WASHINGTON — Die-hard baseball fan Terry Haney got his wish yesterday when the Supreme Court rebuffed Major League Baseball’s argument that fantasy sports leagues be required to pay a license for the right to use player names and plug runs, hits, and errors into their popular online games.

As a youngster growing up in San Diego during the early 1960s, Mr. Haney freely incorporated baseball statistics gleaned from newspaper box scores into a rudimentary board game. Last year, Mr. Haney — now a 55-year-old retired hog trader in Iowa — parlayed his love for baseball’s myriad metrics into winning a $100,000 prize in a national fantasy baseball league.

That MLB and its players union wanted to put the national pastime’s treasure trove of game-related statistics under lock and key left Mr. Haney baffled: “I almost hoped that the justices would look at MLB and ask them, ‘Why the hell are you wasting our time?'”

The Supreme Court did the next best thing, fantasy sports league operators said, by refusing to review the case that MLB and its players union doggedly had pursued after losing an initial court decision in 2005.

The justices’ decision was a setback not only for baseball players, but for other professional athletes who maintained that outside companies had no right to “exploit players’ identity for commercial gain.” The NFL, NBA, and NHL had supported baseball’s players and owners in their appeal to the Supreme Court.

The court’s refusal also throws into question any licensing deals already in place, something MLB had said amounted to “billions of dollars.” When MLB appealed to the Supreme Court in February, it argued that such deals could be jeopardized if companies had a free-speech right to use the names of famous people without permission.

The largest fantasy leagues generally are licensed by MLB, including those run by ESPN and Fox Sports, giving rights to use players’ names, faces, and stats. ESPN and Fox Sports, however, had no immediate comment on the case.