Sens. Hatch, Moynihan Step Into Batter’s Box; More To Come Tuesday

Baseball players will end their strike if Congress partially repeals the owners’ antitrust exemption, union head Donald Fehr said after two senators agreed to support the legislation Friday.

Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., will introduce the partial repeal Tuesday, a day before Fehr and acting commissioner Bud Selig testify before a Senate subcommittee.

“If the bill becomes law, I will recommend to the members of the Major League Baseball Players Association that we end the strike,” Fehr wrote Friday in a letter to Hatch.

The bill would make owners subject to antitrust laws and allow players to file court challenges against any unilateral changes, such as a salary cap. Appeals courts in New York and St. Louis have ruled that unions can’t file antitrust suits, but the Supreme Court hasn’t reviewed the matter.

The antitrust exemption was created by a 1922 Supreme Court decision that declared baseball was not interstate commerce.