In 1953, Sterry, then a senior partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, successfully represented the New Yankees in a case before the United States Supreme Court, Toolson v. New York Yankees, 346 U.S. 356, which upheld an exemption from the antitrust laws for Major League Baseball.
Two justices (Stanley Forman Reed and Harold Hitz Burton) dissented from the short, unsigned per curiam majority opinion, arguing MLB and its revenue sources had changed enough since 1922 that the logic of that case no longer applied.
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Two years later, baseball held its first amateur draft, ending the system whereby wealthier and successful teams like the Yankees were able to keep their farm teams stocked with talent the way they had with Toolson, not only as insurance against player injuries but to prevent opposing teams from signing them.
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A one-paragraph unsigned per curiam opinion was followed by a longer dissent by Justice Harold Hitz Burton, joined by Stanley Forman Reed.
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