The twelve year rain delay: why a change in leadership will benefit the game of baseball.

• Author: Lamme, Jacob F.

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. (1)

[E]xamining the business of baseball is like looking at the sun, you can't do it for very long before you have to turn away. (2)

INTRODUCTION

Baseball is a beautiful game. Despite the recent surge in the popularity of professional football and basketball, baseball is--and will always be--the greatest game ever played. Baseball is so graceful and elegant that even the United States Supreme Court could not resist professing its love for the game and its players:

[T]here are the many names, celebrated for one reason or another, that have sparked the diamond and its environs and that have provided tinder for recaptured thrills, for reminiscence and comparisons, and for conversation and anticipation in-season and off-season: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker ... Rogers Hornsby ... Jackie Robinson ... Honus Wagner ... Satchel Paige ... Three-Finger Brown ... Cy Young ... Smokey Joe Wood ... Roy Campanella ... [and] Dizzy Dean. (3) The beauty of the game lies in its relationship to numbers. Baseball is played and revered worldwide; yet no matter where it is played, it remains a universal game of numbers: a baseball must weigh between five and five and a quarter ounces, (4) ninety feet separate each of the four bases, (5) and the pitcher's mound lies exactly sixty feet and six inches from home plate. (6) Baseball also revolves around statistics. (7) Fans of the game pride themselves on knowing the stats of the single season strikeout leader, (8) the all-time hits leader, (9) and the player with the highest single season batting average. (10) The most important numbers in baseball, however, have nothing to do with on-base percentages or earned run averages. The most important numbers in baseball are expressed in terms of dollars and cents.

Baseball is a business. As sad as that is to say, it is true. Fans once attended games at places like Comiskey Park, Tiger Stadium, and the Polo Grounds. (11) Now they force themselves into tiny seats at advertisement-laden and dreadfully named stadiums such as Comerica Park, Network Associates Coliseum, Citizens Bank Park, and Minute Maid Park. (12) Corporate renaming of ballparks, which has been a staple in the world of sports for nearly a decade, is one of the many ways the business side of the sport overshadows the game of baseball. (13) It is widely believed that the 1994 player strike marked the point when economics took over and the game of baseball lost its innocence. (14) The game, however, has been dominated by economics since its inception. Baseball is, was, and will always be a business, and like any good business, baseball has one objective--to make money.

The business of baseball has often been compared to the inner-workings of a large corporation. (15) In the business world, corporations need strong leaders to make important decisions and successfully govern the business. Just as a chief executive officer heads a corporation, the Office of the Commissioner governs the game and business of Major League Baseball ("MLB"). However, while a director of a corporation owes fiduciary duties to the corporation and its shareholders, the Commissioner of Baseball does not owe similar duties because "[b]aseball is a private enterprise, bound by its own internal laws and regulations." (16) The MLB governing structure is an anomaly. If it were more like a public corporation, perhaps baseball could have avoided the issues that have plagued it for years. Instead, baseball is riddled with strikes, lockouts, gambling, drugs, and collusion.

This article analyzes the history of the Office of the Commissioner of MLB and demonstrates how change in the current governing structure will allow fans to concentrate more on the game played between the lines, rather than what occurs in the conference rooms. (17) Part I describes how the Office of the Commissioner came into existence. Part II briefly highlights and critiques some of the most important and controversial legal decisions regarding the governance of the game. Additionally, Part II will specifically focus on the Office of the Commissioner's abuse of power, particularly in the collusion and contraction cases. Finally, the conclusion calls for a change in MLB's governing structure and seeks an independent Commissioner to restore the game to its rightful position as the national pastime.

1. THE NEED FOR REGULATION

   Baseball is a multi-billion dollar industry; however it was not always the enormous capitalistic enterprise that it is today. (18) The game of baseball--first played in New York State--started out as a simple way to pass the time. (19) This soon evolved when, in 1869, Harry Wright became the first businessman to realize the financial benefits of the sport by assembling the first professional baseball team and charging spectators to watch the team play. (20) Other entrepreneurs quickly followed in Wright's footsteps as various teams and leagues began sprouting up across the nation. (21) William Hulbert took the business of baseball to the next level by creating the National League in 1876. (22) The cost of a ticket to see a game in this new league was astronomical, more than half a day's pay in some cases. (23) Additionally, Hulbert implemented a financial security blanket called the "reserve system" which allowed teams to secure their rosters by locking each player into a perpetual series of contracts intended to keep the escalating salaries in check. (24)

   Therefore, the owners had complete financial control of the game:

   [T]he owners of major league baseball teams could expect to retain the services of their players on a year-to-year basis. So long as they chose not to trade the players, and continued formally to offer them contracts, they could keep them on the team for whatever price they chose.... [A] player had no ability to increase his compensation by offering his services to competitor franchises in the league. (25) Despite its strong financial interest and near monopoly of the game, the National League could not stave off competition and guarantee the continued financial success of the owners.

   Rival leagues rapidly sprung up hoping to enjoy the same financial success of the National League. (26) The American League, the most successful of these rival leagues, was able to threaten the financial position of the National League by looting its talent. (27) The feud between the two competing businesses became so fierce that courts began issuing injunctions to stop players from switching leagues. (28) "For the first three years of the twentieth century, team rosters, player salaries, and contractual obligations in major league baseball were in a state of turmoil...." (29) Eventually, the success of the new American League and the realization that both leagues could co-exist and work together for increased profits allowed the rival leagues to declare a truce and form an agreement. (30) The 1903 National Agreement marked the beginning of MLB as it is known today. (31)

   1. Early Attempts at Regulation

      As baseball began to play a more significant role in the lives of many Americans, the need for stricter governance became apparent. From 1903 to 1920, baseball was entrusted to an oligarchy--called the National Commission. (32) This three-headed monstrosity was comprised of American League President Ban Johnson, National League President John K. Tener, and Cincinnati club owner August "Garry" Herrmann. (33) To illustrate how disastrous the National Commission was as a governing entity, imagine the office of the President of the United States concurrently held by President George W. Bush, Senator John Kerry, and a third member that they both agreed upon.

      The 1903 National Agreement was unprecedented and its importance cannot be understated; the team owners relinquished their stronghold and gave the three-man National Commission power to control the game of baseball however it saw fit. (34) But more importantly, the Commission was to do so "without the aid [or interference] of [the] law." (35) The owners essentially gave up their right to contest any action taken by the National Commission in a court of law and promised to abide by the Commission's decisions, thus allowing baseball to become its own form of private law. (36)

      This system worked for about a decade, mostly because the National Commission was more concerned about the influx of rival leagues than the internal problems between the two prominent leagues or their teams. (37) But with a three-man commission comprised of prominent figures from within the game, the ugly head of the National Commission could only hide for so long: "internal dissention was surfacing within Organized Baseball's executive circles. Between 1915 and 1920 a series of squabbles over the disputed ownership of players ... caused certain owners to resent the decisions of baseball's three-man National Commission." (38) These ownership affairs eventually caused Garry Herrmann, the National Commission's Chairman, to resign. (39) National League President John K. Tener also resigned "amidst charges of corruption." (40) This left the National Commission in ruin, with American League President Ban Johnson opposing virtually everyone nominated to take over Herrmann's recently vacated seat. (41)

      The owners were finally beginning to see the difficulty of vesting executive powers in people closely related to the game of baseball. (42) "The members of the commission were often accused of allowing their financial interests to interfere with their duties...." (43) Therefore, the idea of having a single commissioner--with "no financial interest in the game"--replace the disastrous National Commission began to take form. (44) At...