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Minor-league lawsuit claims MLB fails to pay minimum wage to minor-leaguers

Behind the romantic notion of baseball's hard-scrabble minor leagues lies the less-idealized reality that the players are paid poverty wages.

15 min to read
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CLINTON, IOWA—Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams is just an hour and a half northwest of here. That old corn field from which he carved a supernatural baseball diamond is a little ways up the Mississippi, near Dyersville, Iowa, where it stands today as a tourist attraction, preserved to look just like it did in the movie.

Down here in Clinton, a shrinking factory town that’s home to the minor-league LumberKings, sits a field for a more earthly dream, though equally romantic.

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Kevin McCoy, centre, a right-handed reliever with the Clinton LumberKings, was signed as a college senior for $5,000 in 2013. He will make about $6,500 this season.

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Luke Guarnaccia, catcher for the Seattle Mariners' minor-league affiliate in Clinton, Iowa, lives in a two-bedroom apartment with four other teammates.

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Tyler O'Neill, left, shown with Aaron Barbosa, grew up in Maple Ridge, B.C., and is the only Canadian on the LumberKings.

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Aaron Brooks, a right-handed reliever for the Clinton LumberKings Class-A minor-league team, works at a shoe store in the offseason.

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The Kane County Cougars host the Clinton LumberKings in Geneva, Ill.

Brendan Kennedy

Brendan Kennedy is a reporter on the Toronto Star’s investigative team. Reach him via email: bkennedy@thestar.ca

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