Sleeping Yankees Fan Sues ESPN, MLB For $10 Million

Sleeping Yankees Fan Sues ESPN, MLB For $10 Million

By Ryan Parker, Los Angeles Times

A New York Yankees fan caught sleeping in the stands during an April game against the renowned rival Boston Red Sox has had enough of being made fun of and is bringing legal action against ESPN for broadcasting his slumbering image.

Andrew Rector filed a defamation lawsuit in New York against ESPN, John Kruk, Dan Shulman, and MLB Advanced Media for showing him slumped in his chair, eyes closed, and mouth open during the April 13 broadcast.

Rector is seeking $10 million in damages, according to Courthouse News Service.

“In the course of watching the game, plaintiff napped and this opened an unending verbal cascade against the napping plaintiff,” the complaint says.

Game commentators made fun of Rector while the camera showed him sleeping, using such words as “‘stupor, fatty, unintelligent, and stupid’ knowing and intending the same to be heard and listened to by millions of people all over the world, including people who know the plaintiff or interacted with the plaintiff in person,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit also accuses the defendants of juxtaposing Rector’s sleeping image with other pictures, further damaging his reputation, according to the suit.

AFP Photo/Rich Schultz

Interested in sports news? Sign up for our daily email newsletter!

Advertising

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

Moms For Libertine! And Why We Will Never Run Out Of Pious Frauds

Bridget Ziegler

It’s gotten to where it’s almost axiomatic in American politics: Show me somebody who gets TV face-time railing against others’ sexual sins, and I’ll show you somebody hiding naughty secrets. The latest example is an amusing scandal involving “Moms for Liberty,” the Florida-based right-wing organization that made its name by publicizing what this column described as “queers under the bed and the preposterous idea that the nation’s public-school librarians and grade-school teachers are plotting the sexual subversion of small children.”

Keep reading...Show less
Donald Trump
Photo by The White House

The latest ad from The Lincoln Project is titled “Feeble,” and it strings together a collection of Donald Trump’s “greatest hits” when it comes to stumbling over words, lurching around the podium, and repeatedly forgetting that Barack Obama is no longer president. While showcasing Trump’s two-handed efforts to sip from a water bottle and his running into the backdrop of a rally stage, the narrator asks questions like “Are you sure you don’t have dementia?” She also whispers that “[i]t runs in the family.”

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}