Following months of delays, Major League Baseball finally kicks off its 2020 season this week. Max Scherzer and the defending champion Washington Nationals host Gerrit Cole and the reloaded New York Yankees. Expect a great matchup.
That said, we should have been watching games a month ago.
When Major League Baseball suspended operations at the beginning of government-mandated COVID-19 shutdowns, it was understandable. Based on information available at the time, suspending games seemed like a prudent public health measure. That’s fine. It explains events through May.
During June, unfortunately, baseball fans endured a spectacle that was equal parts tragedy and farce. Sensing a point of leverage that never existed, Major League Baseball’s team owners misdiagnosed the situation. Following Rahm Emmanuel’s classic adage about not allowing a crisis to go to waste, team owners attempted to strongarm players into additional financial concessions. This despite the fact that players had already agreed to significant financial hit in the sport’s March 26 agreement.
Players, quite understandably, balked.
That begat June’s fiasco. Players put forth good-faith proposals to restore the season, play the maximum number of games, and entertain creative proposals to generate additional revenue. Owners greeted each proposal with a new set of unreasonable demands. Owners ultimately imposed their vision for a season based upon authority they already enjoyed.
The ironic part, however, is that one institution possessed tremendous leverage over team owners the entire time: Congress. It ought to have used its power then, and it still should.
Major League Baseball’s team owners have been exempt from federal antitrust laws for nearly a century. Some may argue that antitrust laws are economically counterproductive or unconstitutional, but as long as they are on the books, they should apply equally. Major League Baseball’s team owners do not deserve a special interest carve-out.
While most fans think Congress created team owners’ antitrust carve-out, it actually came about through the courts. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that somehow, someway, Major League Baseball’s team owners are not engaged in interstate commerce. This despite the fact that teams travel between states for games and charge spectators for admission (under normal, nonpandemic circumstances). Yet, according to the Supreme Court, traveling between states to stage events for paying customers isn’t “interstate commerce.”
Thirty years later, in the case Toolson v. New York Yankees, the court reaffirmed team owners’ carve-out. Justices noted that Congress could amend antitrust laws to cover Major League Baseball’s team owners anytime it wanted. In 30 years since the original ruling, Congress had declined to do so. Later, the 1972 case Flood v. Kuhn largely reaffirmed the previous two rulings.
The net result is that while Congress tinkered around the edges in 1998, Major League Baseball team owners are essentially exempt from laws that apply to every other commercial enterprise.
It doesn’t take a genius to see why that status quo has prevailed: Baseball is popular. Politicians? Not so much. Most politicians are cowards who stick to the path of least resistance. In normal times, you’d never expect them to upend the owners’ special carve-out.
But times have changed. Thanks to their own high-profile, season-delaying intransigence, Americans have grown to loathe Major League Baseball’s team owners almost as much as they loathe Congress. To any politician worth his salt, this represents an opportunity.
If Congress were to repeal Major League Baseball’s team owners’ antitrust exemption, it would be the most popular thing they’ve done in ages. One would think that would be appealing in a contentious election year. It could also draw broad bipartisan support, and President Trump would be likely to sign it if it were to hit his desk.
The time is ripe for Congress to right this century-old injustice if lawmakers can just seize the opportunity staring them in the face.
Adam Cahn grew up in New York City and has been a Yankee fan since the early 1990s. A resident of Austin, he blogs about Texas politics seriously at Cahnman’s Musings and writes satire at TXLEGEREPORT.
