Posts Tagged ‘ Baseball ’

Mental Floss gives historical view of Baseball Litigation

July 28th, 2009. By AbiK

I was just over at mentalfloss.com—land where anyone with both a brain and a healthy sense of humor will feel right at home—and read a recent post by Ethan Trex called “The Ump Who Sued Lou Piniella (And Other Baseball-Related Legal Disputes)”.

Given I had recently posted about the summer’s hottest baseball lawsuits (hello, Alfred “floppy hat” Rava—and yes, he’s a lawyer himself, CA bar…San Diego…), I naturally had to take a look. And if you’re a baseball fan, it’s worth a read.

Lest you think this baseball and litigation connection is fleeting, the Washington Times reports today that “seven former and current major league baseball players and others who made money from R. Allen Stanford’s purported Ponzi scheme” are now worrying that their own money is at risk of being taken—and they’ve hooked up with an “unlikely ally: the Securities and Exchange Commission.” Seems the SEC has asked the judge in the case to stop the lawyer charged with taking control of assets related to the alleged scam from suing investors for their proceeds in the Stanford investment. Needless to say, the SEC request has ruffled some feathers and we’ll have to watch this one play out (no pun intended). For the record, the Washington Post reports players involved are: retired Atlanta Braves pitcher Greg Maddux, retired New York Yankees’ player Bernie Williams, current Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon, Boston Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew, Texas Rangers outfielder Andruw Jones, Tampa Bay Rays first baseman Carlos Pena and Jay Bell, a shortstop who played for several teams prior to retiring in ’03.

Tags: Alfred Rava, Baseball
Posted in Emerging Issues | No Comments »

Baseball Lawsuit Round-up

July 8th, 2009. By AbiK

I have this image of a dad who takes his son to his first ballgame. The dad starts going over the finer points of the game. He’s riled up passion—a passion he wants his son to share, of course. Then, he turns to look his son directly in the eye, and taking on a more serious tone he says,

“and son, if anyone pisses you off at the game, you take ’em to court.”

Welcome to baseball American-style 2009. With that, here’s a little scorecard on the season’s lawsuits so far…

Winner: Alfred G. Rava

Loser: Cause Marketing and Good Intent

We’ve blogged about this one earlier, but to recall, Alfred G. Rava—a lawyer—was fairly miffed that, as a man, he was not given a floppy hat giveaway at an Oakland A’s game back in ’04. The floppy hats (comped by Macy’s) were part of a Mother’s Day promotion that also supported Breast Cancer awareness. Kind of a girly-day theme—with an important message. But Rava must’ve been in touch with his feminine side that day, and well, he got mad when that wasn’t obvious to the folks doling out the hats. So he sued. Sexual discrimination. And he won. The settlement was reportedly $510,000. Next up at bat… Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alfred Rava, Baseball, Twitter
Posted in Emerging Issues | No Comments »