bud selig's outrageous abuse of power

at least that was its original intention. It simply stated that games were intra-state commerce instead of what they really were, inter-state commerce. How does removing it prevent MLB from stating its owners must approve another owner? I’m not necessarily against what you propose (I can’t stand Bud Light and that S.Side ass-clown servant either) but what does taking away the anti-trust exemption.

Bud Selig and the MLB owners are a powerful and private group. They can let who they want in their fraternity. John Canning WILL be owner of the Cubs. It’s inevitable. The writing on the wall was all the praise Jerry Reinsdorf has for the guy.

Go after antitrust exemption? Not going to happen in our lifetime. Certainly not in this political client of economic crisis around the globe to go along with the war on terror and very many other pressing international and domestic issues on hand (e.g., healthcare, immigration, energy policy).

get matt holliday!!!!

Why shouldn’t MLB owners have the same rights as McDonalds to control who owns their franchises?

My mom owns a store that is part of a national chain. She had to be approved to own it and has to abide by rules and such. Why should the corp it belongs to have rights MLB wouldn’t.

Also the anti-trust exemption should be in place for all sports. Sports are different from other businesses.

There has to be uniform rules and cooperation because the teams need each other to keep being in business.

The Cubs need the Reds etc to be in business because people aren’t going to show up to see the Cubs play themselves.

But Jewel and Dominicks could operate without each other.

but we are basing all the Bud putting in the fix for Canning on speculation. I seriously doubt if Cuban or anyone else’s offer had a significantly higher of up front cash involved Zell would not find a way to take it. I think the economy tanking is what is now slowing the sale not Bud’s desire to choose the next owner.

Also this is not really an anti-trust issue but a contractual one in that the Trib is obligated by the deal it agreed to when it bought the team which requires a 2/3rds approval by MLB owners, however per above at this point I do think Zell
could beat this IF and ONLY if there is major difference in up front money.

there seems to be a good level of pettiness among the MLB owners that is keeping Cuban out. As far as I know, Cuban is not in any kind of legal or financial trouble. If someone is the high bidder and doesn’t have any problems with the law or pocketbook, then that person should be allowed to buy the club.

I don’t know Reinsdorf. Based on circumstantial evidence, I suspect he doesn’t like competing with Cuban in the NBA and would not like to compete with him in Chicago in MLB. I guess it all boils down to the MLB owners being a private club and not allowing interlopers entrance.

we may be asking Congress to actually do something. Unfortunately with all that’s happenend since the dawn of the housing crisis years ago, MLB’s position on owners is so far down in the noise floor it’s not even visible.

Look, major league baseball operates the way it operates. I very strongly doubt that Sam Zell or Mark Cuban has the appetite to take on major league baseball in a court of law. MLB could drag out legal proceedings for a decade or more and have the billions to pay the best and brightest legal talent to lead their case. The US government is also not about to step into this. Our country and our world have much bigger political crisis and issues to deal with as opposed to opining on the antitrust exemption. Plus Selig and MLB could put the best and brightest lawyers in the land on the case to protect what they view is theres to protect.

tougher than Bud’s?

Just hope that Ricketts becomes the owner instead of Canning. Levin is out, Cuban is out. I’m more than willing to support Ricketts. It’s more of fear of what good-ol-boy Canning would do than Ricketts.

But that doesn’t matter. Bud Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf want John Canning. And what Bud the Dud and his pals want they always end up getting. They will make sure the bidding process has Canning technically submitting the best bid for PR purposes. They’ll gerrymander the process to get the outcome they want.

Caught with A Cuban Cigar

This sounds next to impossible to have Bids done by Thanksgiving unless the bidders have known for awhile and the date is just new to the public.

I’m not sure why everyone here is in panic mode. My feeling is still that the Ricketts are front-runners. Why everyone is assuming it’ll be Canning is beyond me.

that Bud would subject MLB to risk for such a major black eye. Cuban has already demonstrated that he has no problem with drawn-out court cases (MGM v Grokster; Cuban provided financial backing for the defendants [see his article on Wikipedia]), even when he has little or no chance to win. And while Zell may be willing to make a quick deal to cover some of his poor financial decisions, he would be foolish not to take the high bid under serious consideration. So clearly both of these parties have not only reasons to, but significant potential to gain via, protest if MLB decides that Cuban isn’t right.

On the flip side, while MLB still has its anti-trust exemption, the limits to which the commissioner’s office can take it has been eroded significantly since the 1972 Flood v Kuhn case. In 1975, Peter Seitz determined that the reserve clause only lasted one year after a lapse of contract. The MLBPA has been gradually gaining power, particularly with the 1973 decision by the National Labor Relations Board which determined that baseball’s labor relations were subject to their (NLRB’s) supervision, and the 1998 “Curt Flood Act” which codified both the general anti-trust exemptions and the “exemption from the exemption” in the area of labor relations (a decision where MLB was forced into acquiescence by the MLBPA following the strike). In addition, the formal reorganization of the two leagues into a single league in 2000, while merely perfunctory from nearly every standpoint, could potentially be used to argue against the continued anti-trust exemption, since there is now only one legal entity responsible for the operations of MLB (not that I expect this would actually happen, but it could).

Given the troubles MLB has had to face in the past 15 or so years (strike, doping, financial woes, disparity between large and small market teams, the rise of NASCAR as a viable summer ‘sport’, etc.), I would hope that Bud would be wise enough to pressure the owners into allowing the sale of the Cubs to be executed according to the wishes of Zell, and thus prevent a nasty publicity fiasco from playing out in the media. In addition, if Zell or Cuban were able to make a case that blocking the sale were detrimental to the players, all hell would probably break loose. And all it takes is a handful of congressmen who think that baseball is trying to screw somebody to start causing a lot of problems for Bud and Co.

[Incidentally, although I have tried a number of times to find the by-laws/constitution of MLB online, they aren’t there. If anyone knows where I can find this, please let me know. There is an interesting summery in two parts here and here, however.]