February 25 may not take place during the regular season, but surprisingly, some very important events happened for Major League Baseball on its administrative side on this date, so let's talk about those events!
1957: The NFL waged war with its fellow football leagues for many years and even became involved in a big antitrust lawsuit that went all the way up to the Supreme Court in 1957. The Supreme Court ended up ruling that the NFL was in fact subject to antitrust laws, meaning that they couldn't monopolize organized football. This ruling, which was made on February 25, 1957, made it official that the MLB is exclusively exempt from antitrust laws. Pretty interesting!
1981: On February 25, 1981, the Players' Association voted unanimously to strike on May 29th if free agent compensation wasn't changed. The strike actually started on June 12th, but still erased more than a third of the MLB's scheduled games that season. This is so significant because it was Major League Baseball's first major strike and wouldn't be its last.
February 25 certainly changed baseball in a multitude of ways. It just goes to show you how even during the offseason, make sure you read those article headlines, because you could miss some league-shattering news.
Bonus Event (1972): This event isn't related to baseball's behind-the-scenes endeavors, but still impacted baseball in a major way. On February 25, 1972, the Cardinals traded Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton to the Phillies. Carlton would go on to win four Cy Young Awards with Philadelphia and even helped them win their first World Series in franchise history in 1980. If Carlton played for better teams throughout his career, he might've gotten close to 400 career wins!
Thanks for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed it. Check back soon for more of "all the buzz on what wuzz."
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