Description
Book SynopsisThe Baseball Trust is about the origins and persistence of baseball''s exemption from antitrust law, which is one of the most curious features of our legal system and also one of the most well known to sports fans. Every other sport, like virtually every other kind of business, is governed by the antitrust laws, but baseball has been exempt for nearly a century. No one thinks this state of affairs makes any sense. The conventional explanation of this oddity emphasizes baseball''s unique cultural status as the national pastime, and assumes that judges and legislators have expressed their love for the game by insulating it from antitrust attack. A serious baseball fan, Stuart Banner provides a thoroughly entertaining history of the game through the prism of the antitrust exemption. But he also narrates a very different kind of baseball history, one in which a sophisticated business organization successfully worked the levers of the legal system to achieve a result enjoyed by no other ind
Trade ReviewThe Baseball Trust is impeccably researched and a valuable history of the politics, law and business of professional sports * Peter Catapano, City University of New York *
This well-researched, well-written book merits a diverse audience, whether baseball fan, historian, public official, or legal scholar ... Highly recommended. * A.R. Sanderson, CHOICE *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. The Reserve Clause ; 2. The Baseball Trust ; 3. The Supreme Court Steps In ; 4. The Birth of the Antitrust Exemption ; 5. Baseball Becomes Unique ; 6. A Political Football ; 7. Three Months of State Antitrust Law ; 8. The Curt Flood Case ; 9. The End of the Reserve Clause ; 10. A Shrunken Exemption
