Baseball Meets The Law

Baseball and law have intersected since the primordial days. In 1791, a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance prohibited ball playing near the town’s meeting house. Ball games on Sundays were barred by a Pennsylvania statute in 1794. In 2015, a federal court held that baseball’s exemption from antitrust laws applied to franchise relocations. Another court overturned the conviction of Barry Bonds for obstruction of justice. A third denied a request by rooftop entrepreneurs to enjoin the construction of a massive video screen at Wrigley Field. This exhaustive chronology traces the effects the law has had on the national pastime, both pro and con, on and off the field, from the use of copyright to protect not only equipment but also “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to frequent litigation between players and owners over contracts and the reserve clause. The stories of lawyers like Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Branch Rickey are entertainingly instructive.

Baseball and law have intersected since the primordial days. In 1791, a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance prohibited ball playing near the town's meeting house. Ball games on Sundays were barred by a Pennsylvania statute in 1794. In 2015, a federal court held that baseball's exemption from antitrust laws applied to franchise relocations. Another court overturned the conviction of Barry Bonds for obstruction of justice. A third denied a request by rooftop entrepreneurs to enjoin the construction of a massive video screen at Wrigley Field. This exhaustive chronology traces the effects the law has had on the national pastime, both pro and con, on and off the field, from the use of copyright to protect not only equipment but also "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" to frequent litigation between players and owners over contracts and the reserve clause. The stories of lawyers like Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Branch Rickey are entertainingly instructive.

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Focusing on the years 1903 to 1930, Dr. Seymour discusses the emergence of the two major leagues and the World Series, the bitter trade struggles and pennant rivalries, and such legendary figures as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.

This text considers such topics as the constitutional problem of due process when an athlete, coach, or team is excluded from competition; the primary issues arising in sports injury litigation; legal approaches to sex discrimination in athletics; the regulation of academic standards in intercollegiate athletics; and others.

Sports Law looks at major court cases, statutes, and regulations that explore a variety of legal issues in the sports industry. The early chapters provide an overview of sports law in general terms and explore its impact on race, politics, religion, and everyday affairs. Later chapters address hot button issues such as gender equity, drug testing, and discrimination. Written from a sport management perspective, rather than from a lawyer’s, this text covers all the major areas presented in sports law today including: cases relating to torts, contracts, intellectual property, and agents. Factual scenarios throughout the text allow students to critically examine and apply sport management principles to legal issues facing the sports executive. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images or content found in the physical edition.

For all the billions of dollars the sports industry generates, its labor laws and negotiations are still relatively new, and their impact is only beginning to be felt. Labor Relations in Professional Sports offers a step-by-step examination of how these new management-player relationships have come about and what they may portend for the future. In an engaging style that is rich in sports history and anecdotes, the authors examine the background of the major team sports--baseball, football, basketball, and hockey--and analyze how business and legal considerations have affected each sport's development. They also probe current unresolved issues and predictable future problems, such as the relationships of broadcast networks and sports leagues. Surprisingly, this book with so formidable a title is not only readable but even difficult to put down. Explanations of complex legal decisions are reduced to brief, lucid passages. Extensive footnotes are provided in each chapter for readers who wish greater detail. Choice . . . a comprehensive treatment of labor relations in sports. . . . Overall, the book is a slam-dunk success. Journal of Law and Commerce

The Baseball Trust is about the origins and persistence of baseball's strange exemption from antitrust law. Told through a frequently riveting and always entertaining history of America's pastime, author Stuart Banner emphasizes the strategies baseball has used to achieve a protected legal status enjoyed by no other industry in America.

In the early 20th century, immigration, labor unrest, social reforms and government regulations threatened the power of the country's largest employers. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company of Manchester, New Hampshire, remained successful by controlling its workforce, the local media, and local and state government. When a 1912 strike in nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts, threatened to bring the Industrial Workers of the World union to Manchester, the company sought to reassert its influence. Amoskeag worked to promote company pride and to Americanize its many foreign-born workers through benevolence programs, including a baseball club. Textile Field, the most advanced stadium in New England outside of Boston when it was built in 1913, was the centerpiece of this effort. Results were mixed--the company found itself at odds with social movements and new media outlets, and Textile Field became a magnet for conflict with all of professional baseball.

This new collection examines not only how athletes looked to the nation’s judicial system to solve conflicts but also how their cases trans¬formed the interpretation of laws. These essays examine a vast array of social and legal controversies including Heywood v. NBA (1971), which allowed any player to enter the draft; Flood v. Kuhn (1972), which considered baseball’s antitrust status; the Danny Gardella lower level 1948 case regarding free agency and baseball; Muhammad Ali’s celebrated stance against the U.S. draft; Renée Richards’s 1976 lawsuit against the U.S. Tennis Association and its due process ramifications; and human rights violations in international law with respect to the increased recruitment of underage Latin baseball players in the Caribbean region are a few examples of the vast array of stories included. Sport and the Law links these cases to other cases and topics, giving the reader the opportunity to see the threads weaving law and sport together in American society.

This annotated bibliography covers the field of sports law and legislation in terms of national and international legal issues of importance in a comprehensive manner. The 1,367 entries emphasize recent books, articles, and other important works in legal scholarship in recent years but also point to some earlier materials of particular significance historically. This guide to research is designed for students and experts interested in all phases of the legal regulation of sports. Every effort has been made to make the bibliography and its annotations easily accessible to the reader. The volume is divided into thirty-five chapters on various sports, topics of major importance, and issues that are key in sports law and legislation today. Each chapter is then sub-divided into various sections on noteworthy topics. Author and subject indexes give the researcher further assistance.

In late 1901, a number of baseball owners decided to break away from the Western League and form a new league called the American Association. This “outlaw league” refused to recognize organized baseball’s reserve clause, but vowed to respect contracts. Unfortunately, organized baseball did not reciprocate. Over the next two years, the leagues battled each other for players, fans, and financial superiority. This narrative of that struggle details the business operations of the different clubs, the difficulties of securing property for ball parks, and the problem of players jumping contracts. It also chronicles the two playing seasons during the conflict and describes the rowdy behavior of both players and umpires that characterized baseball at the time. Although the American Association would go on to a longer and more successful life, this study shows that outcome was by no means certain in the early 20th century.

This work takes a look at the cases that have had a significant influence on the game of baseball, such as Flood v. Kuhn and Garvey v. MLB, which either made it to the U.S. Supreme Court or brought up major legal issues in baseball. Also included are cases that explore legal issues in baseball but are not as well known and cases that appear in most sports law books. For each case, the historical and legal significance of the decision is discussed.