[greymule]

The article is a bit vague. How did the player, and apparently the court, establish that the beaning was deliberate? (If I were on the court, I would give no weight at all to an accidental beaning, which is clearly a risk every player assumes.) And whether or not intent was involved would have no bearing on the liability of the maker of the helmet.

Of course, we don't have the entire opinion, but it is not clear from the article that the court is aware that baseball does indeed distinguish between the legal brushback pitch ("chin music," which is most certainly part of the game) and the illegal beanball.

There was a time when the courts stayed out of practically anything that happened in a sporting event. (Remember Kermit Washington slugging Rudy Tomjanovich in 1977? Washington was fined $10,000 and suspended for 60 days. He was not prosecuted, but if the incident had occurred on the street, or even in a pickup game, he probably would have gone to jail. Tomjanovich did get a $3.2 million settlement from the Lakers.) But for a while now, courts have distinguished between (1) action that is illegal on the street but "acceptable" as part of a game (fistfights in hockey), and (2) criminal action that occurs during a game (crushing a skull with a hockey stick).

Of course, proving intent on a beanball would be problematic, but I suspect that the courts would not consider serious injury caused by an intentional illegal act—an act banned by the sport itself—to be "part of the game," even in MLB.

Would the results have been different if the plaintiff had been Anglo-Saxon from a major university?

The suggestion that the California Supreme Court—among the most liberal courts in the nation—considered the race of the plaintiff in its ruling is a very serious allegation that should not be thrown around lightly. On the other hand, I wonder whether a white former football star who had practically beheaded a black woman and a young Jewish man would today be searching the golf courses of the country for the "real killers"?