Legal Bases: Baseball And The Law

If baseball is the heart of America, the legal process provides the sinews that hold it in place. It was the legal process that allowed William Hulbert to bring club owners together in a New York City hotel room in 1876 to form the National League, and ninety years later, it allowed Marvin Miller to change a management-funded fraternity of ballplayers into the strongest trade union in America.But how does collective bargaining and labor arbitration work in the major leagues? Why is baseball exempt from the antitrust laws? In Legal Bases, Roger Abrams has assembled an all-star baseball law team whose stories illuminate the sometimes uproarious, sometimes ignominious relationship between law and baseball that has made the business of baseball a truly American institution.

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1 The Legal Process at the Birth of Baseball: John Montgomery "Monte" Ward

2 The Enforcement of Contracts: Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie

3 Baseball's Antitrust Exemption: Curt Flood

4 Collective Bargaining: Marvin Miller

5 The Owners and the Commissioner: Branch Rickey and Charles O. Finley

6 Labor Arbitration and the End of the Reserve System: Andy Messersmith

7 The Collusion Cases: Carlton Fisk

8 The Crimes of Baseball: Pete Rose

9 Baseball's Labor Wars of the 1990s: Sonia Sotomayor

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index