By Dan Levine
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The city of San Jose, California cannot seek a court order allowing the Oakland A's baseball team to move to Silicon Valley, a U.S appeals court ruled on Thursday.
San Jose sued Major League Baseball and league Commissioner Bud Selig in 2013, seeking permission for the A's to relocate there. A lower court judge rejected the city's argument, ruling that baseball could withhold its approval for the A's to move under the league's longstanding antitrust exemption.
In its ruling on Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also cited Major League Baseball's unique antitrust status.
San Jose "joins the long line of litigants that have sought to overturn one of federal law's most enduring anomalies," 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.
"Like Casey, San Jose has struck out here," Kozinski added, referencing the classic baseball poem "Casey at the Bat".
Attorneys for the city could not immediately be reached, and an Oakland A's representative declined to comment. Major League Baseball is "pleased but not surprised," MLB attorney John Keker said in an email.
The Oakland A's have struggled with weak ticket sales in the Oakland Coliseum, which the A's share with the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League.
San Jose, the biggest city in affluent Silicon Valley, has longed for a MLB franchise for years. The city has offered the A's land for a baseball park, while also pressing the league to have owners of the other teams vote to allow the A's to move.
A major obstacle to that plan has been the San Francisco Giants, which has attempted to prevent the A's move by arguing that the Giants hold territorial rights to San Jose, according to the lawsuit.
Tired of waiting for a vote, San Jose sued MLB, charging their "illegal and collusive actions thwarted plaintiffs' diligent efforts to procure a major league baseball team for Silicon Valley."
However, the antitrust exemption applies to franchise relocation, Kozinski wrote, and only Congress and the Supreme Court can alter that.
The case in the 9th Circuit is City of San Jose et al. vs. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and Allan Huber "Bud" Selig, 14-15139.