The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the union that represents those on the 40-player roster for each MLB club, has named Bruce Meyer as the interim executive director for the organization, the group announced late Wednesday. The decision is the result of a unanimous vote by the union’s executive board of 72 players and came after Tony Clark unexpectedly resigned from the lead post earlier this week. Clark’s decision was made after an internal investigation reportedly revealed he was engaged in an “inappropriate” relationship with his sister-in-law, who had been an MLBPA employee since 2023.
As well, Clark and the MLBPA are under federal investigation by the Eastern District of New York over whether a licensing company co-founded by the MLBPA and the NFL players union, OneTeam Partners, was being used to financially enrich the union leaders. The full scope of the investigation into the company is unclear, but members of the executive subcommittee have been in contact with federal officials, according to The Athletic. At the same time, an MLBPA-owned youth baseball company, Players Way, is also under investigation for alleged financial impropriety. The company is alleged to have held few live events for youth players despite the MLBPA’s investing almost $4 million in the company. Players Way executives and consultants reportedly received six-figure salaries.
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Clark, 53, joined the MLBPA in 2010 following a 15-year playing career. He was unanimously approved as the union’s executive director in December 2013, following the death of Michael Weiner. Clark has overseen the last two CBA negotiations.
“Just on a personal level I think we’re all fairly devastated by things that have happened in the last 48, 72 hours,” Meyer told reporters Wednesday from spring training in Arizona, via the Associated Press, as part of his remarks before being named interim. “I’m not going to go beyond that in terms of personal feelings, but it’s fair to say that we were all personally upset, concerned about Tony. But I think this was something that the players determined had to happen at this particular point in time.”
Meyer, 64, has served as the union’s lead negotiator since 2018. After helming the negotiations on the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in 2021, Meyer was promoted to deputy executive director, Clark’s No. 2, in the summer of 2022. Prior to joining the MLBPA, Meyer worked in an executive capacity for the NHL Players Association, and before that he was a long-time attorney in private practice.
Matt Nussbaum, a labor lawyer who joined the MLBPA in 2011 after several years at the NHLPA, was named the interim deputy executive director.
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The change in leadership comes at a seemingly inopportune time for the MLBPA, as negotiations on the next CBA should soon begin in earnest. Those negotiations are expected to be contentious, as MLB owners are widely expected to lock out the players after the current CBA expires in December of this year. Commissioner Rob Manfred at the behest of owners is expected to push for a salary cap on team payrolls during the CBA negotiations, and the union is expected to resist those efforts, as they’ve always done.
“We don’t expect anything to change in terms of bargaining,” Meyer said Wednesday. “We’ve been preparing for bargaining for years. Players have been preparing. Players know what’s coming. At the end of the day, leadership is important and leadership comes and goes, but what remains is the players. At the end of the day, it’s the players who determine the direction of the union. At the end of the day, it’s the players who determine our priorities and bargaining. Those priorities obviously have not changed and will not change.”
Meyer had been slated to lead those negotiations from the union side, so his appointment to the interim leadership role is as seamless as such a thing can be given the unexpected nature of the recent upheavals.
Meyer’s ascent within the union has not been without obstacles. In December of 2024, three former members of the MLBPA’s executive subcommittee — Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito, and Ian Happ — angled to remove Meyer as the union’s deputy director. However, the three players were then voted off of the subcommittee, and Meyer survived. Now he leads the union into an uncertain future and likely becomes the favorite to take over leadership of the MLBPA on a permanent basis, whenever such a decision will be made. First, though, comes the profound challenges of leading the players into what could be the most damaging labor dispute the sport has seen in more than a generation.