The controversial 1922 Federal Baseball Supreme Court ruling held that the business of base ball was t subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act because it did t constitute interstate commerce. In Baseball on Trial, legal scholar Nathaniel Grow defies conventional wisdom to explain why the unanimous Supreme Court opinion authored by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, which gave rise to Major League Baseball's exemption from antitrust law, was correct given the circumstances of the time. Currently a billion dollar enterprise, professional baseball teams crisscross the country while the games are broadcast via radio, television, and internet coast to coast. The sheer scope of this activity would seem to embody the phrase interstate commerce. Yet baseball is the only professional sport--indeed the sole industry--in the United States that currently benefits from a judicially constructed antitrust immunity. How could this be? Drawing upon recently released documents from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grow analyzes how the Supreme Court reached this seemingly peculiar result by tracing the Federal Baseball litigation from its roots in 1914 to its resolution in 1922, in the process uncovering significant new details about the proceedings. Grow observes that while interstate commerce was measured at the time by the exchange of tangible goods, baseball teams in the 1910s merely provided live entertainment to their fans, while radio was a fledgling techlogy that had little impact on the sport. The book ultimately concludes that, despite the frequent criticism of the opinion, the Supreme Court's decision was consistent with the conditions and legal climate of the early twentieth century.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
ISBN-10
0252079752
ISBN-13
9780252079757
eBay Product ID (ePID)
183026280
Product Key Features
Author
Nathaniel Grow
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
National Law: Professional
Type
Textbook
Dimensions
Weight
476g
Height
229mm
Width
152mm
Additional Product Features
Place of Publication
Baltimore
Spine
23mm
Content Note
26 Black and White Photographs
Author Biography
Nathaniel Grow is an assistant professor of legal studies at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business.
Date of Publication
27/01/2014
Country of Publication
United States
Genre
National Law: Professional
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