Abstract

Excerpted From: Hannah R. Carrothers, The Gentlemen's Agreement of Scoundrels: A Loss for Black Players and the Sport of Baseball, 31 University of Denver Sports and Entertainment Law Journal 60 (Fall, 2025) (100 Footnotes) (Full Document)

In 1913, the National League and American League of Baseball encountered their first serious challenge to their position as the only two leagues in major league baseball. Previous league competitors had folded within their first month, yet the Federal League had completed a 120-game season and began signing major leaguers. This meant war. The “ Baseball War” raged for two years before the three leagues signed a peace agreement that dissolved the Federal League and offered its member teams buyouts. All Federal League member teams--except for the Club of Baltimore--accepted their offers. Waging its own war, the Club of Baltimore sued both leagues under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 for conspiring to monopolize the business of baseball. In the baffling 1922 decision of Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs , a unanimous Supreme Court held that baseball did not engage in interstate commerce and, therefore, the Sherman Act did not apply to Major League Baseball. Baseball was exempt from antitrust law and allowed to operate as a legal monopoly.

The implications of this decision reverberated through the stadia of baseball for the century that followed, putting a thumb on the scales of power of America’s pastime. Without the limiting effects of competition or the guardrails of antitrust regulation, club owners made a fortune while exploiting players with impunity. Without the legal means to challenge unethical practices, Black players stood no chance of invalidating the owners’ “ “ gentlemen’s agreement.”

This Comment will argue how Black players would have had a cause of action under Section One of the Sherman Act had the Courts not slavishly adhered to Federal Baseball . To do this, this Comment will first explore the factual background of the gentlemen’s agreement and a brief legal history of relevant antitrust and labor law to provide modern legal principles. Using these modern principles, this Comment will next examine how the agreement was a “ conspiracy in restraint of trade” even if never reduced to writing, and then analyze the agreement under the Sherman Act’s rule of reason. This Comment will explore what were and are the Court’s justifications for adhering to the Federal Baseball ruling, even after the Supreme Court abandoned its Lochner Era interpretation of the Commerce Clause in 1937. Examining the negative effects of its sordid history, this Comment will conclude with reasons why the Court should reverse the Federal Baseball case.

[ . . . ]

As previously discussed, Federal Baseball legally protected segregation within baseball, allowed owners to get rich while exploiting players, and stained not only their legacy but America’s pastime. While the Curt Flood Act applied antitrust law to the Major League players, it was too little and too late. The Act did not extend to umpires, coaches, stadium staff, minor league players, and all other employees of professional baseball. By the time the Act was ratified, collective bargaining was already mature. The union had evidence that chaos had not resulted, and player salaries had already increased. Even with this Act, the remnants of baseball’s antitrust exemption left by Federal Baseball continue to permeate. The current exemption permits MLB to unfairly limit the number of teams in large cities and reduce the number of teams overall at both the major and minor league levels. It grants MLB the right to boycott managers, coaches, and staff for reasons outside of labor relations. It provides MLB the right to carry out anti-competitive trademark practices and to monopolize its game data. After a half-century of blaming Congress for inaction, it is time for the Court to step up to the plate and reverse Federal Baseball .

J.D. Candidate 2026, University of Denver Sturm College of Law. I would like to thank Professor Joseph M. Goldhammer for his invaluable guidance and insight, as well as his infectious love of law and baseball. Thanks also to the wonderful staff of the Denver Sports & Entertainment Law Journal for their work on this Article.