September 12, 2002

Jury to decide who owns Bonds' record No. 73 baseball.: Alex Popov claims he caught the ball before he got crushed by a mob of fans. Hayashi, who ultimately grabbed the ball, says he's the owner. Judge McBride says they're both wrong. There's possibly $1 million at stake here, folks. Who do you think owns it? How would you decide? [more inside]

posted by worldcup2002 to baseball at 06:07 PM - 7 comments

What if we applied rules from different milieu(s?) to the incident:

  1. Baseball: MLB umpire James Evans testified that Popov didn't hold the ball long enough to qualify for a "catch." Tie.
  2. Football: Was there "possession" before the tackle? Undetermined.
  3. Soccer: No contact allowed with the keeper. Free kick. Popov wins.
  4. Basketball: No contact allowed. Free throw. Popov wins.
  5. Bleacher ball: What rules apply? Is "manhandling" allowed? Hayashi's case was based on the assumption that it was part of the "game", but Judge McBride rejected that idea. Tie. (Perhaps it's time to establish rules for home run ball retrieval. Video review will be key to the calls. And we'll have to assign an HRBR umpire to officiate.)
  6. Replay the point: If there's a deadlock again, how will you decide? What would King Solomon do? They could ... Ooooh, wait a minute. Maybe these greedy bastards could split ownership. They could've saved themselves a lot of aggro and lawyer's fees if they'd done it at the start.

posted by worldcup2002 at 06:23 PM on September 12, 2002

The judge should call them both nitwits, take the ball and put in the Hall of Fame.

posted by mediaman at 09:24 PM on September 12, 2002

agreed with mediaman, but i hope that popov now knows to catch the damn ball with two hands. one vote here for hayashi.

posted by jackhererra at 11:13 PM on September 12, 2002

I think of it much like a football fumble: Often it's not the guy that actually has the ball when the whistle blows that ends up recovering the fumble. It's the guy that manages to wrestle the ball away from other players and has the ball when the ref untangles all the bodies that ends up with posession of the ball. I'd go with Hayashi.

posted by gyc at 12:35 AM on September 13, 2002

Is this how it works in the bleachers? If I got my glove to a million-dollar ball, solid, one-handed catch, cradled in my mitt, then some guy smashes into me, causing me to cough up the ball, and then Mr Hayashi picks it up, that's good? And, if some kid tries to catch the ball, it's now OK to just swat the little bugger out of the way so you can get it? I'm going to start wearing full spiked armor to PacBell Park.

posted by worldcup2002 at 01:22 AM on September 13, 2002

yup, that's how it works, especially if you know the ball's going to be worth a lot of money. drop the pepsi, hold on to the damn ball.

posted by jackhererra at 02:25 PM on September 13, 2002

There was an extensive article about this in SI one week. Can't find it online, but it went into much more detail then you'd think anyone would care about.

posted by Smackfu at 07:49 PM on September 13, 2002

You're not logged in. Please log in or register.