Baseball and Congress

[Bustem' Down]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/baseball/mlb/09/28/congress.steroids.ap/index.html

I understand and am all for a stiffer drug policy in the MLB, what I don't get is how Congress has jurisdiction over corporate policies? Maybe I'm missing something or maybe someone can explain, but it seems like it's wrong. I don't see Congress trying to enforce internal policies on say Eddie Bauer.

 

[Ken King]

I believe that it has to do with them being exempt from the standard anti-trust laws and as such Congress gets oversight.

 

[donbarzini]

I believe that it has to do with them being exempt from the standard anti-trust laws and as such Congress gets oversight.

That sound you hear is Ken hitting the nail on the head. Congress has MLB by the "short-hairs" because of the anti-trust exemption. Any time Bud and Co. misbehave they're threatened with losing the exemption. First time they almost lost it was with Curt Flood(for those of you old enough) when he refused to report after he had been traded from Cardinals to (Phillies?). Free agency occurred shortly after.

 

[Agee]

Q: What is the antitrust exemption and how did baseball get it?
A: Any business that operates across state borders -- and therefore participates in interstate commerce -- is subject to antitrust legislation. Attempts to control trade and monopolize may be deemed illegal by federal circuit courts under the Sherman and Clayton acts.

Baseball has been exempt from these antitrust laws since 1922, when the Supreme Court ruled in its favor in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National Baseball Clubs. The Supreme Court determined even though there was scheduling of games across state lines, those games were intrastate events since the travel from one state to another was "not the essential thing," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the decision.

Baltimore, a member of the Federal League that operated as a major league in 1914-15, had sued the National and American Leagues, charging the Federal League's inability to sign players was due to antitrust violations.

At the time of the 1922 ruling, the National and American Leagues were merely umbrella organizations. They arranged the schedules and set the rules, but the business was entirely local in the sense that there was no revenue sharing, no radio or television and no national sponsors or licensing deals.

By virtue of the exemption, coupled with decades of reluctance of various courts to overrule, baseball is the only sport, or business for that matter, that has an exemption to the extent that it does.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2001/1205/1290707.html

Interstate commerce, revenue sharing, and player trades...

I'm not getting the connection with MLB's drug policies and the involvement of Congress. IMO, if baseball and its so-called leadership had any sembelence of a nut-sac, they would drop the hammer, and nail all drug (steroid) users. Screw the tip toeing policy that is now in place, and the proposed policy baseball wants to enforce.

Get rid of Bud Selig and Company, and let baseball police itself. Keep Congress the hell out of the game, they have much more important issues to deal with!

 

[Bustem' Down]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2001/1205/1290707.html

Interstate commerce, revenue sharing, and player trades...

I'm not getting the connection with MLB's drug policies and the involvement of Congress. IMO, if baseball and its so-called leadership had any sembelence of a nut-sac, they would drop the hammer, and nail all drug (steroid) users. Screw the tip toeing policy that is now in place, and the proposed policy baseball wants to enforce.

Get rid of Bud Selig and Company, and let baseball police itself. Keep Congress the hell out of the game, they have much more important issues to deal with!

That's what I say, but we would also have to get rid of Fehr and the Players Unions that are balking at every step of the process.

 

[wmburdette]

I'm not getting the connection with MLB's drug policies and the involvement of Congress. IMO, if baseball and its so-called leadership had any sembelence of a nut-sac, they would drop the hammer, and nail all drug (steroid) users. Screw the tip toeing policy that is now in place, and the proposed policy baseball wants to enforce.

I think Frank Robinson was on to something when he said that MLB should wipe the record books of any achievements by steroid users. That would get their attention real quick!