By Bill Shaikin, LA Times
To baseball fans across America, the time-honored cry of summer is this: Kill the ump!
To legislators in Washington, the time-honored cry of summer is this: Kill the antitrust exemption!
Your eyes might glaze over at the words “antitrust exemption,” but bear with me for a moment.
For 100 years, Major League Baseball has been exempt from a law that the Department of Justice says “outlaws all contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that unreasonably restrain” competition among businesses. Since then, congressmen have criticized baseball for whatever the grievance of the moment might be, threatened to revoke the exemption and attracted the publicity that a sports-related issue delivers to Capitol Hill.
