If You’re Going To Have Someone Fall On You, It’s Better If You’re A Yankees Fan Rather Than A Mets Fan
Note – two tales from 2007. First, via the Daily News, back on July 16, 2007:
A Kirkland fan who suffered a near-fatal injury when a man fell on him in the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, breaking the schoolteacher’s neck, will fly home in style today.
Paul Robinson and his family will return home in a private plane chartered by the Yankees. Robinson was discharged Sunday from Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
“Paul is very appreciative that he’ll fly home in a comfortable plane,” said Robinson’s wife, Kathy.
A Yankees fan who witnessed the accident said the man who fell on Robinson had been acting vulgar during the July 8 game against the Los Angeles Angels.
“The guy who fell on this poor man was drunk out of his mind,” said the fan, who requested anonymity. “He was part of a group of about 12 people that came in the third inning. They drank and smoked cigarettes and talked about hot sex the entire time. It was scary to see. This poor man goes to a game thinking he’s going to have a good time and some guy who is out of control nearly kills him.”
Robinson, 53, was in the top tier at Yankee Stadium with his wife and their 13-year-old son, John, when the mystery fan tumbled out of a seat several rows above them.
The fan landed on Robinson, snapping his head forward so hard it broke the vertebra below Robinson’s skull.
The Yankees have asked fans with information about the incident to call the team.
Next, via the Post, today:
A woman who says her back was broken when a 300-pound drunk dropped on top of her at a Mets game should have been looking up, instead of watching the action on the field, the team suggests in court filings.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Mets’ lawyers say Ellen Massey’s “injuries and damages” on opening day in 2007 “were caused in whole or in part or were contributed to by [her] culpable conduct,” and “such alleged damages should be fully or partially diminished by such culpable conduct.”
The filing doesn’t specify what the “culpable conduct” was, but Massey was simply sitting with her two nephews in Shea Stadium’s upper deck watching her beloved Amazin’s take on the hated Philadelphia Phillies when the rotund rooter fell on her from several rows above.
The impact broke one of Massey’s vertebrae, and she needed to have two rods put in her back.
The blame-the-victim defense is one of nine offered up by the Mets as to why they aren’t liable for Massey’s injuries. The team also points the finger at the stadium’s beer vendor and the fan who fell, who filings reveal is a New Jersey man named Timothy Cassidy.
Massey only recently learned the name — she originally sued him as a “John Doe” who “had been acting in a rowdy, boisterous and dangerous manner for a long period of time” before he crashed into her and ran off.
Her suit said stadium personnel and vendors “knew or had reason to know from his behavior that he was already intoxicated,” and it’s because of their negligence that he became “unruly, uncoordinated and fell.”
Cassidy’s lawyer Brian O’Connor insisted his client is not to blame — alleging he was pushed from his seat by another fan named Eric Metzger, who was sitting behind Cassidy and who’d been jawing at him throughout the game.
Metzger allegedly had been giving Cassidy the business for using his BlackBerry during the game.
Metzger “intentionally and with reckless disregard of the safety of others, pushed [Cassidy, causing] him to fall numerous rows and upon [Massey],” O’Connor said in a court filing.
A spokesman for the Mets said, “We’re aware of the litigation and have no further comment.”
So, now we know what happens to you in both Yankeeland and Metsville when a sphincter lands on you. But, we have no idea if anyone in Queens ever had a rubber tallywacker land on their head while attending a game…
Steve, I clicked back on the link to the original post from during the season with the ice cream sandwiches and I still laughed just as hard when I read your story from the ’80s (as i did when I first read it). Hysterical. And being a current law school student, my prediction from the raw facts is that the Mets are screwed in this one and are going to lose the original suit and have to hope they can recover from either the beer vendor, the falling fat blob, or the pusher. But what the hell do I know? And I’m sure I’m the only one who will now follow the outcome of this.
The NY Mess, Lost Metropolitanos, the penny pinchers, Freddy Coupon’s team, the list of odious nicknames go on and on. Say what you want about the Yankees and as many know here I have verily ripped them an asshole at times BUT in this situation they have acted in a very high minded manner. Bravo to them. whereas the Mess let their shyster lawyer infer that a fan should have been looking up when that moron fell on her during a ballgame…ABSOLUTE RUBBISH, MATES! The Coupon Family is shameless, they digust me to no end BUT especially with this classless action. What lawyer would have the gall to blame the victim of such a calamity?