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It's that time of year again known as the off-season in pro baseball and as always free agency was one of the hottest topics at the GM meetings this past week (November 5-8, 2007). The other two were instant replay and trying to approve the wearing of batting helmets for first and third base coaches. The helmet issue arose due to the death of Rockies Minor League manager, Mike Coolbaugh, who died after being struck in the head by a line drive while coaching first base.

Looking back in retrospect, free agency was born out of 70 years of player frustration at the hands of baseball owners who held a choke hold on player's rights. The Brotherhood Strike (1890) was the first attempt by the ball players to end the owners grip on player mobility as they organized the National Brotherhood of Ball Players. But it failed miserably and the owners kept their death grip on the game until 1966.

That year, the players enlisted the services of Marvin Miller, labor union activist, and formed the Major League Ball Players Association (MLBPA). The final nail in the coffin of the owner's reserve clause binding players to one team happened when both Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax refused to re-sign their contracts. In 1970, Curt Flood, St. Louis Cards outfielder, took the leagues to court to officially challenge the clause by negotiating a player trade citing the 13th Amendment and Antitrust legislation as grounds for the law suit.

He lost the case in 1972 in the Supreme Court by a 5-3 vote, but due in part to large-scale public sympathy, the damage had been done. In 1975, Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith played without contracts and then declared themselves free agents. The owners, whose grip on the ball players was weakened by concessions that came out of the Flood case, had no choice but to accept the Collective Bargaining Agreement put forth by the MLBPA, effectively ending once and for all the reserve clause's effectiveness.

I've come up with a list of the five biggest free agent busts of the last ten years by putting in some due diligence and doing some research. Hopefully, you'll see my reasoning behind choosing the five ball players that are on this list. I arranged the list from lowest annual contract salary to the highest, and oddly enough three of the five are pitchers.

Biggest Bust #5 Albert Belle (LF/RF Orioles) 5 years, $65 million ($13m/yr.)

Albert "Joey" Belle played for three teams in his injury shortened 12 year career - the Indians (1989-96), the White Sox (1997-98),

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