Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0017/00176.txt

Text File | 1993-12-31 | 39KB | 574 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS00176}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Baseball and the Law}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Hailey, Gary D.}
$Subject{Law litigation courtroom courtrooms lawsuits lawsuit antitrust laws
legal lawyers litigations}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  The Game Off The Field


Baseball and the Law

Gary D. Hailey


     Like many other members of our litigation-happy society, baseball players
and team owners have spent their fair share of time in the courtroom.  Judges
have been asked to decide lawsuits involving everything from a team's
liability for fan injuries from foul balls and thrown bats to the legality of
the decision to resume the infamous Yankees-Royals "Pine Tar Game" nearly a
month after George Brett's home run had been ruled a game-ending out.
     But the most significant baseball-related court cases were a series of
mostly unsuccessful challenges to organized baseball's attempts to limit
competition--especially from rivals like the Players League and the Federal
League--for players' services.  That litigation has reached the United States
Supreme Court three times, and all three times that Court has ruled that
baseball is not governed by the antitrust laws.  The reasoning behind this
holding may have been perfectly logical when the first of those cases was
decided in 1922, but it seemed bizarre and irrational when it was reiterated
half a century later in Flood v. Kuhn.
     From the game's earliest days, baseball owners have struggled to keep
their expenses down and maintain control over the players, who often decide
that the grass (and the money) is greener in someone else's ballpark.  In 1870
the National Association of Base Ball Players tried to stop "revolving," or
contract jumping, by adopting a rule requiring players to give 60 days' notice
before leaving one club for another.  Tougher controls were agreed to after
word leaked that A.G. Spalding and three other Boston Red Stockings stars had
signed contracts in the middle of the 1875 season to play for Chicago in 1876.
In 1879 the National League secretly agreed to allow each team owner to
"reserve" his five best players at the end of the season; other owners were
prohibited from bidding for the services of the reserved players.  The owners
also agreed not to sign any player who refused to play for the team that
reserved him.
     The reserve rule and blacklist helped protect the National League owners
from their fellows, but proved less useful against the newly formed American
Association, which declared war on the NL in 1882.  One of the biggest names
to jump to the rival league was catcher Charles Bennett, who had played for
the NL's Pittsburgh club in 1882.  In August of that year, he accepted $100 in
exchange for his written promise to sign a contract with Pittsburgh for the
1883 season.  But before Bennett signed that contract, the Detroit AA team
offered him more money.  Pittsburgh got wind of what was happening and
immediately filed suit in federal court, seeking an injunction ordering
Bennett to sign the Pittsburgh contract.
     Bennett's lawyers offered a number of legal defenses, some rather narrow
and technical.  The court ruled in Bennett's favor [1] but did not issue a
written opinion, so it is unclear just which of his attorneys' arguments were
persuasive.  The dismissal may have resulted from the court concluding that
the reserve system and blacklist illegally limited Bennett's freedom to earn a
living.  But the court may have refused to enjoin Bennett's jump to Detroit
simply because of the timing of the lawsuit.  The Pittsburgh club would have
suffered no real harm from Bennett's refusal to sign an 1883 contract until it
had to play a game without him in the lineup.  Its October 1882 lawsuit was,
in a sense, premature because Bennett might have changed his mind and returned
to Pittsburgh before the opening day of the 1883 season.
     Shortstop Sam Wise did Bennett one better.  He signed a contract with the
AA's Cincinnati club but then jumped back to Boston when they upped their
original offer.  Cincinnati got an Ohio court to order Boston not to play
Wise, but they were unable to enforce the order in other states.  Wise simply
stayed at home when the Boston team came to Cleveland to play.
     The National League and American Association made peace in 1883 and
signed the "National Agreement," which contained a strengthened reserve rule.
The promoters of the Union Association hoped to capitalize on the players'
resentment of the one-sided terms of their contracts with organized baseball,
