Reverse Clause Case Study

Throughout the history of baseball, the baseball players and their owners have found themselves in many disputes over money and working conditions. For instance, at the beginning of 1876 baseball players found themselves at the beginning of what could be considered a monopoly; where the owner’s controlled baseball for a quarter of a century (Baseball, 2010). This was due to William Hulbert and other owner’s creation of the reserve clause. As a result of this clause, baseball player’s salaries were kept low, and they were unable to leave their team unless their owner traded them. If a player did not abide by this legally binding clause they would more than likely be blacklisted from baseball forever.
However, at the beginning of the nineteen seventies things started to change in baseball as players, such as Curt Flood tried to make a stand against the reverse clause. Unfortunately for Curt Flood, fear of losing their jobs kept many players from taking a stand with him. As a result, Flood lost his case against the reverse clause and Supreme Court ruled that baseball “was still exempt from antitrust laws” (Baseball, 2010).
Despite Flood losing his case, it gained national attention and showed that fans like baseball players were against the reverse clause (Baseball, …show more content…
In the end, the players went on strike for thirteen days and eighty-six games had been canceled, without pay, before the owners finally agreed to the same proposal that was sent to them before the strike occurred (Baseball, 2010). In 1973, Marvin Miller got the owners to agree to an impartial binding arbitration of salary disputes and Catfish Hunter was released as a free agent due to Charlie Finley not abiding by his side of the contract; Hunter received an offer of $3.75 million over three years (Baseball,