Don't take bat, ball and go home; just hire a lawyer
By MARY JO MELONE
Published August 10, 2003
In a town like Tampa, where we grow Major League Baseball players the way some places in Florida grow citrus, you can understand. In every neighborhood park with a diamond dug in the dirt, there is the passion to play ball and chase dreams.
Sometimes the passion gets out of hand.
It got out of hand last week in Wellswood, a neighborhood just north of West Tampa. A 12-year-old pitcher for the Wellswood PONY All Stars had his eligibility to play challenged by opponents just as the last games of the season were to begin. The games that would decide who represented the South in the PONY World Series.
His opponents say that Ray Delphey IV broke a PONY rule. It forbids kids from playing in other games, run by other baseball organizations, while PONY tournaments are under way. And sure enough, Ray was playing in another series in Minnesota as the final PONY games in Tampa began.
When he came home and stepped to the mound last Sunday to play in the PONY League Bronco Division South Zone tournament, other teams in the PONY tournament objected. They took their complaints to PONY officials.
But Ray had them trumped. He and his parents had a lawyer. That very morning, attorney Ronald Darrigo got Circuit Judge Vivian C. Maye on the phone. He pleaded his case in her kitchen. That afternoon, he served Maye's order on PONY officials just as the games began.
This does not sound like the wisest use of a judge's time, but that's why they're called judges. They can do what they want.
Maye issued the order because she concluded that doing otherwise would cause Ray irreparable harm - losing a shot at playing what might have been the last games of the PONY championships. Ray won his battle but lost his war. The Wellswood team was knocked out of competition in a second day of play, last Monday.
The episode has left some noses seriously out of joint, with parents from the other teams in the weekend's games objecting that the rules were bent for one kid.
"These coaches and lawyers did nothing for these kids," another PONY official, Laura Shives, said. "They've taught them it's okay to break a rule.
"If you have the right connections, it's no big deal."
Ray's lawyer, Darrigo, had his own gripe. He remembers somebody screaming at him as he left last Sunday, "You have no b----, Darrigo. No b----."
This is not what you'd call sportsmanlike conduct, but the lack of it, among parents, is nothing new. It is also one reason for the rule that keeps PONY players from participating in two leagues, in two places, within a short span of time.
Pete Scaglione, a lawyer for the league, said the rule is intended to protect the tender, growing bodies of kids like Ray. If a player pitches more than four innings in any one game, he has to rest his arm 40 hours before he can pitch again. Parents are so gung-ho about getting kids in the game, though, that "a lot of times, the parents won't tell us the truth," Scaglione said.
That puts coaches in the position of playing detective or cop with players, and they don't like it. The rule has been so hard to enforce that PONY is dropping it next year.
Ray's lawyer used the fact that the rule was on its way out as part of his argument to allow the boy to play. In the court papers he filed, Darrigo just never mentioned why the rule was being tossed.
But that's what lawyers do. They find the facts that suit them. They line them up the way they want and leave the rest out.
Never mind what lesson they, as adults, leave with the kids who are supposed to look up to them.
There was another Tampa boy who played in Minnesota with Ray. Edgar Bergollo Jr. played for the PONY team in Town 'N Country. His parents didn't go to court. Edgar sat out the last games of the PONY Bronco Division South Zone Tournament. Edgar knew the rules and played by them. Doing so will earn him no trophies, but maybe it should.
