Friday, April 4, 2008

MLB = Nanny State?

Larry Bowa just might have a point. Then-Judge, now Justice Breyer famously noticed in 1993 that (as Sidney Shapiro describes the argument) "[t]here is a 'vicious cycle'. . . composed of public pressure for protection against risks, which is based on significant misperceptions about the degree of risk that people actually face, and a regulatory system that responds by erring on the side of safety and adopting the public's risk agenda of the moment." [1] Not that turning base coaches into John Olerud look-alikes isn't entertaining, but. . . like, seriously, in the history of baseball, have there been any major base-coach casualties other than the well-publicized one in the minor leagues last year? And didn't that guy kind of get hit in the neck, not the head?


Bud Selig: clearly in the pocket of Big Batting-Helmet.

[1] "Pragmatic Administrative Law," 2005 Issues in Legal Scholarship, Article 1 at 13 (citing Stephen Breyer, Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation (1993)).

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