but the established leagues fought back hard by adopting the "Day Resolution",
an agreement to blacklist any reserved player who jumped to a Union club.
Star pitcher Tony Mullane, who jumped from the St. Louis Browns to the St.
Louis Maroons of the new league, tried to return to the Browns after hearing
about the Day Resolution.  The Browns refused to welcome their prodigal back
because they knew the Maroons would haul them into court if they did.  The
Toledo AA club wanted Mullane, but the National Agreement did not provide for
player trades or sales.  The Browns simply released Mullane outright, and
Toledo signed him.  The Union Association failed to persuade an Ohio federal
judge to order Mullane back to the Maroons [2].  After the demise of the
upstart league at the end of the 1884 season, Toledo agreed to send Mullane
back to the Browns, but the Cincinnati AA club--in flagrant violation of the
National Agreement--signed the 35-game winner to a lucrative bonus contract.
The Association's powers-that-be ultimately awarded Mullane to Cincinnati, but
ordered him to sit out the 1885 season and give back part of his bonus.
     Once the Union Association was dead and buried, organized baseball
tightened the screws a bit more by trying to establish a maximum annual player
salary of $2,000.  In response the players formed the National Brotherhood of
Professional Base Ball Players under the leadership of John Montgomery Ward,
the New York Giants shortstop who attended Columbia University law school in
the off-season.  Ward claimed that the reserve clause, the blacklist, and
other intimidating provisions of the standard player contract were legally
unenforceable.  When the owners refused to scrap the salary cap or to agree
not to sell or trade players without their consent, the brotherhood went on to
form the Players League, which fielded eight teams in 1890.  Over 80 National
League players and almost 30 from the American Association--including future
Hall of Famers Dan Brouthers, John Clarkson, Hugh Duffy, "Buck" Ewing, "King"
Kelly, Connie Mack, and "Old Hoss" Radbourne--signed up with the Players
League.
     Organized baseball used every weapon at its disposal to strike back at
this new rival.  The owners told fans that the players were aligned with
radical unionists.  Boston reportedly gave pitcher Clarkson $10,000--five
times the average 1889 salary--to desert the brotherhood, while Spalding
offered King Kelly a blank check to play for the White Stockings.  When
propaganda and bankrolls failed, the established league fielded a team of
lawyers at courthouses around the country.
     The reserve rule was originally adopted by the parties to the National
Agreement as a sort of gentlemen's agreement not to compete for their fellow
owners' players.  When the National League tried to enforce the reserve clause
against the Players League, it got nowhere.  A federal court in New York City
held that the Giants could not keep catcher Ewing from playing for their
brotherhood rival because the reserve provisions in his 1889 contract were
"merely a contract to make a contract" for 1890 "if the parties agree." [3]
The reserve clause was valuable because it gave the Giants a "prior and
exclusive" right to negotiate with Ewing that was enforceable against other
clubs in organized baseball.  But as a basis for an injunction preventing a
player from taking the field for a Players League team, Ewing's contract was
held "wholly nugatory" because it did not set forth in detail contract terms
and conditions (including salary) for 1890.  A party who seeks enforcement of
a contract with vague or indefinite terms is really asking the court to fill
in the blank spaces in that contract, which is something that courts are
reluctant to do.
     Other courts objected not only to the indefiniteness of player contracts
but also to their one-sidedness, which they referred to as a "lack of
mutuality."  Owners could release players on ten days' notice, but the reserve
clause purported to bind a player to one team for as long as the team wanted
him.  A New York state court judge expressed disgust at "the spectacle" of the
Giants' attempt to enforce "a contract which binds [the player] for a series
of years and [the team] for 10 days." [4]  The National League spent
$15,000 on lawyers' fees in New York alone fighting the Players League, but
came away with nothing to show for it.
     The Players League won the legal battles, but not the war--in fact,
everyone lost money.  Both sides agreed to Spalding's suggestion that some
Players League teams be merged with existing NL and AA franchises and the rest
be dissolved.  After a bit of skirmishing over the rights to sign some of the
