[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by greymule

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).

You need to remember the Tomjanovich incident was before the legal systems "interpreted" laws to, in some cases, act as the plaintiff. If Rudy didn't press charges (and there probably was pressure to keep this in-house), the legal system had no charge to execute.

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.

You just never know. We all know that people say some stupid things at the wrong times, especially in sports. For as much as we know, the pitcher could have admitted he was throwing at the batter. Remember the Phillies' putz of a manager, Danny Ozark? This moron admitted to him and his wife spending their Sundays "stuffing the Gillette All-Star ballot box" for Larry Bowa and Dave Cash in the 1970's knowing damn well it was against league policy, not to mention any ethics concerning a valid ballot. The league fined him a few thousand dollars that the club probably paid.

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"?

OJ was not set free by the courts, but by the jury who basically punished the LA police and DA's office for poor execution on the street and in the courtroom. I'm not saying that the "Dream Team" didn't do it's best to obliterate the facts of the case, they did.

Momma Gump was right, stupid is as stupid does.