Abstract
Baseball, being America's pastime and the most popular sport in the professional ranks from the 1870s onward for at least another century beyond that, gives us a lens wherethrough we may see so much about American culture, economics and society during this time period. This work looks at baseball’s unique economic position throughout the 20th century and how it changed over the course of time. Baseball had an exclusive arrangement unavailable to other industries in that it had an anti-trust exemption, which was based on the 1922 Supreme Court decision in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League. This decision to create an anti-trust exemption for Major League Baseball would shape the labor battles and power dynamics between baseball players and owners for the next seven decades, delaying labor rights while reflecting broader struggles in the United States in regards to monopoly, labor, culture, economics, and society.
Recommended Citation
Smith, Shawn M.
(2026)
"Baseball’s Anti-Trust Exemption and Major League Baseball Labor Relations in the 20th Century,"
Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History: Vol. 9:
Iss.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/ljh/vol9/iss1/6
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