Baseballs Antitrust Exemption and the strongReservestrong System.pdfVIP

William Mary Law R eview Volume 12 | Issue 4 Article 8 Baseballs Antitrust Exemption and the Reserve System: Reappraisal of an Anachronism Richard B. Blackwell Repository Citation Ric ard B. Blackwell, Baseballs Antitrust Exemp tion and the Reserve Sy stem: Reappr aisal of an An achronism, 12 Wm. Mary L . Rev. 859 (1971), ttp://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol12/ iss4/8 Copyrig t c 1971 by the authors. This article is broug t to you by the William Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. ttp://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr BASEBALLS ANTITRUST EXEMPTION AND THE RESERVE SYSTEM: REAPPRAISAL OF AN ANACHRONISM The century that has elapsed since the inception of professional base- ball in 1864 has seen American professional sports evolve from an embryonic form of diversion into a leviathan industry of international scope and influence. This phenomenal development did not transpire in an economic vacuum; the flourishing of professional sports was an integral part of a period of unprecedented economic and industrial growth. This same century also witnessed the first attempts by American government to regulate the wild, often ruthless expansion of new indus- tries. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Act 1 designed to destroy monopoly powers and combinations in restraint of trade operating in interstate commerce. The Sherman Act involved the federal government in antitrust enforcement, a matter previously under the common law jurisdiction of the state courts.2 In 1914, the federal antitrust laws were supplemented by the passage of the Clayton Act,3 prov