What are the problems confronting Major League Baseball? Steroids and amphetamines? Those certainly have made the news as of late, and not in a good way either. Well, during this baseball off-season, I received an email from counsel for the Major League Baseball Players Association. And, the #1 problem in Major League Baseball is the disclosure of the Players Association contract with the Topps Company. I hope this problem doesn’t keep anyone out of the Hall of Fame. Here it goes:
We are licensing enforcement counsel for the Major League Baseball Players Association. We do not know how you obtained a copy of the agreement between the PA and Topps, but that is a confidential document. The Players Association demands that you remove this document from your web page and any other place you have it available immediately, and that you destroy any copies of the agreement that are in your possession. Please confirm receipt of this message and that you will comply immediately.
If you want to see what a “confidential” document looks like, here’s the Agreement between The Topps Company, Inc. and the Major League Baseball Players Association. Not exactly sure what confidential terms remain after Topps stripped out the financial terms and requested confidential treatment from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. For those keeping track, The Topps Company is a publicly-traded company. You can find Topps Company contracts with other sports associations on our website as well.
As for how we obtained a copy of the agreement, let’s just say we got it from a source in the federal government. No, not Lewis Scooter Libby. 😉