The justices offered no reason for unanimously turning down a request by the Minnesota attorney general to reopen the legal status of baseball under federal and state antitrust laws.

The state's appeal argued that major League baseball uses its antitrust exemption "as a sword to extort public stadium subsidies by threatening to move unless its demands for new facilities is met. There are no longer any sound legal or policy reasons for the exemption." Attorney General Mike Hatch, who followed through on the case started by his predecessor, Hubert Humphrey III said the following "Our lawsuit sought access to internal baseball documents for the purpose of determining whether they were engaged in illegal, anti-competitive acts."

The state attorney general's office began its investigation in 1997 after Twins owner Carl Pohlad announced he would sell the team to a North Carolina partnership if state lawmakers did not authorize public funding for a new ballpark. Just days later, baseball commissioner Bud Selig told Minnesota officials that if a publicly financed stadium was not built, other teams owners would approve the Twins' move from Minnesota.

The Supreme Court, creating baseball's antitrust exemption [click here for definition] in 1922 and in the 1972 Curt Flood case,  stated that it was up to Congress to alter the exemption. The Supreme Court has not accepted a baseball antitrust case since then.