The game of baseball mirrors our history, identity, and culture. And, if baseball is the heart of America, the legal process provides the sinews that hold it in place. This work assembles an all-star baseball law team whose stories illuminate the relationship between law and baseball that made the business of baseball a truly American institution.

Baseball is at the heart of our history, identity, and culture, its principles regularly echoed in American rhetoric. But baseball is more than a game; it is a complex business held together and often transformed by the legal process. In 1876 William Hulbert employed the law to bring club owners together to form the National League. Ninety years later Marvin Miller used the law to change a management-funded fraternity of ballplayers into the strongest trade union in the country. The relationship between baseball and the law continues to influence the ever-evolving nature of the game. In Legal Bases, Roger I. Abrams has assembled an all-star lineup of stories that combines trenchant analysis of legal controversies with delightful anecdotes about both legendary cases and lesser-known tales of key players in the legal web of baseball history. The lore begins with Monte Ward, a Hall-of-Famer and Columbia Law School graduate who organized the first baseball union. The Major League Players Associate emerges as a powerful opposition to the club owners. In the 1990s, baseball is almost destroyed by a labor strike until a federal judge steps in to the fray. Along the way, Abrams presents an expert discourse on a range of related issues, such as baseball's antitrust exemption, free agency, and collective bargaining. Taking his examination further, Abrams also speculates on closely linked issues like intellectual property, eminent domain, and gender equity. Appearances by a host of minor characters, including baseball magnate Albert Spaulding, New York Knickerbocker Alexander Joy Cartwright, and Acting Commissioner Bud Selig enrich this history of baseball and the legal system.