reserve clause

American  

noun

Sports.

1. the clause in the contract of a professional player in some sports that binds the player to a team for a season beyond the expiration of the contract in the event a new contract has not been made meanwhile or the player has not been sent to another team.

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Etymology

Origin of reserve clause

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

Pasquel may not have ended segregation or overturned the reserve clause, but he certainly hastened the demise of both.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 7, 2022

Baseball also was operating under the reserve clause, which bound a player to his current team indefinitely.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 7, 2022

The reserve clause, for those who don’t remember, was baseball’s way of tying a player to a team for life.

From Washington Post • Mar. 2, 2022

But at the time, the Major Leagues’ reserve clause essentially kept players under a franchise’s control in perpetuity.

From New York Times • Aug. 18, 2021

Then comes in the reserve clause again: “But he shall have one Tribe for My servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the Tribes of Israel.”

From The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 by Wild, Joseph