BASEBALL ‘94: GOING, GOING . . . GONE : Clinton Questions the Antitrust Exemption

Lamenting the premature end of a promising baseball season, President Clinton said Wednesday that the sport’s antitrust exemption should be re-examined “if this has just turned into another business in America.”

Clinton told reporters that, with the World Series called off, and if “we have ended what could have been the best baseball season in 50 years . . . I don’t see how we can avoid a serious examination of it.”

Clinton added, “I don’t want to give a definitive answer (on the antitrust exemption) at this moment, for the simple reason that I have not had time to study it.”

Nor, he said, has he received any advice from the Justice Department.

Clinton also said that his Administration should get some credit for trying to solve the dispute between baseball’s players and owners.

“I might say, you know, we tried,” he said, noting that the Administration had mobilized the Federal Mediation Service, as well as Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich. The Administration did everything it could do, Clinton said.

Baseball players have argued that the antitrust exemption has unreasonably restrained free-market competition and held down players’ salaries.