SAN JOSE — Down to its last strike, San Jose is taking one last big swing in court in an attempt to lure the A’s to the South Bay.
The City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court its antitrust lawsuit against Major League Baseball that seeks to allow the Oakland baseball club to move to San Jose. It comes two weeks after an appeals court ruled against San Jose.
“This is about to get fun,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said after the closed-door vote.
It remains unclear, however, whether the Supreme Court will take up the case, and there have been no shortage of legal experts who doubt the battle will ever make it to Washington, D.C. The court only agrees to hear about 75 to 80 cases each year, or about 0.8 percent of the appeals it receives.
“On the whole, the odds are probably relatively slim for the city,” Nathaniel Grow, an assistant legal studies professor at the University of Georgia who has been following the case and has written a book about baseball’s antitrust law. But “I’ve always said if they can get the Supreme Court to take the case, the odds would be in their favor.”
The A’s have been unable to move south because of objections from the San Francisco Giants, which have territorial rights over Santa Clara County. After more diplomatic efforts to convince the Giants and MLB over four years proved fruitless, the city sued baseball in June 2013.
But the city has already suffered strike 1 (a U.S. district judge ruled against San Jose in 2013) and strike 2 (the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of MLB in January) leaving the Supreme Court as the city’s only remaining option.
The appeal was expected, as the city will continue to get free services from its outside law team if it loses. And the council and the A’s last year agreed to an extension of up to seven years to hold aside a downtown parcel in case the ballpark is approved.
City officials have eyed the Supreme Court as their only likely venue of victory, as it would need the justices to overturn precedent on antitrust law to succeed. San Jose leaders are also hopeful that an anxious MLB would settle if the justices take the case so baseball doesn’t risk losing broader antitrust exemptions it has had since 1922. The city’s lawyers and other legal experts have noted that other professional sports leagues like the NFL are subject to antitrust law and described baseball’s exemption as an anomaly.
New MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said after the appeals court victory that he hoped it meant the end of the case and is focused on trying to build a new A’s ballpark in Oakland. But San Jose officials have long since given up on winning over baseball’s top brass, as the league spent half a decade studying the issue through a “blue ribbon committee” that never made any findings public.
Council members were meeting Tuesday afternoon and unavailable for further comment, and the city’s outside attorney was not immediately available for comment. An MLB attorney and spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705. Follow him at Twitter.com/RosenbergMerc.
