THE SUPREME COURT: Base on Balls

On its first decision day under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the U.S. Supreme Court this week handed down a ruling that almost everyone in organized baseball has been awaiting as a batter waits for a 3-2 pitch. The case before the court was brought by a minor-league owner and two players, who contended that baseball’s “reserve clause” (which gives a ball club complete control over its players’ careers and prevents them from signing up with other teams) creates an illegal monopoly in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. In its 7-2 ruling (Justices Burton and Reed dissenting), the high court majority reached back to confirm Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous 1922 opinion that baseball is not covered by the federal antitrust laws because it is not in interstate commerce.

The high court also:

¶ Held, in the first opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, that a longshoreman injured in a shipboard fire at Texas City, Texas, was entitled to damages under a federal workmen’s compensation act, although his claim was filed after the deadline. Warren said the law should be construed “liberally.”

¶Upheld, Chief Justice Warren not participating, a California decision that the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads must pay half the cost of two grade-crossing improvement projects in the Los Angeles area, thus rejecting the railroads’ protests that they were being compelled to subsidize their competitors—trucks, buses and passenger cars.