes with top union officials. In a one-page letter he distributed to players advocating for the need of new leadership at the MLBPA, Marino said he would “trim the waste and excess” of the union’s spending, writing, “Our job is to make you rich, not the other way around.”
On a call two weeks ago that included members of the MLBPA’s 68-player executive board, players went back and forth on a number of subjects, including Meyer’s fitness for the job and the lack of communication from union officials. During discussions about the current leadership’s fitness for the job, sources said, multiple player leaders said they were unaware that the union had given Clark a five-year contract extension in November 2022.
Clark’s deal followed a 99-day lockout by MLB of the players who bridged most of the 2021-22 offseason. A bountiful winter, in which players received $3.9 billion in guaranteed money, followed the first year of the new deal, but free agent spending lagged in some areas this offseason, prompting player leaders to question Clark and Meyer’s stewardship.
The contretemps died down about a week after Marino told Clark he had significant player support to be installed as the new deputy executive director. While the full body of minor leaguers continued to back him, major league player support waned, and the MLBPA’s executive subcommittee — made up of eight elected players — eventually disavowed the efforts after members of the group initially backed Marino.
Still, multiple player representatives told ESPN they intend to call for an audit of the union’s finances, with the hope for it to start in the near future.
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit two homers in an 11-5 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, emphatically ending the three-time MVP’s longest homer drought since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with his 24th homer, hammering Landen Roupp‘s fourth pitch 419 feet deep into the right-field bleachers with an exit velocity of 110.3 mph.
The slugger had been in a 10-game homer drought since June 2, going 10-for-40 in that stretch with no RBIs, although he still had an eight-game hitting streak during his power outage.
Ohtani led off the sixth with his 25th homer, sending Tristan Beck‘s breaking ball outside the strike zone into the bleachers in right. He also moved one homer behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the overall major league lead.
Dodgers fans brought him home with a standing ovation as Ohtani produced his third multihomer game of the season and the 22nd of his career.
Ohtani reached base four times and scored three runs in his first four at-bats, drawing two walks to go with his two homers.
Ohtani hadn’t played in 10 straight games without hitting a homer since 2023 in the final 10 games of his six-year tenure with the Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani had slowed down a bit over the past two weeks after he was named the NL Player of the Month for May with a formidable performance, racking up 15 homers and 28 RBIs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BOSTON — Hunter Dobbins had quite the week.
First, he said last weekend that he would rather retire than pitch for the Yankees because his father was drafted by New York twice before being traded.
Then, he went out and beat the Yankees.
A few days after his comments about never wanting to pitch for New York, he had to defend his dad’s story about being drafted by the Yankees in response to a New York Post article that cited multiple official databases and the Yankees’ own records that couldn’t confirm Lance Dobbins ever played with the organization.
On Saturday night, Dobbins (4-1) followed up by going six shutout innings in Boston’s 4-3 victory over New York, his second win over the Yankees in less than a week.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m more worried about just the win column, whether it’s against them or anybody. My job is to try and help this team win as many ballgames as we can, and pitch in meaningful playoff baseball games. That’s what I’m more focused on.”
But he realizes what it means to the fan base in this longtime rivalry, with the Red Sox fans heard chanting about the Yankees outside the park before he spoke in an interview room.
“Yeah, I love being able to perform and get those wins for the fans here,” he said. “They deserve it. It’s a great city, passionate fan base, so being able to get those wins — especially twice in one week — means a lot and looking forward to trying to build on that going forward.”
In his victory over New York last Sunday, Dobbins held the Yankees to three runs over five innings, two on a first-inning homer by Aaron Judge.
On Saturday night, Judge went 0-for-3 against him, striking out twice on curveballs.
“It was just kind of scouting,” Dobbins said of his game plan against New York’s slugger after Garrett Crochet struck him out three times in the series opener Friday.
“Crochet has an electric fastball. I can throw it hard, but the shape isn’t quite as elite,” he said. “So we knew we had better weapons to go at him with, so I felt like we did a good job of kind of keeping a balanced attack throughout the order.”
Dobbins struck out five and gave up only two singles Saturday.
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