perfidy

CNN brings us a breath of fresh legal air. In 1998, Jane Costa sued the Boston Red Sox for half a mil because she got hit in the face by a foul ball. The suit has been dismissed by a state court panel. Costa, who was "more than angry. I was in critical condition,"gets nothing, though she is reportedly upset that the Sox are "bickering over millions and millions of dollars to hit a ball, and when one of their fans get hurt, they don't care."

Why did this take six years to resolve? Didn't she read the back of her Red Sox ticket? I did!

By use of this ticket, the ticket holder agrees that... [t]he holder assumes all risk and danger incidental to the game of baseball, or preparation therefor, including specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown or flying bats and thrown or batted balls and agrees that the participating clubs, their agents and players are not liable for injuries resulting from such causes.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Ms. Costa is one of those "casual (read:"non") fans" who litter ballparks, the proportion of which to actual fans rises the closer one sits to the infield. Not a casual fan like my wife, who when she accompanies me to a game takes a good book for the slow parts but remains alert to the possibility of high-speed projectiles (as vanishingly unlikely as they are in the right-field grandstands underneath the balcony), but a casual fan who jabbers on their cell phone the entire game, is upanddownupanddown in the middle of tense at-bats and sighs/bitches loudly in the fourth inning that the game is taking so loooooong.

If I have mischaracterized Ms. Costa's fandom, I'm sorry. But odds are this next statement is for her: if you are lucky enough to have dugout seats, watch the goddamn game. Hell, if you were bored, perhaps you should have perused the words written in red capitals on the back of your ticket. I'm sorry you took one in the face. I bet that hurt. But still.