returning Players League stars, the NL and AA merged their sixteen clubs into
twelve after the 1891 season, and then signed a new National Agreement with
the minor leagues.  Players had little choice but to accept the terms offered
by the "Baseball Trust," but a few rebelled.  Amos Rusie won 22 games in 1895
and led the league in strikeouts, but Giants owner Andrew Freedman rewarded
him by withholding $600 in fines from his paycheck.  Rusie sat out 1896 and
then sued the Giants when they invoked their reserve for 1897 as well.  The
case was settled before trial, with all the National League owners reportedly
kicking in a portion of Rusie's $5,000 claim.
     As usual the next baseball war set off a spate of contract jumping and
legal skirmishes.  Over half of the players who suited up for the American
League's first season of play were ex-National Leaguers.  The older league
went to court to try to wrest back a number of their players, most notably
Napoleon Lajoie.  Lajoie signed a contract with the Phillies in 1900, but
refused to be bound by the reserve clause and jumped to the Athletics before
the 1901 season.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the Phillies were
entitled to an injunction barring the batting champ from playing for the A's
[5].
     But that decision turned in part on two unusual factors.  First, the
Phillies' contract reserved Lajoie for only three years and stated what salary
would be paid in each of those three years, so it was not simply "a contract
to make a contract."  Second, Lajoie was a star of the very highest order.
Courts are reluctant to order someone to perform a contract for personal
services, although they are not at all reluctant to order the defendant to pay
monetary damages equal to the harm caused by his nonperformance.  Only when
the harm cannot be measured in dollars or the contract involves something
unique or irreplaceable are injunctions or other nonmonetary remedies granted
by a court.  The Phillies may have been able to find equally talented
replacements for many of their players, but Lajoie--who led the AL in hits,
doubles, home runs, runs, RBIs, batting average, and slugging average in
1901--was a unique talent.
     The Phillies' legal victory proved hollow.  The A's quickly dealt Lajoie
to Cleveland.  Whenever Cleveland was scheduled to play in Philadelphia,
Lajoie stayed far away.  His old team's attempts to obtain an injunction from
an Ohio court were not successful.
     Other National League efforts to hold on to players also failed.  Citing
a Supreme Court case holding that a contract that could be abandoned on one
year's notice was not enforceable, a federal judge dismissed Brooklyn's suit
against veteran catcher Deacon McGuire because the team could terminate his
contract on only ten days' notice [6].  The judge also questioned whether
McGuire's talents were so "unique and peculiar" that Brooklyn could not
replace him.  McGuire was a fine player, but he was no Nap Lajoie. A state
judge in St. Louis went further in a case involving pitcher Jack Harper.  Not
only was the standard NL player contract lacking in mutuality, according to
the court, but it also unreasonably restrained competition in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act [7].
     After two years of rivalry, the National League agreed to recognize the
American League as an equal.  The two major leagues used blacklists and
boycotts to bring "outlaw" minor leagues to their knees and keep control of
players who had the audacity to hold out for higher salaries.  When Ty Cobb
refused to accept Detroit's 1913 salary offer, the Tigers suspended him.  The
impasse was broken only when two Georgia congressmen called for a federal
investigation.  The threat of government action got Ty Cobb a raise, but the
players in general benefited much more from organized baseball's war with the
Federal League, which no doubt had the National and American Leagues muttering
"Two's company, three's a crowd" when the 1914 season opened.
     The established leagues didn't even try to use the courts to stop reserve
jumpers from playing for the Federal League, but they did seek injunctions
against a number of players who jumped, even though they had signed contracts
for the upcoming season.  The irrepressible Hal Chase signed a 1914 contract
with the White Sox, but then moved on to the new league.  Teams could release
players they didn't want on ten days' notice, so Chase gave Chicago ten days'
warning and shuffled off to the Buffalo Federals.  A New York state judge
agreed with Chase's reasoning and turned down Chicago's request that he order
Chase to return [8].  Not only did the contract lack mutuality, said the
judge, but organized baseball placed so many limits on the freedom of players
