Sports lawsuit: Money for the taking

A Vancouver court Friday found NHL player Marty McSorley guilty of assault with a weapon. This was in response to the Feb. 21 on-ice incident in which McSorley, then a defenseman for the Boston Bruins, delivered a two-handed stick to the head of Vancouver Canucks forward Donald Brashear.\n Key word: on-ice. As in during a friggin' hockey game.\nBruins defenseman Don Sweeney, quoted by national media Friday, best summed up the situation: "It opens up a can of worms."\nMcSorley, well known for being an aggressive defenseman, said he was simply trying to hit Brashear's arm and pick a fight with him. His stick slipped, and he accidentally knocked Brashear in the head. With the exception of the prosecutor and judge, this theory is almost universally accepted.\nWorse things than this happen in hockey games, football games and golf outings all the time. If this type of action is now legally punishable by 18 months of probation, many others are now suspectible to further legal action. This has the potential to spawn countless sports-related lawsuits.\nSo in light of this groundbreaking new legal precedent, I would like to make a few recommendations for people looking to cash in.\nAdewale Ogunleye vs. Northwestern University football. \nFormer IU defensive player Ogunleye was a sure first-round NFL pick for the 2000 draft. He was going to make millions of dollars a year for simply putting on some shoulder pads every Sunday. But in one quick play against Northwestern last October, Ogunleye's dreams of NFL superstardom were permanently dashed when he tore ligaments in his knee Oct. 9, 1999.\nThis seems like a good opportunity for the former Hoosier to cash in. With the new legal precedent, Northwestern University's football team is responsible not only for dashing Ogunleye's dreams but also for ripping the heart from the Hoosier team, which is most certainly why the Hoosiers didn't make a bowl game last year.\nIn that case, maybe our University can sue someone else for once.\nThe city of Boston vs. Bill Buckner. \nUnder our new legal precedent, the emotional damage inflicted by Buckner on the city after his 1986 World Series blunder is definitely worthy of legal attention. I'm sure that records will show that, after the Red Sox lost the '86 Series, many die-hard Boston fans slipped into a state of serious depression, especially having to live with the thought that another team from New York had embarrassed them.\nThis class-action suit will surely rob Buckner of the small livelihood he lives off today, but the emotional needs for punitive damages for the good people of Boston is far more important.\nIDS columnist Brett Wallace vs. all Major League Baseball teams. \nThese bringers of pain never show me any mercy. Year after year, my faith in humanity wanes as my beloved Chicago Cubs are beaten, routed, publicly humiliated and thoroughly trounced. It's enough to have me screaming "Wait 'till next year!" in the middle of April.\nWhile I intend to file separate lawsuits against San Diego, San Francisco and Atlanta for dashing playoffs dreams within my lifetime, the rest of the league is nonetheless responsible for my mental state as well. After all, what team hasn't once humiliated the Cubs in the past 20 years, either on the field or through a quick trade or free agent acquisition? Lawyers would be hard-pressed to find even one.\nSo I guess maybe the McSorley thing isn't as bad as I thought. When I first heard that the charges stuck, the first word that jumped to my head was "un-American." (Nevermind it was the decision of a Canadian court). But now that I've seen the unlimited possibilities of our new legal precedent, this is surely the most American thing to happen to sports in years.\nAnd to all opponents of the Chicago Cubs, get those checkbooks ready.