Ball v. Baseball

Professional baseball is as highly organ-ized an industry as any in the U. S. It has laws of its own and a government to administer them, headed by its own fuzzy-haired Tsar, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Tsar Landis and owners of baseball clubs had good reason last week to sigh a big sigh of relief when they learned that, by withdrawing an action known as "The Bennett Case" from the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Club-owner Philip De Catesby Ball of the St. Louis "Browns" had spared them the necessity of testing one of baseball's major "laws" before the U. S. Supreme Court.

The Bennett case had its roots in an antipathy between Tsar Landis and Club-owner Ball. A close friend of the late Byron Bancroft ("Ban") Johnson, Mr. Ball objected strongly in 1921 when Mr. Johnson and the other two members of the National Commission were deposed to make room for the Advisory Council, headed by Tsar Landis. A few years later he saw what he thought was a chance to settle a grudge. A mediocre outfielder named Fred Bennett, on whose services the St. Louis Club held a contract (which, like every player's contract, gave Club-owner Ball the right to sell or retain him without his consent) complained that Clubowner Ball was unfairly keeping him in the minor leagues. Tsar Landis considered the case, gave Outfielder Bennett permission to sign a new contract with anyone who wanted his services. Clubowner Ball protested the ruling, carried the case to court. When Judge Walter Lindley upheld the Landis edict, Ball appealed, vowed he would go to the U. S. Supreme Court for a decision.

Long before last week, the Bennett Case, rarely discussed" on sports pages, had become a cause celebre. Clubowners were afraid that, if the matter reached the U. S. Supreme Court, the fundamental rule of baseball, which makes players chattels of clubowners, would be found illegal. If illegal, any player dissatisfied with his contract could desert his job, negotiate for employment elsewhere. Under these circumstances, rich clubs could buy up all the best players, organized baseball would soon fall to pieces.

At the meetings of major league club owners in Chicago last fortnight the Bennett Case was discussed behind closed doors. Last week, nobody knew for sure how Philip De Catesby Ball had been persuaded to drop his stubborn plan of revenge against Judge Landis. For dissuading him from a course of action which might have destroyed organized baseball, gossip credited Clark Griffith, part owner of the Washington "Senators," Colonel Jacob Ruppert, owner of the New York ''Yankees," and Robert Quinn, owner of the Boston "Red Sox."

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