that they were left in a state of "quasi peonage" that was "contrary to the
spirit of American institutions and . . . contrary to the spirit of the
Constitution of the United States."  The court's opinion did contain some good
news for organized baseball:  it ruled that baseball did not involve
interstate commerce and, therefore, did not violate the Sherman Act.
     The judges who heard cases involving contract jumpers occasionally showed
real distaste for the whole nasty business.  Phillies catcher Bill Killefer
signed with the Chicago Federal League club for a substantial increase in
salary, but re-signed with the Phillies only 12 days later when they topped
Chicago's offer.  When the Federals asked a Michigan federal judge to order
Killefer not to play for Philadelphia, they were rudely received.  Citing the
opinions in the Ewing, Ward, and McGuire cases, Judge Sessions noted that the
right of reservation in the Phillies' 1913 contract with Killefer did not bind
him for the 1914 season because it was indefinite and lacked mutuality [9].
But he refused to enforce Chicago's contract because it came into court with
"unclean hands."  Killefer was under a moral, although not a legal obligation
to play for Philadelphia in 1914, but Chicago persuaded him to repudiate that
obligation.  Both teams had "acted wrongfully and in bad faith," and the judge
refused to lift a finger to help either one of them.  He also let Killefer
know what he thought of him, calling him "a person upon whose pledged word
little or no reliance can be placed, and who, for gain to himself, neither
scruples nor hesitates to disregard and violate his express engagements and
agreements."  Chicago appealed the decision but was unsuccessful.  The Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Judge Sessions that none of the parties
to these underhanded dealings was deserving of any assistance from the courts
[10].
     Knowing that they could not outlast their better-financed rivals, the
Federal League owners filed an antitrust suit against organized baseball in
Chicago on January 5, 1915.  They asked federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis,
who had a reputation as a committed trustbuster, to declare the National
Agreement's reserve and blacklisting provisions to be unreasonable and illegal
restraints on competition.  The trial was completed that month, but the
Federal League's hopes for a quick verdict in their favor were in vain.  The
future baseball commissioner pondered the evidence all through the 1915
season, which resulted in another healthy dose of red ink for team owners.
After waiting almost a year for Judge Landis to make up his mind, the rival
leagues cut a deal.  Organized baseball bought some of the Federal League's
player contracts and stadiums--in reality, they were buying peace--and the
Federals dropped the antitrust suit.
     The final deal satisfied everyone except AL president Ban Johnson, who
preferred to fight to the death rather than pay his enemies a nickel of
tribute, and the Baltimore Federal League club, which wanted to buy an
existing major league franchise and move it to Baltimore.  Angered by Brooklyn
owner Ebbets' scornful description of their city as "one of the worst minor
league towns in this country," the Baltimore owners pledged $50,000 to finance
a new antitrust suit against organized baseball and the Federal League owners
who had sold the league out for a few pieces of silver.  When the Department
of Justice refused to investigate, Baltimore filed its complaint in federal
district court in Washington, D.C., in 1917.
     The testimony given at the trial, which didn't begin until March 1919,
left little doubt that organized baseball's team owners had agreed to use the
reserve clause and blacklisting to maintain tight control over the supply of
players and paid the Federal League to go out of business in order to protect
their monopoly over professional baseball.  The judge's directions to the jury
virtually directed a verdict for the plaintiffs.  The Baltimore club won
$254,000 in damages.
     Organized baseball's lawyers immediately appealed the decision.  They
contended that baseball was not commerce because it involved "personal effort
not related to the production" of material goods.  If baseball did not
involve interstate commerce, it was not subject to the Sherman Act or any
other federal law.  The court of appeals heard oral arguments on October 15,
1920, only three days after the final game of the World Series was played
between the Cleveland Indians and the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Only a few weeks
later, it overturned the lower court's decision in favor of Baltimore [11].
The appellate court first noted that

