Law and Magic Blog

Yankees Auction Ortiz Jersey For Benefit of Jimmy Fund

Remember that Yankee stadium "curse" brought on by the David Ortiz jersey? The team's owners spent time and money digging up the area where a construction worker buried it, and found it. Success! Curse avoided! They donated it to the Jimmy Fund, which auctioned it off to the tune of $175,000; the high bidder was a car dealer named Kevin Meehan, who says he'll display his prize in one of his dealerships. He also got a new Ortiz jersey and a bunch of other valuable stuff. The Yankees noted that the intended curse against the team misfired and resulted in funding for research and treatment against pediatric cancer. Read more here, and in an official release from the team management.

Oh, and the BoSox fan who caused all the trouble? His name is Gino Castignoli. I was going to say that apparently he gets nuttin', but it occurs to me that maybe he can take the value of the jersey off on his taxes as a charitable deduction to the Jimmy Fund. No, probably not. He didn't, after all, donate it himself and his intent was fairly clearly to leave it at the stadium for the benefit (?) of the Yankees. Guess I'll have to ask one of my tax law colleagues.

A Plague On Both Your Ballparks

CNN/Sports Illustrated reports that construction workers, supervised by representatives of the New York Yankees baseball team, unearthed a David Ortiz jersey at the Yankees' new home, alleged to have been planted there by a worker who favors the Boston Red Sox and whose nefarious scheme was to place a curse on the opposing team. Earlier, team officials were denying that they were even looking for the offending shirt. According to the SI article, "The Yankees plan to donate the jersey to charity, and may pursue a lawsuit against the construction worker." On what theory? Not simply for burying the shirt, surely. But maybe for also causing the ruckus, and the cost of the subsequent search for the shirt and the digging up. Would it have been just as efficacious simply to start a rumor, and leave the shirt out of it? Not being a sports fan, I'm stopping here with my analysis and letting the sports law types take over.

News Flash: Bad at Sports, More Likely To Be Banished (Maybe More Likely To Take Up Magic?)

The Journal of Sports Behavior recently published a study that documents a link between lack of athleticism and unpopularity, at least among pre-teens. "I knew that!" you say. Well, of course, so did I. I was among the dodgeball-untalented and my social circle was small (although I was elected president of the sixth grade for one month--that's how we did it back then--you were president of the class for one month. Now there's a thought).

But as it turns out, a prof at the University of Alberta has undertaken to verify, for the first time, the link that we all actually "know" exists between sports ability and popularity in our younger years. Janice Causgrove Dunn says "`We knew there was a common-sense link between lack of athletic skill and loneliness....Although much research relied on that assumed link, she couldn’t find a single study to back it up, so she undertook it herself. “It’s funny how many colleagues have said ‘thank you’ for finally having something to cite.'" What's the link with law? There's at least some evidence that unpopular children, really marginalized children, are those that end up being bullied, and of those children, a very few end up fighting back, quite violently.

Now, what would be interesting would be for someone to investigate why it is that we put athletes on a pedestal and why people take up magic at a young age--do more youngsters do it if they are bad at sports? (Note that these things may not be connected). It would seem to me that one needs a certain amount of dexterity as well as showmanship (showpersonship?), but it might not be the kind that you need for basketball or skateboarding. On the other hand, the practice of magic isn't necessarily an individual pasttime, even though the learning of tricks and illusions seems to be. More research needed!