It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 12/15/03 | Ralph R. Reiland

[thesummerwind]

Playing for the Pittsfield High School baseball team in Illinois, Danny Hannant threw a pitch that a Calhoun High School player hit in a line drive right at the pitcher's mound. The ball bounced off Hannant's head.

Rather than blame the mishap on a lousy pitch or a missed catch, or on the intrinsic risks of the game, Hannant sued the maker of the bat, Hillerich & Bradsby. Seeking in excess of $1 million, Hannant's lawyer argued that the company should have put labels on its Louisville Slugger bats warning that the product "could cause a baseball to be propelled with such velocity that when hit directly towards a pitcher it does not allow the pitcher sufficient reaction time to avoid being struck."

[Porterville]

First, kill all the lawyers... then get really, really drunk and reckless.

[thesummerwind]

Personally, I think these sorts of primal, Lord of the Flies type games are good character builders.

Really, you are so right. They ought to have college courses on the good old "primal" games!

Those "games" used to get everyone involved, weak and strong, and somehow the weaker kids enjoyed it too.......most of the time. Those "games" really were great character builders! There is something to be said for smacking each other around, and coming out all together and laughing with your buddies.

And I think the following is possibly the essense of the value of those "games".

The very fact that all the kids are hammering each other, and at the same time, a basic good nature in mostly everyone is exhibited and prevails, causing no kids to get really hurt, each kid comes out of those games with a greater TRUST of all the others and a better sense of their own value.

I hope I made sense there, because those games are a very GOOD and NEEDED thing in growing up, a very valuable thing! And these do-gooders are ruining generations of kids, IMO.

[thesummerwind]

LOL! That's very funny. I'll tell that to Jerold Nadler. ;) He's so fat his belly button has an echo.

[freedomlover]

Lol on your story re "Kill the Man". We played a version of that but we didn't even have a ball. All of the sudden everyone would turn on some guy and he was "it". However as I recall piling on was strongly encouraged and was a young boy's version of "pigpiling". Great fun.

Even the strongest among us went down.

[wjcsux]

I grew up in southern AZ. There was a park by my grandparents house with all sorts of playground equipment. It had a large slide, merry go round, etc. My uncle Eduardo told us that we could slide down the slide faster if we sat on burlap sacks. Of course, I had to try this. I hit my head on the bottom of the slide and had to get 9 stitches. My parents reaction, thats what you get for being careless.

[thesummerwind]

the Democratic Trolls lurking around here can't readMaddie (15 watt bulb) Halfbright thinks Bush is going to find Jimmy Hoffa's body, Amelia Earhart's crash site, and a cure for cancer right befor the election. After that, you can pull out Osama! ;)

[Conspiracy Guy]

I felt that the truth needs to get out.

[Conspiracy Guy]

He also knows the location of Democrat Ethics.

[thesummerwind]

that kind of behavior used to be called "establishing a pecking order" & it was those kinds of interactions which served to keep everything on the up & up as well as everyone "honest." Know what I mean?

Great story, and I know what you mean. And I loved the part when the kid said, "you die". I heard that alot. It was time to split then. I was fast too like you, and it really helped some times.

Great, great story.

You could certainly be a writer, that was perfect! I feel like I was there, well, actually I was! Thanks!

[Dane]

Paging Edgar Snyder.

[sandydipper]

Any sensible judge - if there is such a thing - would toss this before it got to first base.

[Tribune7]

Rather than blame the mishap on a lousy pitch or a missed catch, or on the intrinsic risks of the game, Hannant sued the maker of the bat, Hillerich & Bradsby. Seeking in excess of $1 million, Hannant's lawyer argued that the company should have put labels on its Louisville Slugger bats warning that the product "could cause a baseball to be propelled with such velocity that when hit directly towards a pitcher it does not allow the pitcher sufficient reaction time to avoid being struck."

This is a joke right?

[BSunday]

A label on a votive Christmas candle we purchased last year: Warning - do not touch when lit.

In the words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up

[BSunday]

LOL I have a 9yo so I know what you're talkin about.

[LexBaird]

But the reality of the success of frivilous litigation is not to blame the trial lawyers, it is the idiots, our friends and neighbors, who are in the jury pool, affirming and awarding these excessive claims, that is to blame for the problem of bankrupting the U.S. through litigation.

Balderdash. It is precisely the fault of the trial lawyers, and the judges who don't throw out these cases.

The lawyers are the ones who chase the ambulances, game the system, and set the rules for the system. The poor jury pool never stands a chance after a "jury consultant" lawyer weeds out the competent.

There's a reason the trial lawyers are the biggest lobby in politics, and it is because they fight any attempt at reform as if it was the end of the world.

[BSunday]

You forgot the 4th tango partner - the idiot judge who refuses to throw the case out.

[BSunday]

I played that game all the time, only in the 70's when I grew up it the name had been changed to the Ultimate Un-PC Named Game of All Time - "Smear the Queer"

[woodyinscc]

And they are so easy to hate.

LOL, great anecdote.

[LexBaird]

He also knows the location of Democrat Ethics.

HA! You almost had be believing you about OBL, but you just blew your credibility. Everyone knows there's no such thing.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Well now, you have tricked yourself. The location is NO WHERE! Smarty pants ; )