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Originally Posted by olliethebum85 |
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They should have just destroyed it, but I know that would look bad PR wise. The ball is still Phillies property and no fan has the legal right to keep a ball that goes into the stands.
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That is not true.
The ball belongs to a fan as a matter of contract. When one purchases a ticket to a professional baseball game, the buyer is led to believe that he is purchasing a number of entitlements — among which are the right to watch the ensuing game without interference and the right to sit in the seat identified on the ticket. Because of the longstanding practice, dating back at least to the 1920’s, of allowing fans to keep balls hit into the stands at professional baseball games, the “right” to keep such balls has become an implicit part of the contract between the team owner and the ticket buyer.
When you purchase a ticket to a baseball game, part of what you are purchasing is the
right to keep any ball, hit fair or foul, that you retrieve when it passes into the stands. Every baseball fan
knows this. To demand the return of a ball at this late date would constitute a breach of contract. Even if the fan were not entitled to the return of the ball itself, if it were improperly taken away, the fan would be entitled to the cash equivalent of the ball’s value.
This would not prevent a team from announcing a new policy that all balls batted into the stands must be returned if requested, but it seems highly unlikely that any team owner would adopt such a policy, which would surely anger fans and give them reasons not to purchase tickets.
So the Phillies were actually
right. The ball did belong to Jennifer Valdivia. It was hers under the terms of the contract between young Jennifer and the Marlins that was created when she purchased her ticket.
What the Phillies did wrong was to try to defraud a young girl whose family knew how to find a lawyer who understood the sports memorabilia market.
www.law.marquette.edu