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Thursday, October 08, 2009
When it comes to baseball, all reason goes away
This time, I’m on the lawyer’s side:
I think that it’s about who had lawful ownership and rights to keep and retrieve that baseball. But it probably says something, Melissa, does it not, that the day I filed the lawsuit, the Phillies voluntarily and willingly returned the baseball to her. And your hard questions should be directed towards the Phillies’ team representative, who said to young Jennifer: Here, Jennifer, take this other baseball, which is worth next to nothing, and we’ll take the one worth thousands of dollars. That’s the question that should be asked here.
...BLOCK: That was lawyer Norm Kent of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We did make repeated calls to the Phillies. They declined to comment on this story.
I can only imagine the Phillies general counsel going into conniptions here when he first heard this story (which I can only presume and hope is when the lawsuit was filed). I think all lawyers see this situation for what it is: an adult striking a deal with a child, without parental consent, or even supervision. The Phillies should be ashamed of themselves for doing what they did, and putting the girl in the position they did. They know the public is on their side because of the “purity” and “virginity” of baseball, that how dare someone, outside of MLB, profit from something MLB-generated.
If the law was that a HR ball belongs to MLB, then fine, get Congress to pass that law. Until then, the HR ball belonged to the girl. At that point, you can’t get an adult to negotiate with her for her ball, any more than they can negotiate for her shoes or purse or jacket. Jennifer Valdivia is 100% right, and anyone against her is simply wrong.
The Phillies should do the right thing and publicly apologize to her, and taking the full blame. They were as wrong as Serena Williams was in berating the linesperson.
UPDATE: I was wrong about the Phillies’ attorney:
Kent said he quickly told Phillies attorneys he wanted the ball returned before the season ended or he would file suit. The initial counter offer, the suit said, was for tickets to a Phillies-Marlins game.
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