Mexican Beanball

Big baseball is at the plate waiting for the next pitch in the Danny Gardella case. Gardella, an ex-New York Giant, jumped from the National to the Mexican League in 1946. When he decided to come back to the U.S. two years alter, the American baseball world did not receive him at all kindly; in fact, he couldn't even get a job in the semi-pro loops.

He then brought a $300,000 damage suit charging the Giants, the major and minor leagues, and Commissioner Happy Chandler with violating the antitrust laws. His lawyers claimed that he had been denied his livelihood by the reserve clause in his contract with the Giants; the injustice in the clause, they said, was the binding of a player to a club for the entirety of his baseball life. In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals returned the case to a lower court, voting 2 to 1 in favor of Gardella's charge of "peonage."

Exempted from the antitrust law by a 1922 ruling that it was not engaged in interstate commerce, big baseball has wasted little worry--until now--on the reserve clause. As Chandler put it, the members of the $5000 to $100,000 income brackets can hardly be called peons. In recent years, however, the national sport has received more and more of its income from radio and television. As such, it has now come within the jurisdiction of the interstate commerce laws. And the minor league wages still remain low; Chandler's statement obviously did not include minor leaguers whose paychecks range down to $1200 yearly. Beyond that, there is a good legal point; does a high wage scale excuse virtual slavery?

Though beneficial to Gardella and his fellow expatriates (ex-Cardinals Lanier and Martin), a change in the contract terms would turn salary negotiations into a dogfight between players and owners which could hurt the sport immeasurably. If players went to the highest bidders, the rich owners like Tom Yawkey would soon corral all the talent. In post-war major league baseball, there is comparatively little injustice in salaries; everywhere except in St. Louis and Brooklyn, public acclaim keeps the paychecks high. The clause looks like slavery; in the minor leagues, it often is. But the experience of the past thirty years has shown the reserve clause to be the chief stabilizer in the big league player market. Although exceptions are needed in cases like that of Gardella, the reserve clause cannot be thrown out of baseball.