Noah Feldman, Columnist

Judge Cries Foul Over a Chicago Law That Favored the Cubs

The city can ban peddlers from the sidewalks around Wrigley Field. But it has to enforce that law against the Cubs too.

May 25, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

You win some, you lose some.
Photographer: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

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Chicago squared off against the First Amendment this week -- at Wrigley Field, of all places. An appeals court upheld a city ordinance that bans all peddling, including printed matter, on the blocks immediately around the stadium. But at the same time, the court insisted that the rules must apply to everybody, including the Cubs. The home team is accustomed to selling team merchandise in this area.

The First Amendment is as American as baseball, and it was at the heart of this interesting and important case. An independent company called Left Field Media produces four issues per season of a magazine called Chicago Baseball and sells them on game days (for $2!) through vendors on the streets around Wrigley.