The Law: Safe--Kind of

Baseball fans were mystified. It was rather like an umpire with one thumb hooked in the air and the other hand spread out, saying, "You probably should be out, but you're safe, I think, kind of." For the third time in 50 years, the Supreme Court was considering major league baseball's exemption from the antitrust laws. In 1922 Oliver Wendell Holmes had stated for a unanimous court that baseball was not engaged in interstate commerce and therefore was not covered by antitrust regulations. Last week Justice Harry Blackmun held that baseball is, of course, engaged in interstate commerce in the modern...