In the United States, professional sports are an American way of life and culture. These leagues started out as entertainment for all of its spectators, but progressed into Abig business@ which has allowed team owners to prosper tremendously. Initially, majority of the different professional sports team owners used various methods to restrict players= mobility and salaries and/or attempted to monopolize the sport in some aspect. However, through the judicial courts of the federal government, antitrust laws apply to all professional sports, except baseball. The antitrust statutes applicable to professional sports are within the Sherman Act.

No area of law has impacted professional sports over the past thirty years than antitrust. (Roberts, 135) First enacted by Congress in 1890, the Sherman Act was to curb concentrations of power that interfered with trade and reduced economic competition. These laws are the major mechanisms available to affect change in sports. (Champion, 52) Various groups have used the antitrust laws: e.g., players, owners, colleges, etc. The goal of these antitrust plaintiffs was to achieve some result at the expense of management, whether it

Article XXVII of the current collective bargaining agreement provided:

Gardella filed a lawsuit challenging baseball=s reserve clause and the Supreme Court=s decision in Federal Baseball. (Wolohan, 355) Danny Gardella argued that Organized Baseball had a monopoly on professional players and that by Ablacklisting@ him, it was in restraint of interstate trade and commerce. The District Court dismissed the case based on its reliance of precedent set in Federal Baseball. Gardella appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court found the baseball reserve clause Ashockingly repugnant to moral principles@ which Aresults in something resembling peonage of the baseball player.@ The Court also noted Organized Baseball now had Alucratively contracted for the interstate communication, by radio and television, of the playing of the games.@ (Wolohan, 355) Thus, the Court rendered Organized Baseball to be a matter of interstate commerce.

This decision was the first instance the Supreme Court dealt with the question of baseball=s relationship to the antitrust laws. The Court=s answer was that baseball was not a trade or commerce and, therefore, exempt from the antitrust laws. Although not a part of the Supreme Court=s Baseball Trilogy, the first court case after Federal Baseball to challenge baseball=s antitrust immunity and the closest case to overturning it was Gardella v. Chandler. (172 F.2d 402 [2nd Cir 1949)

In 1914, Hal Chase jumped from the Chicago White Sox of the American League to the Buffalofeds of the Federal League. (Tyras, 304) In American League Baseball Club v. Chase, 149 N.Y.S. 6 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1914) the White Sox sued to stop Chase from playing for another team and to compel him to honor his White Sox contract. Chase unsuccessfully argued that the reserve clause in his contract violated the Sherman Act because of the restraining effect the clause had on players. The New York Supreme Court disagreed with Chase=s argument and stated that although baseball was an Aingeniously devised@ monopoly, it was not Ainterstate trade or commerce . . . subject to the provisions of the Sherman Act. The Court when on to say baseball was an Aamusement, a sport . . . not a commodity . . . subject to the regulation of Congress on the theory that it is interstate commerce. Although the decision freed Chase from his White Sox contract under New York contract law, the court=s holding a!

Some topics in this essay:
Sherman Act, Supreme Court, National League, Amother Trusts@, Organized Baseball, Baseball Clubs, Federal Baseball, National Association, Federal League, White Sox, antitrust laws, organized baseball, national league, supreme court, professional sports, reserve clause, professional baseball, federal league, sherman act, federal baseball, federal antitrust laws, united supreme court, player=s national league, baseball scope federal, scope federal antitrust,