259 U.S. 200
FEDERAL BASE BALL CLUB OF
BALTIMORE, Inc.,
v.
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF PROFESSIONAL BASE BALL CLUBS et al.
No. 204.
Argued April 19, 1922.
Decided May 29, 1922.
[259
U.S. 200, 201] Messrs.
Charles A. Douglas, of Washington, D. C., Wm. L. Marbury, of Baltimore, Md., and
William L. Rawls, Hugh H. Obear, Jo. V. Morgan, and Charles S. Douglas, all of
Washington, D. C., and L. Edwin Goldman, of Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff in
error.
[259
U.S. 200, 206] Messrs.
George Wharton Pepper, of Philadelphia, Pa., and Benjamin S. Minor, of
Washington, D. C., for defendants in error.
[259
U.S. 200, 207]
Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the
opinion of the Court.
This is a suit for threefold damages
brought by the plaintiff in error under the Anti-Trust Acts of July 2, 1890, c.
647, 7, 26 Stat. 209, 210 (Comp. St. 8829), and of October 15, 1914, c. 323, 4,
38 Stat. 730, 731 (Comp. St. 8835d). The defendants are the National League of
Professional Base Ball Clubs and the American League of Professional Base Ball
Clubs, unincorporated associations, composed respectively of groups of eight
incorporated base ball clubs, joined as defendants; the presidents of the two
Leagues and a third person, constituting what is known as the National
Commission, having considerable powers in carrying out an agreement between the
two Leagues; and three other persons having powers in the Federal League of
Professional Base Ball Clubs, the relation of which to this case will be
explained. It is alleged that these defendants conspired to monopolize the base
ball business, the means adopted being set forth with a detail which, in the
view that we take, it is unnecessary to repeat.
The plaintiff is a base ball club
incorporated in Maryland, and with seven other corporations was a member of the
Federal League of Professional Base Ball Players, a corporation under the laws
of Indiana, that attempted to compete with the combined defendants. It alleges
that the defendants destroyed the Federal League by buying up some of the
constituent clubs and in one way or another inducing all those clubs except the
plaintiff to leave their League, and that the three persons connected with the
Federal League and named as defendants, one of them being the President of the
League, took part in the conspiracy. Great damage to the plaintiff is alleged.
The
[259
U.S. 200, 208] plaintiff
obtained a verdict for $80,000 in the Supreme Court and a judgment for treble
the amount was entered, but the Court of Appeals, after an elaborate discussion,
held that the defendants were not within the Sherman Act. The appellee, the
plaintiff, elected to stand on the record in order to bring the case to this
Court at once, and thereupon judgment was ordered for the defendants. National
League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, 269
Fed. 681, 688, 50 App. D. C. 165. It is not argued that the plaintiff waived any
rights by its course. Thomsen v. Cayser,
243 U.S. 66 , 37 Sup. Ct. 353, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 322.
The decision of the Court of Appeals
went to the root of the case and if correct makes it unnecessary to consider
other serious difficulties in the way of the plaintiff's recovery. A summary
statement of the nature of the business involved will be enough to present the
point. The clubs composing the Leagues are in different cities and for the most
part in different States. The end of the elaborate organizations and sub-
organizations that are described in the pleadings and evidence is that these
clubs shall play against one another in public exhibitions for money, one or the
other club crossing a state line in order to make the meeting possible. When as
the result of these contests one club has won the pennant of its League and
another club has won the pennant of the other League, there is a final
competition for the world's championship between these two. Of course the scheme
requires constantly repeated traveling on the part of the clubs, which is
provided for, controlled and disciplined by the organizations, and this it is
said means commerce among the States. But we are of opinion that the Court of
Appeals was right.
The business is giving exhibitions of
base ball, which are purely state affairs. It is true that in order to attain
for these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved, competitions
must be arranged between clubs from different cities and States. But the fact
that in order
[259
U.S. 200, 209] to give the
exhibitions the Leagues must induce free persons to cross state lines and must
arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character of the
business. According to the distinction insisted upon in Hooper v. California,
155 U.S. 648, 655 , 15 S. Sup. Ct. 207, the transport is a mere incident,
not the essential thing. That to which it is incident, the exhibition, although
made for money would not be called trade of commerce in the commonly accepted
use of those words. As it is put by defendant, personal effort, not related to
production, is not a subject of commerce. That which in its consummation is not
commerce does not become commerce among the States because the transportation
that we have mentioned takes place. To repeat the illustrations given by the
Court below, a firm of lawyers sending out a member to argue a case, or the
Chautauqua lecture bureau sending out lecturers, does not engage in such
commerce because the lawyer or lecturer goes to another State.
If we are right the plaintiff's
business is to be described in the same way and the restrictions by contract
that prevented the plaintiff from getting players to break their bargains and
the other conduct charged against the defendants were not an interference with
commerce among the States.
Judgment affirmed.
Source: The Business of Baseball