Man who fell asleep at baseball game sues Yankees, MLB, and ESPN for $10 million
A man who who was caught on camera snoozing away during a New York Yankees/Boston Red Sox game is suing the Yankees, Major League Baseball, ESPN, and announcers Dan Shulman and John Kruk for $10 million, citing defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Andrew Rector somehow managed to do the impossible during the April 13 game: he fell asleep in the middle of it while sitting in an uncomfortable seat. Once the announcers saw Rector napping in the stands, they started to talk about him, wondering if he was alone or with the person next to him ("maybe that's his buddy and he likes him a lot better when he's asleep"). Rector claims in his lawsuit that this was just the beginning of a "verbal crusade" and "MLB.com continued the onslaught to a point of comparing the plaintiff to someone of a confused state of mind, disgusted, disgruntled, and unintelligent and probably intellectually bankrupt individual."
The complaint goes on to state several things that Rector claims were said about him ("Plaintiff is so stupid he cannot differentiate between his house and public place by snoozing throughout the fourth inning of the Yankee game"), but as Joe Coscarelli at New York notes, it looks like Rector is slightly confused. The announcers were rather gentle with him; it was the YouTube commenters who lived up to their reputation and posted nasty remarks. If Rector wins, it will send a message to those "idiots," his mother, Hana Rector, told the New York Post. "If he paid for the tickets, it's his prerogative what he does. Whose business is it if he's sleeping? He can do whatever he wants." --Catherine Garcia
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'
Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security law
Speed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitution
speed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidence
Speed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulations
Speed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriage
Speed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba have a rough day in defamation court
Speed Read Trump's audible grousing as E. Jean Carroll testified earned him a warning he could be thrown out of court, and Habba showed she 'doesn't know what the hell she's doing'
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Anders Breivik to testify in prison isolation lawsuit against Norway
Speed Read Far-right fanatic who killed 77 people in 2011 claims he has received 'inhuman treatment' in custody
By The Week UK Published