     The transportation in interstate commerce of the players and the
     paraphernalia used by them was but an incident to the main purpose of the
     appellants, namely the production of the game.  It was for it they were
     in business--not for the purpose of transferring players, balls, and
     uniforms . . .

     . . . So here, baseball is not commerce, though some of its incidents
     may be. Suppose a law firm in the city of Washington sends its members to
     points in different states to try lawsuits; they would travel, and
     probably carry briefs and records, in interstate commerce.  Could it be
     correctly said that the firm, in the trial of the lawsuits, was engaged
     in trade and commerce?  Or, take the case of a lecture bureau, which
     employs persons to deliver lectures before Chautauqua gatherings at
     points in different states.  It would be necessary for the lecturers to
     travel in interstate commerce, in order that they might fulfill their
     engagements; but would it not be an unreasonable stretch of the ordinary
     meaning of the words to say that the bureau was engaged in trade or
     commerce?

     The court of appeals then cited with approval cases holding that those
who produce theatrical exhibitions, practice medicine, or launder clothes are
not engaged in commerce.
     The Baltimore club tried to persuade the United States Supreme Court to
reinstate the original verdict in its favor.  But Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, upheld the decision of the court of
appeals [12].

     Exhibitions of base ball . . . are purely state affairs.  It is true
     that, in order to attain for the exhibitions the great popularity that
     they have achieved, competitions must be arranged between clubs from
     different cities and States.  But the fact that in order to give the
     exhibitions the League must induce free persons to cross state lines and
     arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character
     of the business . . . [T]he transport is a mere incident, not the
     essential thing.  That to which it is incident, the exhibition, although
     made for money would not be called trade or commerce in the commonly
     accepted use of those words.  As it is put by the defendants, personal
     effort, not related to production, is not a subject of commerce.  That
     which in its consummation is not commerce does not become commerce among
     the States because the transportation that we have mentioned takes place.
     To repeat the illustrations given by the Court below, a firm of lawyers
     sending out a member to argue a case, or the Chautauqua lecture bureau
     sending out lecturers, does not engage in such commerce because the
     lawyer or lecturer goes to another State.

     Only a year later, the Court ruled that a company that presented
vaudeville shows in cities around the country was, unlike major league
baseball, engaged in interstate commerce [13].  Justice Holmes explained the
different outcomes in the two cases by pointing to the difference in "the
degree of interstate activity" in baseball games and vaudeville shows, but his
reasoning is unconvincing.
     The next challenge to organized baseball's hegemony came a quarter
century later from Don Jorge Pasqual, the millionaire organizer of the Mexican
League, who lured 18 major leaguers south of the border in 1946.  In August of
that year, the owners amended their Rule 15 to provide that any player who
jumped to the new league would be ineligible to return to organized baseball
for five years.  The Cubs' general manager, who proposed the amendment, said
that the prospect of being blacklisted for five years "will do a lot more to
discourage Stan Musial from going to Mexico next winter than any suits we may
file on the reserve clause."
     The Rule 15 blacklist stemmed the southward flow of players. Commissioner
A.B. "Happy" Chandler refused to reinstate the players who returned to the
states in 1947.  Catcher Mickey Owen was reduced to managing a semipro club in
Winner, South Dakota, while several other Mexican League refugees signed with
Cuban clubs.
     When blacklisted outfielder Danny Gardella filed an antitrust complaint
against organized baseball, a federal district judge in New York noted the
"clear trend toward a broader conception of what constitutes interstate
commerce" than had existed when Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore was decided
over 25 years earlier, but felt bound to follow the Supreme Court's decision
in that case [14].  But in February 1949 a federal court of appeals voted 2-1
to reverse the district court's dismissal of Gardella's complaint [15].  Judge
Learned Hand distinguished Federal Baseball by emphasizing the importance to
modern-day baseball of interstate radio and television broadcasts of major
league games.  Judge Frank's separate opinion strongly condemned the reserve
system.

     For the "reserve clause," as has been observed, results in something
     resembling peonage of the baseball player . . . Although many courts have
     refused to enforce the "reserve" clause, yet severe and practically
     efficacious extra-legal penalties are imposed for violation.  The most
     extreme of these penalties is the blacklisting of the player so that no
     club in organized baseball will hire him . . . The violator may perhaps
     become a . . . bartender or a street-sweeper, but his chances of ever
     playing baseball are exceedingly slim.

