Player struck by baseball loses lawsuit
 

This is part of the difference in baseball philosophy as opposed to softball.
Yes, we know it happens in softball, but that doesn't make it right and many in softball know this. In baseball, it intent to injure is basically ignored.

If there is even a hint that the pitch was intentionally thrown at the batter, this court did the sport and it's participants a great disservice. Oh, silly me, this was a court in California, right?

Nev-r-miened!

Totally nauseating comments by the court. :(

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

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"?

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.

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. 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.

Here's a link to the full opinion.

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions...ts/S119575.PDF

The beanball in question allegedly was in retaliation for a hit-by-pitch in the previous half inning. The only issues were the liability of the pitcher's college to the hit batter. I'd say the core quote is:

It is true that intentionally throwing at a batter is forbidden by the rules of baseball. (See, e.g., Off. Rules of Major League Baseball, rule 8.02(d)). But even when a participant’s conduct violates a rule of the game and may subject the violator to internal sanctions prescribed by the sport itself, imposition of legal liability for such conduct might well alter fundamentally the nature of the sport by deterring participants from vigorously engaging in activity that falls close to, but on the permissible side of, a prescribed rule. It is one thing for an umpire to punish a pitcher who hits a batter by ejecting him from the game, or for a league to suspend the pitcher; it is quite another for tort law to chill any pitcher from throwing inside, i.e., close to the batter’s body—a permissible and essential part of the sport—for fear of a suit over an errant pitch. For better or worse, being intentionally thrown at is a fundamental part and inherent risk of the sport of baseball. It is not the function of tort law to police such conduct.