Organizing to Fight the Man.

On 9 November 1953 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 against George Toolson, Walter Kowalski, and Jack Corbett, three baseball players who challenged baseball's exemption from antitrust laws. In reaching their surprising decision, the court let stand its ruling in the famous 1922 case, Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League of Professional Clubs, declaring that organized baseball did not constitute interstate commerce and was therefore outside the scope of antitrust laws. On 12 July 1964 the players formed the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the first truly effective sports union in America. The MLBPA would spend the next twenty-five years struggling to overturn baseball's "reserve system" that perpetually bound a player to one club. The ultimate goal of the players was "free agency," which would let them, like any other worker in America, work for whoever might hire them.

Player Movement.