Legal Recourse Against the Yankees: A Rant

May is supposed to be a happy time, isn’t it?  Pretty flowers, the smell of freshly cut grass, Cinco de Mayo and baseball.  Well, for this Yankee fan May has brought moans and groans- and not just from the team….it’s the new building that stinks too.

The new Yankee Stadium is a disappointment.  They replaced the “House that Ruth Built” with “The House that No-one Built,” as my wife affectionately calls it.  I have a different name– “The House that Steinbrenner built which is located in the parking lot of ‘The House that Ruth Built’ which, incidentally, is now the parking lot of the new Yankee Stadium.”  It doesn’t have much a ring to it, I know.

The facts don’t lie:  200,000 home runs hit during the first ten games, empty seats, the A-Rod saga…I wouldn’t be surprised if the Babe himself put a plague on the place.  I could see him in Baseball Heaven, smoking a stogie, laughing every time another dinger rockets out of the stadium (oops, did I say ‘Rocket?’  That’s a whole other headache).

As a fan, I guess there’s really only one option- don’t buy tickets.  It appears that lots of my fellow Yankee fans are exercising that option, what with empty seats galore at each game.  The lawyer in me, however, urges me to ponder my legal recourse.

Sure, I’ve thought of the obvious claims like fraud and misrepresentation.  When you field a team of all-stars, pay them the kinds of salaries they’re earning and they still stink as much as they do, a ticket holder can make a colorable claim for consumer fraud.  Very few fans would argue that they received the benefit of their bargain, so maybe a breach of contract claim would work as well.

Personally, I think a more proactive approach is warranted.  I’d like a salary deceleration clause inserted in each Yankee player’s contract—decrease their pay for a given game by a percentage that corresponds to the number of empty seats at that game.  I know what you’re saying—Donald Fehr would never go for it.  My reply?  Union, shmunion.  Of course it would probably never hold up in court– it would probably be struck down with an argument akin to “spot zoning.”  It would also probably be attacked for humanitarian reasons—I think super-agent Scott Boraswould burst a blood vessel in his head if the League ever tried it.  Heck, the mere mention of it probably just gave him a headache (it’s okay Scott- pull over your Bentley, take a deep breath and relax).

Not exactly a stellar start for the new Coliseum…hey there’s an idea—maybe they’d fill those empty seats with the errant ‘man vs. lion’ match up.  I can see it now:  General Manager Brian Cashman running in the outfield, his tie flapping in the wind as he tries to elude Leo the Lion.  Of course, that’s a kinder fate than he’d suffer at the hands of the fans.