Morning sports update: Red Sox’ response to sign-stealing lawsuit cites Spygate case
The Astros and Major League Baseball were also named.
The Lakers overcame the Celtics in a thrilling matchup on Sunday, 114-112. Jayson Tatum matching a career high with 41 points wasn’t quite enough to get Boston a high-profile road win.
And the Boston Pride defeated the Connecticut Whale and Metropolitan Riveters over the weekend by a combined 8-0 scoreline to finish the NWHL regular season with a 23-1 record. The team now awaits a playoff opponent to face at Warrior Arena on Sunday, March 8 (2:30 p.m.)
Red Sox respond to daily fantasy user lawsuits: For the first time since baseball’s sign-stealing scandal was first reported by The Athletic in November, both Major League Baseball and two of its teams have submitted legal responses to their growing number of lawsuits.
The Red Sox are one of the teams named in multiple lawsuits brought by daily fantasy sports users (one of whom is a Massachusetts resident). The core of the argument of both suits is that fantasy sports users lost money because of unfairly decided games that were, as one of the suits alleges, “corrupt and tainted.”
According to Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic, the Red Sox’ legal response to the DFS cases dismissed the claim a team is committing fraud when it speaks about the skill of its players accounting for all of its success.
“[E]ven if those statements did address the causes of the team’s performance, it is clear on their face that, as a matter of law, they constitute the sort of vague, generic, opinion-based puffery that uniformly has been held inactionable as fraud,” the Red Sox said in the team’s formal response.
Among multiple previous cases cited by the league, as well as the Astros and Red Sox was a 2010 lawsuit brought against Bill Belichick and the Patriots over the “Spygate” scandal. In it, a Jets season ticket holder named Carl Mayer tried to win $185 million in damages to fellow Jets fans over having spent money to watch games that, as he attested, were unfairly decided.
The case was dismissed at multiple levels, a point which the Red Sox emphasized.
“In Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223, 230 (3d Cir. 2010), a class action brought by an aggrieved New York Jets season ticket holder against the New England Patriots and the NFL based on the Patriots’ surreptitious use of videotape to capture their opponents’ signals, the court concluded that the plaintiff class did not have a cognizable legal interest in disclosure of anything about the methods of game play, even where they were in violation of NFL rules,” said the Red Sox.
Trivia: Mike Eruzione, the captain of the 1980 U.S. hockey team at the Lake Placid Olympics, was never drafted by a National Hockey League team. However, he was drafted by a team in the World Hockey Association in 1974. Which team selected him?
(Answer at the bottom).
Hint: That team was one of four which would merge with the NHL, eventually relocating cities in 1997.
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- Doc Rivers hopes Ray Allen is there when the Celtics retire Kevin Garnett’s jersey
Magic Johnson, in his inimitable style on Twitter, believes the Celtics are able to win a championship
:
The @Lakers pulled out a nail-biter against the Celtics in a thrilling 114-112 win!! I can’t wait to see both of these teams in the playoffs because they both are good enough to win the Championship!
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) February 24, 2020
Bill Russell wore a Kobe Bryant jersey to the Celtics-Lakers game:
NBA legend Bill Russell arrives for Lakers-Celtics wearing a No. 24 Lakers jersey.
Only for Kobe 💜💛 pic.twitter.com/kCwCPwTfwU
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 23, 2020
David Andrews has New England goals for his kids:
Sitting on the couch watching Mircale. After living in Massachusetts for 5 years I want my kid to play hockey so bad.
— David Andrews (@dandrews61) February 23, 2020
On this day: In 1980, the U.S. hockey team rallied to defeat Finland 4-2 to win the gold medal. Trailing 2-1 going into the third period, the American team responded to a classic line from coach Herb Brooks.
It was commemorated by goalie Jim Craig in 2015:
“If you lose this game, you’ll take it to your grave…your *$%#@ grave!”
-Herb Brooks pic.twitter.com/kWasJHIeMk
— Jim Craig (@JimCraigUSA) February 24, 2015
The U.S. team responded by netting three straight goals to win. Had they lost, it would have been the Soviet Union (and not Finland) which won gold due to the round-robin format of the medal round.
Daily highlight: During an Ole Miss basketball game, 84-year-old Mary Ann Wakefield sunk a 94-foot putt to win a free car.
LEGEND! 84-year-old Mary Ann Wakefield sunk this 94-foot putt to win a new car 👏
(via @OleMissMBB) pic.twitter.com/Rkq2GDD8yk
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 23, 2020
Trivia answer: New England Whalers (who became the Hartford Whalers).
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