The Politics of Baseball and the Anti-Trust Exemption

Major League Baseball, unlike the other professional sports in the United States, has been exempt from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act since 1922, meaning that no competitive professional baseball league can be established to directly compete with MLB for its players, fans, or markets. Still, that hasn’t prevented a few United States legislators from threatening to introduce legislation that would repeal that exemption because — well — listen to this episode that focuses on one Stuart Symington, a senator from Missouri, who strong-armed American League president Joe Cronin in 1967 to replace the Kansas City Athletics with the Kansas City Royals in the span of a mere 18 months — or else. Be prepared to venture down a few rabbit holes that chase the language of the Sherman Act, the volatile relationship between Symington and Charles Finley, the owner of the Kansas City Athletics, and the willingness of politicians to jump from one side of the fence to the other to get what they want. [email protected] Music: “Field Grass,” by Sergei Pavkin