Legal Bases

On June 12, 1939, in dedicating the Baseball Hall of Fame, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis proclaimed: "I should like to dedicate this museum to all America, to lovers of good sportsmanship, healthy bodies, clean minds. For those are the principles of baseball." The game of baseball mirrors our history, our identity, and our culture. And, 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 toghether 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? InLegal Bases, Roger I. Abrams has assembled an all-star baseball law team whose stories illuminate the sometimes uproarious, sometimes ignominous relationship between law and baseball that has made the business of baseball a truly American institution. Leading off in Abrams' lineup is Monte Ward, the hall of Fame pitcher-shortstop and graduate of Columbia Law School who organized the first baseball union. After Curt Flood's valiant, but doomed, effort in federal court, Andy Messersmith strikes out the reserve system in arbitration. And in the ninth inning, pinch-hitter Judge Sonia Sotomayor drives in the winning run of the 1994 major league players' strike. Along the way, Abrams also examines such issues as drug use and gambling, enforcement of contracts, and the rights of owners and managers. The stories he tells are not limited to his official lineup, but include appearances by a host of other characters-from baseball magnate Albert Spaulding and New York Knickerbocker Alexander Joy Cartwright to "Acting Commissioner" Bud Selig and Jackie Robinson. And Abrams does not limit himself to the history of baseball and the legal process but also speculates on the implications of the 1996 collective bargaining agreement and those other issues-like intellectual property, eminent domain, and gender equity-that may provide the all-star baseball law stories of the future. Author note: Roger I. Abramsis a major league baseball salary arbitrator who has arbitrated cases involving Ron Darling and Brett Butler. He is also Dean and Richardson Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law and has taught and written in the field of sports law for more than a decade. He is the author ofThe Money Pitch, also published by Temple University Press.