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By George Vlahakis
Baseball sluggers Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa have both broken baseball's record for home runs hit in a single season and have several games left. When the final record-setting homer is hit, what happens to the ball? Indiana University Bloomington's Tom Bowers joins millions in wanting the historic baseball to take its rightful place at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
 Family photo by Caryl Bowers Sport's been a life-long passion for IUB's Tom Bowers, co-director of the Sports and Entertainment Academy at the Kelley School of Business. This snapshot was taken some years ago when he was helping to coach his son Andy's all-star baseball team. Andy's now a junior at Vanderbilt University. Both he and his sister Bess, a freshman at the University of Michigan, play varsity golf. |
"The home team, by selling a ticket to a fan, grants a license permitting the fan to enter the premises for the purpose of viewing a baseball game," Bowers wrote in his Chicago Tribune article, "Taking the Greed Out of Getting the Ball."
"That license can be revoked at any time, for almost any reason -- intoxication, unruly behavior, or in this case, failing to voluntarily return a record-breaking home run ball."
Bowers notes that the NFL and the NBA already follow such a policy with game balls that go into the crowd. And he points to another precedent that most people will remember from their youth:
"Anyone who has played backyard baseball as a child knows that hitting a home run into a neighbor's yard doesn't give ownership of the ball to the mean next-door neighbor who hates kids, a rule enforced by dads and moms everywhere."
Read Bowers' article in the Chicago Tribune at:
http://chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/article/0,1051,SAV-9809100043,00.html
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