Why does baseball have an anti-trust exemption?
It is not written into the law; it is the result of a Supreme Court decision. The Federal League, which played as a rival major league in 1914-1915, filed an anti-trust suit against MLB. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled for MLB, on the basis that MLB was not interstate commerce and thus was not subject to federal anti-trust laws. In later rulings, the Supreme Court has called the 1922 decision “an anomaly”, but has let it stand as a precedent, saying that it is Congress’s responsibility to overturn the exemption. Bills to overturn the exemption have frequently been introduced in Congress, but they did not make it out of committee. The Court’s interpretation of this action was that Congress intends to keep the exemption. In the new agreement, players and owners have agreed to ask Congress to overturn the anti-trust exemption with respect to labor relations. Congress attempted to pass such a bill during the strike; it passed the Senate committee but got no further. Another attempt has no
