by Michael Ceraolo
When the Federal League filed their anti-trust suit in my court
because of my reputation as a trust-buster,
they failed to realize that I considered baseball
a national institution,
and that I would not brook radical action
against a national institution,
no matter what the law might say on the matter
(you saw what I did later to other radicals)
I sat on the case until the two parties
could settle the matter amongst themselves
(The suit that later reached the Supreme Court
was filed years later in a different court)
Baseball was grateful, and a few years later
offered me the position of single Commissioner,
a dream job:
many times my judge’s salary,
free admission to all baseball games,
and best of all, no annoying appellate judges
to overturn any of my decisions
I fought a losing battle against the growing farm systems,
but otherwise did what I was hired to do:
clean up the game’s image with the fans and writers,
and put in their place anyone who dared
to attack the game’s economic structure
