MKB history

Fehr assisted the MLBPA's defense as a Kansas City-based attorney, and two years later, in 1977, Miller hired Fehr to join the Association as general counsel.

The agreement tabled the free agency debate until the ensuing season in 1981, which did not go well.

Only four of 35 free agents signed with new teams following the 1985 season.

Fehr served in this capacity until 1986, when the players named him executive director following the short-lived tenure of Ken Moffett as Miller's successor.

In January 1988, the MLBPA filed a third collusion grievance after an offseason players market for which the owners created an "information bank" to share information and restrain salaries.

After brief discussions, the owners agreed to contribute $33 million to the pension fund for each of the next three years and then $39 million in 1989.

The players prevailed in that grievance, too, and, in November 1990, reached a final settlement to all three collusion cases in which $280 million in damages was awarded to players.

After the previous collective bargaining agreement expired in December 1993 and owners proposed a salary cap in the next CBA, players went on strike beginning Aug.

The strike was the longest work stoppage in MLB history, lasting 232 days, and 948 games were canceled, including the 1994 postseason.

The 1995 season was shortened by 18 games, and players were linked to the expired agreement until a new CBA was agreed upon.

Fehr announced his impending retirement in June 2009, and at Fehr's recommendation, the players named Michael Weiner, a longtime counsel with the MLBPA, as their new executive director in December 2009.

Weiner negotiated his first agreement as executive director in 2011, steering an unprecedented level of player involvement to reach perhaps the most comprehensive agreement in the union's history.

Weiner's tenure as executive director was cut short, however, when he died in November 2013 after a courageous and inspiring 15-month battle with brain cancer.

2 after the previous collective bargaining agreement signed in 2016 expired.