Free Agency Born in Federal Court

Reporters had packed the press room at the Kansas City, Mo., federal courthouse 23 years ago today when someone began passing out 45-page copies of an order rendered by judge John Oliver.

The order, upheld later on appeal, held that pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally were free agents.

Oliver thus drove another nail into the coffin of baseball’s reserve system and set in motion an upward spiral of baseball salaries that continues to this day, most recently with the $105-million contract signed by Dodger pitcher Kevin Brown.

The order upheld a ruling by baseball arbitrator Peter Seitz. Baseball’s owners didn’t much like Seitz’s decision. In fact, they fired him.

But they couldn’t fire Oliver, and the game’s salary structure was forever changed.

Messersmith and McNally had brought the litigation as a test case, maintaining that the reserve clause bound them to their teams for one year, not in perpetuity.

Also on this date: In 1990, Bo Jackson lost big time to baseball arbitrator Stephen Goldberg. The Kansas City Royals’ outfielder had asked for a $1,900,001 salary after the Royals offered $1 million. Goldberg found for the club, making Jackson the Royals’ 10th highest-paid player. . . . In 1968, Arnold Palmer beat Deane Beman on the second hole of a playoff to win the Bob Hope Desert Classic and $20,000. . . . In 1987, Dennis Conner skippered Stars & Stripes to an America’s Cup victory over Australia’s Kookaburra III. . . . In 1969, baseball’s owners hired Bowie Kuhn to be the game’s commissioner, at $100,000 per year. . . . In 1997, Mario Lemieux became the seventh NHL player to score 600 goals. . . . In 1932, the Lake Placid, N.Y., Winter Olympic Games opened.