Mike has written a couple recent SI pieces (here and here) on the unraveling of Clemens' legal strategy and the resulting referral from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Particularly in the second piece, he describes the way that committee Republicans, who had staunchly defended him and attacked Brian McNamee mercilessly and personally during the hearing, have joined Democrats in wanting to investigate Clemens further. I wrote about the surprising partisanship, and received some good comments, here and here.
My question, for Michael (who, unlike the rest of us, now has sources) and anyone else with a guess: Why? Why did the GOP turn on him? Speculation after the hearing was that the GOP rallied around Clemens because he is a Republican and a Friend of W--but none of that has changed. Did it just become so irrefutable that something was amiss in Clemens' testimony? Perhaps, but GOP members could have stood on a "this is none of our business" principle and avoided a referral. What could cause Davis, Burton, and Shays (in particular) to do a 180 and decide Clemens likely lied and McNamee, whom they all called a liar in one form or another during the hearing, is not even worth further investigation?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
SPANISH FOOTBALL - LA LIGA - ROUND 26 /2008 SUNDAY GAMES RESULTS
This Sunday sees the rest of the Round 26 games, after yesterdaysexcellent "Super Saturday" results ( see below post for videos &round up). As yesterday lots of goals & great games with the followingresults, scorers & images.VALLADOLID lost to RACING 0-1 with the last minute goal fromDUSCHER in the 86th min. An even game that got away fromValladolid with a lapse at the end.Big scoring & one way
Happy Anniversary: Why Write Here?
To mark what apparently is this blog's 203d post, I want to add my own spin to much of what Geoff writes here and in his comments to The Sports Law Professor.
When I was interviewing for teaching jobs five years ago, I frequently was asked why sports law was not part of my teaching package, given my sports background: student manager for a Big Ten basketball program; a short-lived career as a small-college coach; a love of most things sports; and early work on my fan-speech project. My answer largely followed Greg's original post: "Sports law" is a specific application of areas of law (contracts, torts, antitrust, business organizations) that I am not particularly interested in studying. On the other hand, I share Geoff's view that law comes alive for much of the public (and for many students) most when it involves sports. Is there more interest in how the discovery process works when it involves a run-of-the-mill commercial dispute between two multi-national corporations or when it involves a dispute arising from a football coach allegedly leaving his school high-and-dry for a better job? The latter, I believe--which is why the Rich Rodriguez Blog (run by the WVU Sports and Entertainment Law Society and guest blogger dre cummings) is such a great project.
For myself, I have been drawn to writing in this forum because sport provides a great example of s small, closed society through which we can study rules and legal processes. Much of the theory of what is law, how legal rules should operate, and how legal rules should be enforced can be captured, at a micro level, in sport. Should there be instant replay? Allows us to consider the balance among finality, truth, and human abilities, as well as questions of the accuracy of video in general. Should steroids be banned and steroid-users punished? What is the balance among fairness in competition (whatever that means) and success in competition by using available means of achievement. Even seemingly mundane questions--should based coaches be required to wear helmets--can be abstracted to tell us about broader legal ideas of assumption of risk and paternalism (although the author of that post rejects the idea of baseball-as-societal-lens). Finally, how do (and should) the rules of this closed society interact with the rules of the broader society? Should leagues punish players who commit societal wrongs that have nothing to do with their roles or duties as athletes?
Sport is both unique and not unique for purposes of the study of rules and law and process. But it forever presents new examples and illustrations. For that reason, we can expect to keep writing another 200 entries.
When I was interviewing for teaching jobs five years ago, I frequently was asked why sports law was not part of my teaching package, given my sports background: student manager for a Big Ten basketball program; a short-lived career as a small-college coach; a love of most things sports; and early work on my fan-speech project. My answer largely followed Greg's original post: "Sports law" is a specific application of areas of law (contracts, torts, antitrust, business organizations) that I am not particularly interested in studying. On the other hand, I share Geoff's view that law comes alive for much of the public (and for many students) most when it involves sports. Is there more interest in how the discovery process works when it involves a run-of-the-mill commercial dispute between two multi-national corporations or when it involves a dispute arising from a football coach allegedly leaving his school high-and-dry for a better job? The latter, I believe--which is why the Rich Rodriguez Blog (run by the WVU Sports and Entertainment Law Society and guest blogger dre cummings) is such a great project.
For myself, I have been drawn to writing in this forum because sport provides a great example of s small, closed society through which we can study rules and legal processes. Much of the theory of what is law, how legal rules should operate, and how legal rules should be enforced can be captured, at a micro level, in sport. Should there be instant replay? Allows us to consider the balance among finality, truth, and human abilities, as well as questions of the accuracy of video in general. Should steroids be banned and steroid-users punished? What is the balance among fairness in competition (whatever that means) and success in competition by using available means of achievement. Even seemingly mundane questions--should based coaches be required to wear helmets--can be abstracted to tell us about broader legal ideas of assumption of risk and paternalism (although the author of that post rejects the idea of baseball-as-societal-lens). Finally, how do (and should) the rules of this closed society interact with the rules of the broader society? Should leagues punish players who commit societal wrongs that have nothing to do with their roles or duties as athletes?
