hyperrationality of contemporary legal discourse". Blackmun, he wrote: "If Flood is seen ... as a decision grounded in a desire to adopt sound legal rules for sports leagues, Part I makes eminent sense", says Illinois law professor Stephen F. Ross. He reads it as doing exactly that, countering critics who charge it with being an overly strict application of stare decisis by showing how Blackmun and the other majority justices could reasonably, at that time, have been convinced that "contemporary antitrust doctrines would condemn many arrangements among owners that are arguably essential to baseball". Blackmun himself acknowledged in 1987, that his colleagues on the Court had, as Burger and Douglas's opinions suggest, seen it as "beneath [our] dignity". But he expressed no regrets, save the discovery by his clerks that, after the decision had issued, he had forgotten Mel Ott. In his personal copy of the decision he penciled Ott's name in. See also 1972 in baseball Baseball law List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Burger Court Bosman ruling – 1995 European Court of Justice decision that allowed unrestricted free agency in the European Union Notes References Works cited Further reading External links Major League Baseball litigation Major League Baseball labor relations United States antitrust case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court History of Major League Baseball 1972 in United States case law 1972 in baseball