The Orioles' efforts to reclaim a copy of the lineup card used in Cal Ripken's record-setting game has sent shivers through the booming memorabilia market and raised questions of ownership based on centuries-old law.
The team says the lineup card that then-manager Phil Regan took home after that game, Sept. 6, 1995, is the property of the team. Lawyers for the club have filed a lawsuit claiming Regan, who left the Orioles after the 1995 season, misappropriated the card -- one of five carbon copies made that night -- for which a Baltimore collector has bid $35,650.
A judge has blocked Regan and North Shore Sports, the Chicago-based auctioneer that has been acting on his behalf, from going ahead with the sale. A hearing will be held Dec. 21.
Watching with great interest will be a variety of collectors and auction houses that have profited in recent years in an overheated sports memorabilia market.
"I can't believe this is going on. This is like the U.S. government getting involved in the coin-collecting market and saying it wants everything back," said Michael Heffner, managing director of Leland's of Manhattan, one of the country's largest sports memorabilia auction houses.
"If that's the case, then basically everything in the memorabilia hobby belongs to the teams and they are going to have to collect it," Heffner said.
Steve Ryan, president of North Shore Sports, said an Orioles win would cripple his business. "There's a lot at stake here for a lot of people," he said.
It's only been in recent years that lineup cards -- the forms that field managers fill out for each game listing players and their positions -- have been deemed as collectible as autographed baseballs and uniforms, Heffner said.
But they are catching up fast. The card used in the game in which Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott threw a no-hitter in 1993 sold recently for $800. The lineup card for the game in which Mark McGwire hit his record-setting 70th home run was auctioned for charity by Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. It fetched $16,000, and is expected to bring twice as much when auctioned again later this year.
The price offered for the Ripken card -- if it is ever paid -- would be a new record, Heffner said.
One reason is that managers routinely throw lineup cards away, or hand them out as souvenirs or give them to charity. The Cleveland Indians, for example, have an arrangement with Leland's auctions to sell lineup cards each year for the benefit of the team's charity.
Major League Baseball spokesman Rich Levin said baseball supports the Orioles in their effort, but has no particular policy regarding ownership or disposition of lineup cards. "Basically they just disappear," he said.
Davey Johnson, who has managed a number of teams, including the Orioles after Regan, said he always assumed the cards were the property of the team, but if the owner didn't ask, he gave
them away. He said he generally gave the original to the plate umpire or opposing manager and kept a carbon for himself.
Sometimes a player who had a memorable game would request the card, or a security guard in the clubhouse or a memorabilia buff in the team's front office. "If no one asked for it, I would just get rid of it," he said.
While in Baltimore, he often gave the old cards to the team's wives' group, which sold them to raise money for Johns Hopkins Hospital's pediatric unit.
The lack of interest in lineup cards in general, and the Orioles' failure over three years to ask for this copy in particular, indicates Regan had ownership rights, said North Shore Sports president Steve Ryan.
Not so, says the team. "They are a piece of equipment like anything else. They belong to the club," team spokesman John Maroon said. The team said it hadn't inquired about the card, or the one from the previous night that Regan also arranged to have sold, because it thought Ripken had them.
vTC If the matter isn't settled before it gets to court, then the case will turn on legal principles brought to these shores from England, said J. Gordon Hylton, a law professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee and director of its National Sports Law Institute.
Because the cards are provided by the teams, they have to be considered team property during a game, he said. But under a body of common law known as "finders cases," the team could be considered to have abandoned its claim if it makes no effort to get the cards back.
"The key to abandonment is an intention to relinquish all property rights," said Hylton, a specialist in property law.
For example, clubs are legally considered to have abandoned balls hit into the stands because they make no effort to retrieve them. That means American fans can keep the baseballs they catch, unlike their counterparts in Japan, where ushers promptly collect them.
"If the team implicitly abandons its lineup cards when the game is over, then all Regan has done is retrieve abandoned property," Hylton said.
However, these cards were treated differently from the start and could be construed to have different status. Generally, carbon paper is used to produce three cards, one each for the two managers and the plate umpire. Six were made for the Ripken game, with the extras going to Ripken, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and Baltimore's Babe Ruth Museum.
Regan kept one of the carbon copies -- not the original, as the auctioneer erroneously said last week -- and the pen he used. He said he gave the items to his daughter, who recently decided to auction them. During preparations for the auction, a New York collector paid Regan or his daughter $15,000 for the materials, but kept them in the auction.
The pen went with the Sept. 6 lineup card, in which Ripken beat Lou Gehrig's record of 2,131 consecutive games played. His copy of the lineup card from the game before, when Ripken tied Gehrig, attracted a high bid of $6,882.
Hylton said the fact that the Orioles treated the 2,131 card differently may suggest value that would tilt the legal balance in the Orioles' favor. And if the team didn't know Regan took the card, it can't be blamed, so the reasoning goes, for not trying to retrieve it.
Another potential factor could be Maryland's three-year statute of limitations for civil cases. The clock started when the team learned of the "misappropriation." The team said it didn't know Regan had the streak-related cards until that was reported in Monday's Sun.
However, a Sun story on Sept. 7, 1995, quoted Regan as saying he was sending his copies to his daughter for preservation.
Richard Phelen, a Chicago attorney working for the Orioles, said the law allows exceptions.
The New York collector who bought the card from Regan, Mark Lewis, said he is willing to sue to make sure the sale goes through to the highest bidder, Baltimore contractor James W. Ancel.
Pub Date: 12/13/98