Sport is both unique and not unique for purposes of the study of rules and law and process. But it forever presents new examples and illustrations. For that reason, we can expect to keep writing another 200 entries.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: ATLETICO DE MADRID - FC BARCELONA & RECREATIVO - REAL MADRID 2008
Next day & ROBINHO & SERGIO "KUN" AGUERO are todays stars...here are the VIDEO highlights of yesterdays Atletico de Madrid - FCBarcelona & Recreativo - Real Madrid games.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
SPANISH FOOTBALL - LA LIGA - ROUND 26 /2008 SATURDAY GAMES RESULTS
"Super Saturday" & Real Madrid are still leaders, this time with a5º point advantage over Fc Barcelona who lost to At. Madrid. Sevillaalso lost & Espanyol put another nail into Valencia´s alreadysuffering season.RECREATIVO lost 2-3 to REAL MADRID who again widen the gap by 5ºpoints over second placed & title rival Fc Barcelona. It was atough game & Real Madrid at one stage found themselves
Happy 2000th Anniversary, Sports Law Blog!
Rick's post on Thursday represented a milestone of sorts for this blog: It is our 2000th published post! Four and a half years and 2000 posts ago, Greg wrote:
Since there is no such thing as 'Sports Law,' this blog will be dedicated to the law and the role it plays in the sports industry. I hope to have it up and running soon.In the time since, the blog has grown from one contributor to five, helped its authors land numerous interviews, speaking opportunities, and even (presumably paying) gigs with mainstream media outlets. We've welcomed over 790,000 visitors, beat out the faculty at the University of Chicago law school, and attracted some nice accolades.
In the spirit of the times, I thought I'd revisit the first words that appeared on the blog (and invite my co-contributors to share their thoughts in later posts or comments): "there is no such thing as 'Sports Law'." Still true?
Wake Forest's Timothy Davis has written a classic article called, "What is Sports Law?" In that piece he describes three answers to the question posed in his title. The first is the "traditional" view embodied in Greg's first post -- that there is no separate body of law called "Sports Law," but that what we teach in the class that goes by that name is just a little bit of contracts, torts, antitrust, etc., as applied to the sports industry.
Even if that view is right, I'm not sure that undercuts the case for including Sports Law in the law school curriculum. There is a move afoot at some top law schools to introduce interdisciplinary courses that study different branches of law "horizontally" rather than "vertically". For instance, the University of Colorado has offered a course called "Wal-Mart". The idea is that studying a particular firm (large enough to be called its own industry) from different legal perspectives might add something that reading about the same firm in 12 different, isolated classes might miss. Teachers of Sports Law have been teaching in this interdisciplinary way for years (as well as helping refresh some core bar subjects in a fun and interesting way).
Professor Davis also describes "moderate" and "separate field" views of Sports Law -- that it may not be but is on the way to becoming a separate field, or is already there, based on the emergence of specialized laws to regulate sports (or laws, like Title IX, that apply most prominently in sports cases).
I would add a fourth view, which is my own, called the "institutional" view. Sports law may be worth studying for two reasons. First, there are now separate legal institutions -- particularly on the international side -- for addressing legal issues arising from sports. Studying those institutions separately may make sense.
But more significantly, sports law may be worth studying because of the way sports cases seem to gum up otherwise (mildly) effective legal institutions. Too many "sports law" cases (and the differences between them) seem to turn on whether the judge, underneath that black robe, is wearing the jersey of the plaintiff or defendant team. In that sense -- where we encounter decisions in which the law seems to have been left at home and fandom reigns supreme -- studying Sports Law sometimes resembles legal realism on steroids (as I noted in a comment to Jeff Standen's post here).
This is not to say that marketing yourself as a "Sports Law" person -- whether applying for a job at a university athletic department, law firm, or law school -- makes sense. Probably the opposite. But I think its fair to say that Sports Law offers enough meat to justify its place at the table.
Thanks to all our readers for their support over the years! (And to Greg and Mike for building this blog from the ground up).
SPANISH FOOTBALL - ROUND 26/ 2008 - "SUPER SATURDAY"
The Spanish League enters a critical stage tonight with four biggames that could change the entire composition of the Top 5places of the classification table.Firstly , without doubt the above two clash are the most attractive,were if Real Madrid lose against Recreativo, & if Fc Barcelona winsAtletico de Madrd, Barça overtakes Real to take top spot.To add excitement, Atletico must win to keep out
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