Strands of forgotten tickertape and tire-flattened beer cups still litter the World Series stomping grounds around Bank One Ballpark. But the world of baseball is finally getting back to normal.
Owners and players are back to wheelin' and dealin' league agreements behind closed doors, and angry fans are playing out their TV courtroom fantasy in the San Francisco Superior Court. Ahh, baseball ... the Great American Pastime.
"Finders, keepers." Or is it, "Early Bird gets the worm"? Or is it, "Body slamming and a good trial lawyer will win it for you every time"? Oh, I always get those pesky ballpark rules confused.
In the courtroom battle over the ownership of Barry Bonds' 73rd home run ball, lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants have been using all three. In a court case that is little more than laughable fodder for Judge Judy, Alex Popov has taken Patrick Hayashi to court over the rightful ownership of the physical ball that Bonds' pelted into the stands of Pacific Bell Park on Oct. 7.
At the hearing at the San Francisco Superior Court earlier this week, the two men made it clear that a settlement was out of the question, and voila! A full-fledged trial will ensue.
The mediator of this "big league" tattle-tale is Judge David Garcia, who will decide if the event really was what Popov described it as — a clean catch before he was tackled by a rough-and-tumble gang of electrical engineering thugs from Silicon Valley.
When the dust cleared, Hayashi had the ball and was on a quest "to clear his name," according to his lawyer, Michael Lee. How noble. Forget Cy Young, the Golden Glove, the joint World Series MVP — Hayashi and Popov are proving that the real heroes in baseball are in the stands — and sit in the cheap seats.
This trial will definitely be a test of Garcia's judicial skills. Even though the hubbub surrounding Bonds' walloped ball was captured on videotape, a law professor and a Major League umpire will be brought in as legal experts to analyze the footage according to the official rules of Major League Baseball, and, in Popov's case, playground rules of bullying.
It's the showdown between The Geek of Silicon Valley and Popov the Terrible (Tofu Vendor, that is). Too bad neither of them resemble Clint Eastwood — the enormity of the battle over Barry's 73rd bomb screams TBS miniseries.
What is easy to forget when one gets wrapped up in this drama (and it is little more than that) is this: These are grown men.
We are talking about a piece of cork, nine inches around, wrapped in leather and string. Sure, Bonds hit a record — a record that, like Mark McGwire's, will most likely be broken in coming seasons. These men have lost perspective and have done so at the cost of baseball's integrity.
Besides being a pathetic display of juvenile greed and bad estimation of cost/benefit ratios (the bucks spent on the trial lawyers, legal experts and workdays missed will almost certainly exceed the final price the winner will get for the ball), this is an unfortunate scenario that mars the All-American purity of baseball
Flag-waving gimmicks aside, MLB took major strides this year in regaining Americans' trust in the old nine-inning standby after the recent rash of strikes and contract battles between owners' and players' associations. From the Sept. 11 memorials, to an unbelievable underdog season turned in by the Seattle Mariners, to November baseball and a seven-game World Series that brought Phoenix unprecedented hometown pride, this season in many ways rescued the national morale from skyrocketing player salaries and flagging fan loyalty.
But thanks to Popov and Hayashi's desire to parade their adolescent greed to the bench and into the headlines, all that optimism is in jeopardy.
Popov said in an interview, "I want to bring the ball back to the Bay Area, and that's the most important thing."
But unless he thinks that a mantelpiece is worth the cynicism of a nation that was beginning to again believe in the magic of the seventh-inning stretch, I say he's got it wrong.
Katie Petersen is a journalism and English sophomore. Reach her at limerick132@hotmail.com.
