Baseball Meets the Law – Celebrating Opening Day 2019

Baseball is back with today’s Cleveland Indians home opener against the Chicago White Sox. To celebrate, we’re highlighting Baseball Meets the Law: A Chronology of Decisions, Statutes and Other Legal Events, one of the many books in the library about the legal aspects of the sport. Written by Ed Edmonds and Frank G. Houdek, two former law librarians, the book is a handy reference for legal developments from the earliest time of the sport in the U.S. until the present day. Each chapter gives a brief summary of relevant caselaw or other materials, perfect for easy browsing in between innings.  Also included are selective bibliographies and a list of lawyers from around the country involved in baseball.

From Baseball Meets the Law, you can learn that:

• Pennsylvania passed a law in 1794 prohibiting the playing of baseball on Sundays.
• Less than three months after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947, Larry Doby pinch hit for the Cleveland Indians and went down in history as the second black player in the major leagues.
• In 1994, Gina Satriano (who was an attorney too!), became the first woman pitcher to start a game in a major league stadium. She pitched for the Colorado Silver Bullets against the Northern California Junior College All-Stars in Candlestick Park.
• In a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case from 2015, a judge ruled that baseball’s antitrust exemption still applies in franchise relocation cases.