Baseball and the Supreme Court: 100 Years after a Historic Ruling

The very first ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day was thrown out by then-President, and future Chief Justice, William Howard Taft. at a Washington Senators (now the Minnesota Twins) game on April 14, 1910.

One hundred years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Federal Baseball Club v. National League on May 29, 1922 — a ruling that granted Major League Baseball exemption from the antitrust laws of the United States. MLB is the only professional sports league in North America that continues to hold blanket immunity, although others enjoy limited immunity in regard to television rights. Since 1922, MLB’s antitrust exemption has been upheld twice by the Supreme Court: in Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc. (1953) and Flood v. Kuhn (1972).

The Century Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research has launched an online exhibit, “Baseball and the Supreme Court,” which explores the implications of Justice Holmes’s historic ruling a century ago. Scalia Law’s Ross Davies contributed two research papers to the section of the exhibit titled “Legacy of the Antitrust Exemption.”