Garrett Broshuis

ST. LOUIS - Garrett Broshuis spent six years as a pitcher in the San Francisco Giants organization, working every level of minor league baseball before entering law school and becoming an attorney at the St. Louis firm of Korein Tillery.

During his baseball years, he wrote regular columns on life in minor league baseball for several sports-based magazine publications. During his last two years, he attained the second most wins of any pitcher in the entire Giants' minor league system.

Having become discouraged with how players were treated, Broshuis would eventually take on Major League Baseball so players could earn a livable wage.

"Back when I was playing many years ago at this point, players just weren't treated the way they should be. I don't mean that from the standpoint of thinking that guys should be driving sports cars and living lavish lifestyles, but just having their basic needs taken care of," Broshuis said. "We're going to a ballpark and playing in front of thousands of fans, then you're going to a host home and sleeping on an air mattress or on a futon. In many ways, it was a step down from what I've experienced in college baseball."

He brought the first-of-its-kind case which was heard by Northern District Judge Joseph C. Spero challenging the pay structure for minor league baseball players, which had its class action status affirmed and expanded by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Senne et al. v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, et al. 3:14-cv-00608-JCS (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 07, 2014); Senne v. Kansas City Royals Baseball Corp., 934 F. 3d 918, 922 (9th Cir. 2019).

"When a player is required to work, they should be paid for that work. For far too long, players have been forced to work for months out of the year without being paid at all," Broshuis said.

Years later, Broshuis would do some research and found that minor league salaries increased about 75% in a 40-year period since 1976, despite the fact that inflation was more than 400% during that time. The real wages players received were significantly lower than what they were in the 1970s. Until recently, most players were earning less than $10,000 per year.

He has previously represented a putative class of MLB scouts seeking to challenge baseball's long-standing exemption from antitrust laws and has worked on securities cases emanating from the failure of the mortgage-backed securities market during the financial crisis. He also currently represents a group of NCAA coaches in an antitrust case challenging an NCAA bylaw.

Broshuis is enthusiastic about the case's outcome after negotiating a $185 million settlement with MLB that, if approved by the court, will affect approximately 20,000 current and former minor league players.

"Players are now unionized, which is an exciting advancement throughout the league," Broshuis said. "They're negotiating their first collective bargaining agreement for league players right now."