Columnist Dean Juipe: Sports (law)suits are in fashion

Dean Juipe

Friday, April 26, 2002 | 10:12 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

It's a word that keeps showing up in the sports pages, and, as it does, it pushes the usual game stories and features into diminished roles and out of the mainstream coverage.

Take Thursday for example.

"Williamses sued," read one headline.

"Tyson sued," read another.

"Hockey fan sues," read a third.

As if that weren't enough, there were potential suits involving a Chinese basketball player, a man who was selling bogus badges to the Masters golf tournament and another involving Rick Pitino's decision to pull his Louisville basketball team out of a game with Western Kentucky.

These days the typical sports section has more suit references than a flier from the Men's Wearhouse. And it results in a cluttered sports closet that once was reserved for such pertinent information as who won and how they did it.

Sports-related litigation has been steady in recent times while periodically arriving in a wave that deluges unsuspecting fans. But when the word "sue" and its derivatives vie for attention as they were this week, it's offensive.

Everyone wants a piece of the other guy's pie, especially if that other guy has the money of a successful tennis pro or the supposed money of a former heavyweight boxing champion.

Venus and Serena Williams were served with papers alleging they withdrew from a contractual agreement to play John and Patrick McEnroe in an exhibition tennis match, although that suit would seem to have little beyond a tenuous merit given not only the Williamses' denials but the McEnroes' as well. While none of the players involved says a deal was ever struck, the promotional firm that was interested in packaging the event feels otherwise and is seeking an unspecified compensatory sum.

It sounds like hogwash.

So does Mitchell Rose's suit against Mike Tyson, particularly when he's asking for $66 million in damages from a one-sided bar fight with the former champion. The skirmish supposedly left Rose with an injured back, injured pride and a torn mink coat, yet even if all of that is true he is but one of many trying to extract a buck from the bankruptcy candidate that Tyson has become.

Likewise, the hockey fan looks to be barking up the wrong tree.

While it's clearly stated on most if not all tickets that the spectator inherits the risk of being unintentionally injured while sitting in the stands, one fellow in Chicago wants a large sum for being nicked by a puck at a Blackhawks game. Decades of case law would seem to make this particular suit frivolous.

Nonetheless it's a story that the media feels obliged to cover, as it also will if the people who run the Masters golf tournament file civil charges against the fellow who was selling phony badges to the event earlier this month. Similarly, the public will stay abreast of the situation if Western Kentucky's irate athletic director wants Rick Pitino's hide -- or pocket change -- for reneging on a game that was scheduled for next season.

Pitino, of course, pulled the same stunt with UNLV this week, backing out of a game with the Rebels that was on the December calendar. There were hard feelings on UNLV's end but let's give the school a little credit.

At least it hasn't filed suit. Yet.