     Gardella's victory was not a final one--it simply allowed him the
opportunity to prove his allegations in a trial.  Former Cardinals Fred
Martin, Max Lanier, and Lou Klein filed a separate suit, and all four players
asked the district court to order their immediate reinstatement pending the
outcome of the trials, but the court declined to do so [16].  Faced with the
prospect of spending the 1949 season in a courtroom rather than on a baseball
field, the players were receptive to baseball's offer to settle the case.
Commissioner Chandler later characterized his reinstatement of the four "good
kids" who had "said they were sorry" for jumping their reserves as inspired by
his desire to "temper justice with mercy."  But the court of appeals
decision--and Judge Frank's sentiments in particular--no doubt had an effect
too.  Gardella, who had been working as a hospital orderly after returning
from Mexico, was reportedly given $60,000 to drop his case.
     Subsequent litigation and congressional inquiries kept baseball's
attorneys busy in the 1950s.  Organized baseball was the defendant in eight
pending antitrust suits when it sought relief from Congress in 1951.  At its
behest three separate bills that would have granted all professional sports
leagues a complete exemption from the antitrust laws were introduced in the
House of Representatives that year.  After lengthy hearings, Congressman
Emanuel Celler's Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power recommended that
the bills not be passed, and none of them were.  The Celler Subcommittee did
not favor blanket antitrust immunity, but did conclude that professional
baseball could not operate successfully without some form of the reserve
clause [17].
     After the Gardella decision, organized baseball's lawyers and the
Subcommittee assumed that Federal Baseball was no longer good law.  But the
Supreme Court surprised them in 1953 in Toolson v. New York Yankees [18].
When Yankee farmhand George Toolson was placed on the ineligible list for
refusing to accept a demotion to a lower-classification team, he sued the
Yankees.  A California federal judge dismissed the case before trial on the
basis of Federal Baseball.  "If that case is, as Judge Frank intimates in
his Gardella opinion, an "impotent zombi,' " the judge wrote, "I feel that it
is not my duty to so find but that the Supreme Court should so declare." [19]
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed [20], and the Supreme Court
reaffirmed Federal Baseball in a one-paragraph opinion.

     In Federal Baseball . . . this Court held that . . . professional
     baseball . . . was not within the scope of the federal antitrust
     laws. Congress has had the ruling under consideration but has not seen
     fit to bring such business under these laws by legislation having
     prospective effect. . . . The present cases ask us to overrule the prior
     decision, and, with retrospective effect, hold the antitrust laws
     applicable.  We think that if there are evils in this field which now
     warrant application to it of the antitrust laws it should be by
     legislation.  Without re-examination of the underlying issues, the
     judgments below are affirmed on the authority of Federal Baseball . . .

     The Court's conclusion that "Congress has had the ruling under
consideration but has not seen fit to bring baseball under the antitrust
laws by legislation" is questionable.  The Celler Subcommittee report
concluded that given the Gardella decision and cases subsequent to Federal
Baseball, which took a broader view of what constituted interstate commerce,
"it may be seriously doubted whether baseball should now be regarded as exempt
from the antitrust laws."  If Congress assumed that baseball was subject to
the antitrust laws, its failure to act on bills granting an antitrust
exemption was evidence that it did not intend baseball to be exempt--which was
just the opposite of what the Court said in Toolson.
     The next few years saw the Supreme Court hold that professional boxing
and football did not share baseball's antitrust immunity.  In Radovich v.
National Football League [21], the Court expressly limited the reach of the
Federal Baseball precedent to baseball.  Three justices dissented from this
decision "to put baseball in a class by itself."
     Another flurry of congressional activity followed.  In 1957 the House
Antitrust Subcommittee held fifteen days of hearings on seven different bills,
some of which would have exempted all professional sports from antitrust
liability.  Congressman Celler introduced a bill exempting only those acts
that were "reasonably necessary" to maintaining competitive balance and the
integrity of sports, but the full House voted to give professional sports
leagues a broader although not unlimited exemption.  A Senate committee held
more hearings in 1958--Casey Stengel, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Stan
Musial testified the day after the All-Star Game was played in nearby
Baltimore--but the full Senate never considered the bill.  In a 1959 report to
the membership, the Major League Baseball Players Association's lawyers said,
"There does not seem any doubt that Congress will eventually pass a law
concerning Baseball's right to continue its reserve clause," but Congress
never came any closer to passing comprehensive sports antitrust legislation.
Bills were introduced year after year--attempts to organize a third major
league, franchise moves, and the CBS purchase of the Yankees inspired some of
the legislative proposals--but none was enacted.
     In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Federal Baseball once more in
Flood v. Kuhn [22].  When the Cardinals traded Curt Flood to the Phillies
after the 1969 season, Flood refused to go.  "I am not a piece of property
to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes," he wrote to Commissioner
Bowie Kuhn.  Kuhn refused to declare him a free agent, so Flood hired former
Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg and filed suit.
The lower court's dismissal of his case was eventually upheld by the Supreme
Court. Justice Harry Blackmun's opinion noted that baseball's antitrust
immunity was "an anomaly" and "an aberration," but he felt bound by history.

