Elizabeth Lloyd: you’re an idiot

Posted: June 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: baseball | Tags: , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

I’d use a more colorful name but she’d probably sue me. Like she’s suing an 11-year-old boy for throwing a baseball. In a dugout. At a Little League ball field, where presumably baseballs are thrown and sometimes not caught. But wait, if Elizabeth Lloyd has chosen to insert herself into the media, in her money-grubbing way, she’s a public figure, right? So I can call her whatever name I like and she has to take it. Perhaps I need to brush up on my libel knowledge, but in the meantime, I’m going to call her Asshat.

Here’s the story, in case you were paying attention to real news that actually matters and missed it: Asshat was at a Little League game in New Jersey two years ago, watching her son play, and was hit in the face by a ball. She was sitting on top of a picnic table next to the fenced dugout where a catcher, Matthew Migliaccio, was warming up his teammate, the pitcher. Migliaccio overthrew the ball and it hit Asshat in the face. According to the local newspaper, He ran over to her to ask if she was ok, and she told him she was fine. Says Matthew: “I went over to see if she was okay, and she said that she was fine and not to worry about it. About like three weeks after, she came and gave me a hug and she told me that it wasn’t my fault.” Asshat said to Matthew, “I know you didn’t do anything wrong.”

However, two years later — just days before the statute of limitations would expire — Asshat decides that errant ball was thrown “intentionally and recklessly” and she needs half a million dollars for it. WTH??

Asshat claims that Matthew assaulted and battered her.

WTH??

This claim is insulting to anyone who has truly been assaulted and/or battered. I’m sick.

So is Matthew. Poor baby was minding his own business, probably playing MW3 on the Playstation like the 13-year-old boy who lives at my house, when the doorbell rings and he is served papers. A 13-year-old child was served papers. Matthew said, “I think it’s pretty mean to sue someone after you told them that you knew it wasn’t their fault.”

Pretty mean indeed.

Matthew’s attorney, Anthony Pagano, says the case is bogus and the family will not settle with Asshat. “What are we gonna do, take his bike? He’s 11,” Pagano said.

Does this look like a malicious person intent on inflicting injury? Not hardly.

Fact: 11-year-old kids overthrow balls. Fact: 11-year-old kids do not always catch overthrown balls. Fact: Elizabeth Lloyd is an asshat.

The overthrown ball traveled more than 60 feet before it hit Asshat, who was sitting 5 feet from the fenced bullpen. Reports conclude that while Matthew is an avid gamer, playing on 3 different teams, he was 11 years old at the time of the “assault” and didn’t exactly have a cannon of an arm like one sees in the major league. Matthew’s father says ”It’s absurd to expect every 11-year-old to throw the ball on target. Everyone knows you’ve got to watch out. You assume some risk when you go out to a field. That’s just part of being at a game.”

Hear hear. Guess what, Asshat — life is risky; get a helmet.

Apparently Asshat’s husband is an asshat, too, and he’s also suing Matthew, for the loss of “services, society, and consortium” of his wife. I guess that means he’s a shameless money-grubber, too, and Mr & Mrs Asshat are demanding a jury trial. The suit claims Matthew’s actions were negligent and careless through ”engaging in inappropriate physical and/or sporting activity” near Mrs Asshat. She claims she continues to suffer “pain and anguish, incur medical expenses and has been unable to carry out her usual duties and activities.”
I’d like to show Mrs Asshat some pictures of the hole in my chest wall after a post-mastectomy infection wreaked havoc on my body. I’d like to explain to her what real pain and anguish is all about. I’d like to enumerate the ways in which a month of hospitalization from that infection screwed up my life and prevented me from being able to carry out my usual duties and activities. I’d like to tell her what it feels like to be on powerful, gut-wrenching antibiotics for nearly one full year, so that she gains a scintilla of an idea of what it means to really suffer. I’d like to lament the fact that that damned infection caused me to undergo a heinous reconstruction that will likely never achieve the results I want and deserve, despite everyone’s best efforts. I’d like to show her what it means to live the rest of one’s life scarred, scared, and dissatisfied. I’m pretty sure there would be a long line of cancer victims with similar stories to share. But do we sue the hospital for contracting infections? Do we sue the doctors because something went wrong? Do we sue the hospital personnel for not better protecting us from possible harm? Do we sue cancer for afflicting us? Nope, we chalk it up to rotten luck, wrong-place-wrong-time, shit happens and get on with our lives.
I’ve spent a lot of time at Little League ball fields in the last 8 years since my kid started playing. I’ve been hit by a baseball and I’ve been nailed by a tennis ball hit by a grown-up. It hurts, but you get over it and move on. You don’t sue the kid who threw the ball. Sheesh. Even an Asshat should know that.
Maybe Matthew’s family should sue Mr & Mrs Asshat because she intentionally put her face in the way of his ball. Or maybe they should sue the Asshats because she was willfully and intentionally misusing the picnic table. Asshat’s ass should have been on the bench, not on the table. She was asking for it, really.
My blogging idol at People I Want to Punch in the Throat wrote an open letter to Asshat. Read it. She’s much more adept than I at saying what she really thinks (I know, shocking, right, that someone would write more openly and with less of a filter than I?). I hope Mr & Mrs Asshat read it, too.