Tri-City ValleyCats Look To Supreme Court In Battle vs. MLB
For nineteen seasons, the Tri-City ValleyCats were a short-season, single-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. Hundreds of future major leaguers played at Joe Bruno Stadium in Troy for either the VCats or their opponents.
In 2020, as Major League Baseball reduced its number of minor league team, not only did the partnership with the Astros go away for Tri-City, so did any opportunity at another MLB affiliation. The ValleyCats and their fans were left without a team. As a result, ValleyCats President Rick Murphy, along with the other owners stripped of their affiliation, took the MLB to court.
The owners of the Tri-City ValleyCats, Norwich Sea Unicorns, Staten Island Yankees and Salem-Keizer Volcanoes filed federal civil complaint alleging that in 2020 the Major League Baseball owners "collectively" reduced the number of minor league teams affiliated with MLB clubs in order to cut expenses.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in Manhattan on Tuesday ruled that Major League Baseball is indeed exempt from a lawsuit. Now the ValleyCats and the other three owners are off to Washington headed for the big stadium, the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Robert Gavin of timesunion.com, attorney James Quinn told the Times Union, "For us, this is exactly what we wanted. Only the Supreme Court can overrule their own precedent; the lower courts can’t...We think if we get to the Supreme Court, we have a very good chance at getting the exemption overruled — and then we move forward.” Hopefully the ValleyCats get justice.