     Remedial legislation has been introduced repeatedly in Congress but none
     has ever been enacted.  The Court, accordingly, has concluded that
     Congress as yet has had no intention to subject baseball's reserve system
     to the reach of the antitrust statutes . . . If there is any
     inconsistency or illogic in all this, it is an inconsistency and illogic
     of long standing that is to be remedied by the Congress and not this
     Court.

     The Court's opinion also noted that state antitrust laws could not apply
to baseball.  Flood's career had ended by the time the Supreme Court issued
its decision.  After sitting out the 1970 season, he was traded to the
Senators in 1971, but retired after hitting only .200 in 13 games.
     It seems unlikely that the Court would reach a different result if a
similar antitrust case were presented to it today.  But does baseball's
antitrust exemption really matter today?  The players' union has managed to
win free agency, salary arbitration, and limits on trades without a player's
consent through collective bargaining or arbitration.  After two arbitrators'
decisions that the owners violated the collective-bargaining agreement by
failing to bid for free agents like Kirk Gibson and Tim Raines after the 1985
and 1986 seasons, the players seem to be in the catbird seat.  But what if the
baseball owners choose to hang as tough as the football owners did in the 1987
strike?  The courts have held that neither labor nor management can be sued
under the antitrust laws over provisions in a collective-bargaining agreement,
even if those provisions are clearly anticompetitive.  The football players
are litigating whether the labor exemption applies after a union contract has
expired.  But even if they win, baseball's unique antitrust exemption might
still serve as a shield for the baseball owners if the players ever file a
similar suit.
     Baseball's exemption might protect it from the players but not from other
parties who have less connection to the on-the-field aspects of the business
of baseball.  For example, an anticompetitive owner conspiracy involving
stadium concession or parking revenues might not be exempt.
     But what if a maverick owner--say, Ted Turner--tried to move his team to
another city without the approval of his peers?  Al Davis and Bob Irsay could
move the Raiders and Colts to greener pastures because the antitrust laws
prevent other NFL owners from agreeing to boycott them or take other punitive
action.  While there is some authority for the proposition that baseball's
antitrust exemption is broad enough to cover that kind of situation, a court
that was uncomfortable with the reasoning of Federal Baseball and its progeny
could justify a different outcome in such a case much more easily than in a
case involving free agency or other player-management disputes.
     As noted above, the Supreme Court has referred to baseball's antitrust
immunity as an "exception," an "anomaly," and an "aberration."  According to
another federal court, baseball's system of governance--under which the
Commissioner has broad authority to prevent or remedy acts that are contrary,
in his view, to the best interests of baseball--"is equally an exception,
anomaly, and aberration." [23]
     The 1921 Major League Agreement, which created the Office of the
Commissioner, contained virtually no limits on the Commissioner's authority
because Judge Landis refused to accept the job unless he was given carte
blanche.  The current version of that agreement provides that "the functions
of the Commissioner shall be . . . to investigate . . . any act, transaction,
or practice . . . not in the best interests of the national game of Baseball"
and "to determine . . . what preventive, remedial, or punitive action is
appropriate . . . and to take such action." [24]  The agreement also states
that the club owners agree to be bound by the Commissioner's decisions, and
"waive such right of recourse to the courts as would otherwise have existed in
their favor." [25]
     Perhaps former Oakland A's owner Charles O. Finley should have read that
language more carefully before he signed the Major League Agreement.  When
Finley tried to sell Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox and Vida Blue
to the Yankees just before the 1976 trading deadline, Commissioner Kuhn
quickly nullified the transactions as "inconsistent with the best interests of
baseball, the integrity of the game, and the maintenance of public confidence
in it."  Finley's lawyers tried to persuade a federal judge that Kuhn's action
exceeded his authority, but the judge ruled that Kuhn's authority to void
player transactions was not limited to cases involving rules violations or
moral turpitude, as Finley argued.  A federal appeals court later upheld that
decision [26], and also noted that the "waiver of recourse" provision quoted
above kept Finley from going to court to challenge Kuhn's ruling unless he
could show that the Major League Agreement was inconsistent with state or
federal law or that the procedures followed by Kuhn "failed to follow the
basic rudiments of due process of law." [27]
     Pete Rose's 1989 lawsuit against A. Bartlett Giamatti relied on just that
argument--that Rose was being denied the right to a fair hearing by an
unbiased decisionmaker.  When Rose asked a state court judge to issue an
injunction stopping the Commissioner's pending disciplinary proceeding,
Giamatti's lawyers filed a motion to remove the case to federal court.  In
most cases, state courts have jurisdiction if one or both of the parties to
the lawsuit are citizens of that state; if the plaintiff and defendant are
citizens of different states, federal courts usually have jurisdiction to hear
the case.  Because Rose was a citizen of Ohio and Giamatti was a citizen of
New York, Giamatti was able to remove the case from the Ohio state
court--which might favor Ohioans over New Yorkers--to a federal court [28].
After losing that legal skirmish, Rose withdrew his lawsuit and agreed to be
suspended indefinitely from baseball, so the court never ruled on the merits
of Rose's claim that the Commissioner was not treating him fairly.


