[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 64 (Thursday, April 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5282-S5283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      REMOVING THE ANTITRUST EXEMPTION FROM MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate Subcommittee on 
Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition of the Committee on the 
Judiciary voted out S.627, the Hatch-Thurmond-Leahy bill clarifying the 
application of our antitrust laws to major league baseball.
  What we did was to remove the antitrust exemption given to major 
league baseball. I hope that the full Judiciary Committee, the Senate 
and the other body will take this up and pass it relatively soon.
  Baseball has for decades had a special exemption from the antitrust 
laws, which laws apply to everything else, every other business in this 
country and every other professional sport. What this means is that 
baseball and those who own it and run it are basically above the law.
  Now they have shown what this means. They have shown great disdain 
for the fans, for those who do not make the $1 million salaries, like 
the people who park the cars, that sell peanuts and beer and hot dogs 
and soda at the various stadiums, for the communities that have taxed 
their people through bond issues to build stadiums, for those who make 
the pennants and the T-shirts and the baseball caps, and even, in the 
State of Vermont, those who make the souvenir bats given out on bat 
day. Such people have been out of jobs over the past year because of 
the baseball strike.
  And throughout all of this, people, some acting in extremely high-
handed fashion, are able to say, ``Well, the fans be damned. Because we 
have this exemption from antitrust, we can act together. We can do 
whatever we want.''
  The antitrust exemption was provided for baseball on the assumption 
that those who control baseball would act in the best interest of the 
game and the best interest of the fans, would do it responsibly and 
that we would have a strong commissioner. The practical matter is they 
have done none of this in the last few years.
  I recall testimony in a hearing that Senator Thurmond and I had in 
which the question was asked: Let us assume baseball did not have an 
exemption from the antitrust laws and let us assume we saw the 
situation, the sorry situation, we have seen for nearly a year in 
baseball. If the owners came in and said, ``Oh, by the way, Congress, 
give us something you have not given any other business. Give us an 
exemption from the antitrust laws.'' Would they not be laughed off 
Capitol Hill? Of course, they would.
  Republicans and Democrats alike, both in the Senate and the House, 
would say, ``We are not going to give you that. We are not going to 
give you this special exemption from the antitrust laws that we don't 
give to football or basketball or General Motors or Dow Chemical or 
Monsanto or Apple Computers or anybody else. We are not going to give 
it to you. And especially we are not going to give it to you because of 
the way you have been acting.''
  We would not pass a statutory exemption, and I daresay, Mr. 
President, there would not be one Member of the U.S. Senate that would 
vote to give them an antitrust exemption today, yet they have it.
  So, I hope, by the same token, everyone in the Senate will join with 
Senator Thurmond, Senator Hatch, and myself--an interesting coalition, 
if ever there was one--and would withdraw the antitrust exemption. It 
is not deserved by baseball. It should not be continued for baseball. 
They should be treated as anybody else.
  Their behavior in the past year has shown why they should not have 
that special exemption, if they ever really deserved it. But whether 
they have deserved it or not, they have now lost it. We should take it 
away.
  So, Mr. President, I hope that this legislation will work its way 
through the committee process fairly quickly, come to the floor of the 
Senate, and be voted upon.
  I have watched some of the activities of the baseball teams, I mean 
things that are so petty, so petty. For example, the way they treat 
Little League teams.
  When I was a youngster and when my children were, the idea was, if 
you had a Little League team, you built up some following for various 
teams. You proudly wore the logos of a team--the Red Sox, the Yankees, 
whoever else it might be.
  Now they say: ``Well, we will require each one of those children to 
pay us $6 for the privilege of having their logo on their uniform.'' 
This is just penny-ante baloney.
  What it does, it says, ``We expect you to be fans supporting us, but, 
kid, you're going to pay for it.''
  I recall as a child being at Fenway Park and seeing some of the 
greats of baseball come by. If you held out a baseball, they would 
autograph it for you. And they were paid a tiny fraction of what is 
paid to these multimillionaires today who tell you, ``Yes, you can come 
in and for x number of dollars we may give you the autograph.'' This is 
spoiling the whole idea of baseball.
  So, as I said, Mr. President, we ought to lift their antitrust 
exemption. They do not deserve it. They never really earned it in the 
first place, and they have done nothing to keep it today. Let us get 
rid of it. Let us treat them as the business they have become and let 
us stand up for the fans for a change.
  I have seen a situation in the hearings where even the acting 
commissioner of baseball in his testimony tried to mislead the Senate; 
gave conflicting testimony, gave testimony that turned out not to be 
true; and did not move to correct his testimony. This is the kind of 
disdain that they show for the Congress.
  Well, then let us not give them the exemption to the laws. You can 
have disdain for the laws, you can have disdain for the game, you can 
have disdain for your own responsibilities, you can have disdain for 
your own fans, but we are not going to give you a special 
[[Page S5283]] exemption under the law to carry out that disdain.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will please call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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