Hail Mary contract language

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry

The union could -- and would -- contest the clause in Barry Bonds's contract that would allow the Giants to void the deal if he's indicted in the BALCO case.

Haven't seen the written clause, but the notion that a team could get out of a deal simply because a player is charged with a crime -- and not convicted -- seems pretty thin. I'm not a lawyer, but it's hard to imagine that this clause would have any real teeth, if Bonds was indicted and the Giants actually tried to void the contract.

A lot of teams attempt to insert their own standard contractual language into deals while knowing that the language probably wouldn't hold up, if contested. A couple of years ago, an executive explained his theory for doing this.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

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