In light of the controversy over Ryan Howard’s home run ball, as well as past disputes over ownership of other record-setting and significant balls, I wonder if we are heading towards a change in how baseballs hit into the stands (at least fair balls) are treated.
It seems to me that MLB and individual teams control this. Fans keeping baseballs is a matter of tradition and historical practice, practice that is not followed in most other sports–football, basketball, tennis. The question of how a ball should be treated under state property rules depends on the teams–the owners of the stadiums–not simply declaring that all balls remaining within the stadium (or remaining within the stadium and in fair territory) remain the property of MLB and must be returned.
Such a move would not be popular, of course, as it flies in the face of the intrinsic joy of fans catching home run balls (that several commenters mentioned on my earlier post). But I wonder if teams might find it better than getting into legal disputes with fans when players want important balls, not to mention having fans committing simple battery in an attempt to catch a ball. Simply take away any “right” to keep the balls. Of course, would this mean teams would have to enforce the rules every time, not just on important balls? Or would it be enough for the teams to reserve the right to get a ball back whenever it wished to?
I am not a property scholar, so I invite those more in the know to weigh in.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on October 12, 2009 at 07:44 PM
Comments
Reading a case about a disputed baseball in the stands was one of my best memories from first year property.
Posted by: Jason | Oct 13, 2009 9:27:48 AM
Is there room on ticket stubs for a statement preserving the team’s ownership of such balls? If not, might such a statement be imprinted on each ball? MLB gets a lot of marketing mileage out of players tossing balls into the stands after a third out. This idea of retaining title is silly. Why if MLB’s greed keeps up, it will be my nominee for the ‘NO-BALLS” prize. MLB, get a pair!
Posted by: Shag from Brookline | Oct 13, 2009 6:57:22 AM
Baseballs in the stands are a fun problem that I talk about every year in the first possession section of the property course. The advantages of giving up the current approach (and making baseball come in line with other sports like soccer and basketball (though not sure about football)) seem pretty slim. Players may want to get back a precious few baseballs as mementos, but the Ryan Howard problem is sui generis as far as I know, and I’m not sure the relative rarity of the issue justifies a sea change in the way we approach this issue. Battery when the ball goes into the stands? Yeah, it’s a problem, but most scrums I’ve seen at ballparks are good natured rather than truly nasty (Popov and Hayashi aside).
Enforcement seems a serious concern. If people didn’t just comply by throwing the ball back, would we have security personnel shake down everyone in the vicinity to make sure they don’t have the offending ball on them. I suppose the rule could be that fans could be formally divested of the right to keep balls hit into the stands, but that teams would decline to enforce it except in important cases.
Q: Perhaps this is already the rule? Ballparks are private property, so it’s not as though a ball hit out of the park is that different than a ball I throw across my own back yard, and no one would argue I’ve abandoned a ball merely by allowing someone else to hit it from one part of my land to another during a game. We may already be dealing with social norms rather than law in terms of the fan-keeps-ball rule.
Posted by: Dave | Oct 13, 2009 5:46:48 AM