REFERENCES

1  Allegheny Base-ball Club v. Bennett, 14 Fed.  257 (C.C.W.D. Pa., 1882).
2  St. Louis Athletic Ass'n v. Mullane, No. 3642 (C.C.S.D. Ohio, May 13,
   1884).  Reprinted in Sporting Life, May 21, 1884, p.2, col.1.
3  Metropolitan Exhibition Co. v. Ewing, 42 Fed. 198 (C.C.S.D. N.Y. 1890).
4  Metropolitan Exhibition Co. v. Ward, 24 Abb.N.C. 414 (1890).
5  Philadelphia Base Ball Club v. Lajoie, 51 Atl. 973 (Pa. S. Ct. 1902).
6  Brooklyn Baseball Club v. McGuire, 116 Fed. 783 (C.C.E.D. Pa. 1902).
7  American Base Ball & Athletic Exhibition Co. of St. Louis v. Harper, 54
   Cent. L.J. 449 (St. Louis Cir. Ct. 1902).
8  American League Baseball Club of Chicago v. Chase, 86 Misc. 441, 149 N.Y.
   Supp. 6 (Sup. Ct. 1914).
9  Weeghman v. Killefer, 214 Fed. 168 (W.D. Mich. 1914).
10 Weeghman v. Killefer, 215 Fed. 289 (6th Cir. 1914).
11 National League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. Federal Baseball Club
   of Baltimore, 269 Fed. 681 (D.C. Cir. 1921).
12 Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League of Professional
   Baseball Clubs, 259 U.S. 200 (1922).
13 Hart v. Keith Vaudeville Exchange, 262 U.S. 271 (1923).
14 Gardella v. Chandler, 79 F.Supp. 260 (S.D.N.Y. 1948).
15 Gardella v. Chandler, 172 F.2d 402 (2d Cir. 1949).
16 Martin v. Chandler, 174 F.2d 917 (2d. Cir. 1949); Gardella v. Chandler,
   174 F.2d 919 (2d. Cir. 1949).
17 H.R. Rep. 2002, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 228-32 (1952).
18 346 U.S. 356 (1953).
19 Toolson v. New York Yankees, 101 F.Supp. 93 (S.D. Cal. 1951).
20 200 F.2d 198 (9th Cir. 1952).
21 358 U.S. 445 (1957).
22 407 U.S. 258 (1972).
23 Charles O. Finley & Co., Inc. v. Kuhn, 569 F.2d 527, 537 (1978).
24 Major League Agreement, Art. I, Sec. 2.
25 Id. at Art. VII, Sec. 2.
26 Finley v. Kuhn, 569 F.2d 527 (1978).
27 Id. at 544.
28 Rose v. Giamatti, 721 F.Supp. 906 (1989).