Fifty years in the past Wednesday, the official dividing line between “the way things used to be” and “the way things will be from now on” was established. 

Prior to Nov. 4, 1976, the time period “free agent” was a nebulous and not-so-coveted title in professional sports activities. Most athletes in all sports activities who were free brokers reached that standing because their earlier golf equipment deemed them so unworthy that they couldn’t return a bag of balls if put on the market. Some of them — like Catfish Hunter two years earlier — turned so because of a breached contract and a decide’s ruling. 

But once arbiter Peter Seitz declared the reserve clause unlawful, he did more than set the named plaintiffs — Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith — free. Suddenly, a participant was eligible to flee his current group as quickly as he’d performed out his possibility. 

Charley Finley acknowledges the crowd at twentieth and Broadway in Oakland, Calif., Oct. 23, 1972. MediaNews Group via Getty Images

And so it was that 24 gamers were out there that Thursday afternoon as all 24 MLB golf equipment (except the growth Blue Jays and Mariners) gathered in the Terrace Room of the Plaza Hotel to have interaction in a “reentry draft.” The golf equipment picked in reverse order of the 1976 standings, and each participant would be permitted to be chosen by as many as 12 groups, who would be allowed to negotiate with him. That system wouldn’t survive the 1981 strike. But it is a curious footnote in the sport’s story.