Jim Bunning: “last week, the owners of major league baseball visited Capitol Hill to urge Members of Congress to leave their exemption…”

“last week, the owners of major league baseball visited Capitol Hill to urge Members of Congress to leave their exemption from the antitrust laws alone. Many of you may also have seen a letter which went out last week from Acting Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, which outlined a number of reasons that he felt vindicated the existence of the antitrust exemption. I thought it was time that you heard the other side of the story. Mr. Selig, in his letter, insisted that major league baseball does not operate as an economic cartel. That is wrong. Major league baseball operates as a cartel in classic monopoly fashion. The owners, not market forces, dictate how the supply of its product will be allocated. The antitrust exemption shields major league baseball from market forces and makes competition impossible. That sounds like a monopoly to me. Mr. Selig also insists that repeal of the antitrust exemption would not end the baseball strike. Wrong again. All signs point the other way. Don Fehr, the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, has publicly stated many times that if the exemption were repealed, he would strongly urge the players to end the strike. Mr. Selig insisted that the players should agree to a salary cap because it is good and because it has worked for football and basketball. Wrong yet again. Football and basketball do have salary caps, but those caps were negotiated through the collective bargaining process.…”