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: Anonymous Attorney

By Anonymous Lawyer (Jeremy Blachman)

The New York Times is reporting that a man is suing the New York Yankees and the City of New York, saying his civil rights were violated when he was not allowed to go to the bathroom during the playing of "God Bless America" after the seventh inning stretch.

Obviously, I think this lawsuit is ridiculous. Is someone going to sue us next for not letting our associates go to the bathroom during business hours? It's not that I'm a fan of patriotism or music. I believe our loyalties should be to our employers over our country. How can we expect employees of multinational corporations to choose? How can we ask them to divide their loyalties between the German parent company and the Dutch subsidiary? But I also don't think it's right to tell the Yankees how they should be able to treat their fans. If they don't want people to go the bathroom during the song, that's their right. It's not like they're restricting BlackBerry use, or something truly unjust like that.

Frankly, even if the rule that people can't leave to use the bathroom doesn't make any sense, I think it's still okay. We need rules, even stupid ones. Rules teach compliance and obedience. And that's what we need to be training young people in. Listening to authority without questioning it. Blind adherence to directives. Following the herd. It's how we get law students here, of course, so why shouldn't it work for the Yankees? We tell students law firms are the place to be, we make it seem selective and prestigious, and they flock to us. They listen. Yankee fans need to listen when the team says that God Bless America is important enough that no one should be urinating. If I owned a baseball team, I wouldn't have any free bathrooms in the stadium. There'd be a charge -- maybe even a big one. The beer would be free. The bathrooms would cost a hundred dollars. This way, everyone would get drunk, lose their sense of judgment, need to go to the bathroom, and pony up the money. I think it's a great plan. And if someone went to the bathroom in their pants because they didn't want to pay? I'd turn the camera on them and humiliate them by showing their accident on the JumboTron. That'd show everyone else we mean business.

So that's what the Yankees should be doing. Price gouging and humiliating their fan base. Not letting them go to the bathroom during God Bless America is baby stuff. Not even worth the energy. They could be doing so much more.

Full post as published by Anonymous Attorney on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).