Major League Baseball faces Republican wrath

William S. Bike, historian, media consultant, and author of the book The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, a history of the Chicago Cubs’ 1970 season, published an article at https://billbike.medium.com/major-league-baseball-faces-republican-wrath-8fc0421dfdd6, “Major League Baseball Faces Republican Wrath,” about MLB’s Anti-Trust exemption for the online publication Medium.

After Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star game from Atlanta, Georgia, because the state passed restrictions on voting, Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee drafted legislation to end MLB’s anti-trust exemption.

In the article, Bike details the history of MLB’s anti-trust exemption, and discusses Major League outfielder Curt Flood’s 1970 challenge to it.

He covers how the Supreme Court in 1972 ruled against Flood, and the criticism the decision brought from legal experts and from Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

Bike also explains how the point became moot in 1975, “when arbitrator Peter Seitz threw out the reserve clause, and MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association negotiated a new agreement that allowed player free agency after a player’s first few years with one team’s organization.”

Although MLB’s Anti Trust exemption has been on shaky ground for years, Bike notes in the article that “Three Republican Senators are not going to get legislation stripping MLB of its anti-trust exemption through the Senate or through a Democratic House, so their threat is more of a demonstration to other industries that they should to stay out of the voting eligibility battle or face the Republican wrath that MLB now is facing.”

For the article, go to https://billbike.medium.com/major-league-baseball-faces-republican-wrath-8fc0421dfdd6. For more on Bike’s book The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, go to https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467149082.

Buy William S. Bike’s latest book, The Forgotten 1970 Chicago Cubs: Go and Glow, at www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/97814671490827.