WATCH OUT FOR FLYING WIENIES

Sizzling news yesterday out of Kansas City, that hotbed of litigation. The Royals baseball team and its lion mascot Sluggrrr (Yes, that’s the way it’s spelled. Get it?) are being sued by a man who attended a game last September and is claiming he was injured by an errant hotdog that Slugrrr threw behind his hairy back into the crowd between innings. The flying meat allegedly hit one of his eyes, allegedly detaching the retina, allegedly causing a cataract.

Now, I don’t know if this claim is valid or if this man is just some kook trying to pay off his eye surgeon. Not having a degree in ophthalmology, I have no clue if being hit by a flying wiener can detach a retina. However, I figure his run-in with a Ball Park Frank is nothing compared to what once happened to Dr. Maureen at an ice hockey game we attended in Kansas City many years ago. She was hit by a hockey puck--and not one that was lofted into the crowd by some goofy mascot. Oh, no. This was a slap shot that was probably traveling at supersonic speed.

There was absolutely no time to react. The puck whacked her in the upper right arm, and the large Coke she was drinking went airborne. A team attendant whisked away her wounded, wet body to some medical examining room, but, like the stud she is, she returned to her seat before the end of the game, bruised and swollen and laughing about her brush with death.

Now, did Dr. Maureen, who was at the time an impoverished non-doctor, run off whining to a lawyer and sue the team five months later? No, no no. She did not. Instead, she enrolled in medical school and became wildly rich and famous on her own merit.

I suggest this wiener plaintiff should be happy all he got hit with was a 6-ounce piece of all-beef, tender frank. When one enters Royals Stadium, he or she is always subject to an array of life-threatening dangers. This man could have gotten drunk, stumbled down the steps, and taken a dive off the top deck. He could have been impaled in the chest, vampire-style, by a broken bat. A foul ball could have beaned him on his beanie. Or, worse yet, he could have been hit by a hockey puck, for gosh sakes!! I say, “Suck it up!!!”