NSU Horizons Fall 2018

cases, tax cases, divorce cases, criminal cases–all involving baseball.” In encyclopedic fashion, the book documents the Landis legacy and the baseball cases that touch every facet of law–including racial and sexual discrimination, tax planning, asset protection, bankruptcy, family law, technology, and more. “Like baseball, law touches every aspect of society,” said Jarvis, who grew up in the Bronx and watched baseball games at Yankee Stadium with his German mother, who knew nothing about the sport. In teaching his mother about the game, Jarvis became a lifelong Yankees fan. When the upstart New York Mets surprised the baseball world by winning the 1969 World Series, Jarvis was heartbroken. To this day, Jarvis keeps a framed photo of Babe Ruth hanging on the wall in his office. 150 Years of Ball and Law Jarvis traces the intersection of baseball and the law back to the 1870s. “American society is highly legalistic. It became so in the 1870s when the country transformed itself from a rural, agrarian economy to an urban, industrial economy. Professional baseball also got its start in the 1870s.” As baseball grew into a billion-dollar industry, so did the number of legal cases. It was a somewhat natural progression that followed the money. After the White Sox scandal the sport sought out Landis, known as a tough jurist, who would rule baseball with an iron fist and restore integrity to the game. Landis was not involved in the White Sox trial in any legal capacity, but he was a lifelong baseball fan and season- ticket holder who was known to cut out of court early on summer afternoons to watch the White Sox play. “Baseball had become a gamblers’ sport,” Schiff said. “There was alleged corruption in the game. Landis was a bit of a rebel. He wasn’t afraid to make tough decisions. If you were going to allow cheating in baseball, then the entire integrity of the sport was in question and nobody was going to watch it.” In 1922, in one of the most historical baseball cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that baseball was exempt from federal anti-trust laws. Known as the Federal Baseball Rule, it viewed the sport as largely recreational exhibitions and not an interstate industry. The exemption gave team owners the ability to collectively set player salaries, ticket prices, and hiring practices, and block players from moving among teams. continued on next page