Skip to main content

Baseball’s Labor Wars

Peter Dreier Dissent
Major League Baseball owners’ recent lockout was an effort to reverse the gains that players had won over decades of labor struggle. The owners failed.

We Are Long Overdue for a Paul Robeson Revival

Peter Dreier Los Angeles Review of Books
In the 1970s, Robeson’s admirers — boosted by the upsurge of black studies and black cultural projects, the waning of the Cold War — began to rehabilitate his reputation with various tributes, documentary films, books, concerts, exhibits, and a play

Martin Luther King Was a Radical, Not a Moderate

Peter Dreier Common Dreams
Martin Luther King called himself a democratic socialist. He believed that America needed a “radical redistribution of economic and political power.” He challenged America’s class system and its racial caste system. He opposed US militarism

How Much Longer Will Major League Baseball Stay in the Closet?

Peter Dreier The Conversation
Athletes in three of the five major male team sports – the NBA, NFL and MLS – have come out while still playing, but not one of more than 20,000 men who have played major league baseball. What’s taken so long?

Curt Flood - The Ballplayer Who Fought for Free Agency

Peter Dreier The Nation
For his talents on the diamond and his determination off of it, Curt Flood deserves to be a Hall of Famer. A year after the Montgomery bus boycott-his first MLB season, he was one of the first ballplayers involved with the civil rights movement...

Why Is Socialism Becoming Less Scary?

Peter Dreier Talking Points Memo
A look at the new documentary, “The Big Scary ‘S’ Word” in which director Yael Bridge explores how socialist ideas that were once considered radical are now taken for granted by most Americans.