Column: MLB should honor sacrifice of men like Colbert

Vince Colbert, who pitched and played hoops for East Carolina, was inducted into the college’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Not only did the two-sport star average over 14 points and seven rebounds per game during his years there, but he was the first Black athlete to receive an athletic scholarship at ECU and helped the Pirates win back-to-back Southern Conference baseball titles in 1967 and ’68.

Colbert, who played three seasons for the Cleveland Indians, will be turning 79 a few days before Christmas this year.

But neither Major League Baseball nor the union that represents both current players and minor leaguers, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), will be filling his stocking with any appreciable gifts or presents.

See, Colbert is one of 517 retirees being hosed out of pensions by the league and the MLBPA.

All the men like Colbert receive are yearly non-qualified retirement stipends of $718.75 for every 43 game days they were on an active MLB roster, up to a maximum payment of $11,500.

These days, the minimum salary for the 26th man riding the pines is $740,000.

Meanwhile, the maximum IRS pension limit is $275,000. But the annual stipend Colbert gets is worth only $8,000 per year.

And that’s before taxes are taken out.

Meanwhile, Jose Ramirez, the Guardians’ star third baseman, is reportedly guaranteed nearly $150 million through 2028 thanks to the five-year, $124 million contract extension he signed in 2021.

Don’t get me wrong: Colbert enjoyed his time in the game and had a modest, if somewhat abbreviated, career in The Show. He appeared in a total of 95 games in his three-year career, making 21 starts. In 248.1 innings, he recorded nine victories, including one shutout, pitched three complete games and earned four saves.

But in my opinion, the game has forgotten about Colbert and the other non-vested retirees. Especially with all the monies being thrown out to free agents nowadays.

After all, it was the men like Colbert who walked the picket lines, endured labor stoppages and went without paychecks all so that Shohei Ohtani could sign a 10-year, $750 million contract.

I don’t know about you, but I find that kind of money obscene. Especially when the median household income in Greenville three years ago was just a paltry $50,422.

As you might know, New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, who is a former member of the MLBPA executive subcommittee, made sure to thank the late Marvin Miller and Curt Flood at a news conference five years ago held to trumpet the $324 million contract he signed with the Yankees. Both Miller and Flood were instrumental in free agency finally happening in 1976.

He should have thanked the guys like Colbert, too.

Neither MLB nor the MLBPA want to retroactively restore the non-vested men like Colbert into pension coverage. And to make matters worse, the bone Colbert is being thrown each year cannot be passed on to a surviving spouse or designated beneficiary.

Is this fair? Of course not. The executive director of the MLBPA, Tony Clark, refuses to go to bat for the men like Colbert. Unions are supposed to help hard-working women and men in this country get a fair shake in life. Colbert is not blind, but he definitely sees that the so-called MLBPA labor leader doesn’t want to help anyone but himself — Clark reportedly receives a yearly salary of $4.25 million.

It is about time the national pastime appreciates what the men like Colbert have given the sport and remedy this injustice once and for all by filling up their Christmas stockings.

Otherwise, both the league and the union should get lumps of coal in theirs.