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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-05-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2010. PAGE 5. Ah, the sacred rites of spring! A balmy late afternoon on a baseball diamond in a leafy downtown park in Hamilton, Ontario; to the west, the sun slowly sinking like a syrupy golden ball. A bunch of the lads, middle-aged amateurs all, playing through the bottom of the eighth. Look! – There’s George Black on the infield. A burly, bushy-bearded guy who runs his own trucking business is George, but tonight he’s patrolling the third-base bag, as he has in this league for years. No World Series heebie-jeebies here. No textbook double plays or 90-mile-an-hour split-fingered fastballs. The game is Slo-Pitch, so the guy on the mound doesn’t so much hurl the ball as lob it loopily towards home plate. The batter tenses, swings and… Lines the ball straight at George, playing third. George doesn’t catch it. He ‘loses it in the sun’ as the old sportscasters’ cliché goes, for indeed the sun is setting behind the backstop. Astronomically speaking, the batter represents old Sol, George is the Earth and the ball is the moon between the two, invisible in a miniature solar eclipse. Planet Earth (which is to say George) throws up his glove hand, but too late. The screaming line drive slams into his hand fracturing two fingers then deflecting into George’s sunglasses, shattering them and cutting George for 20 stitches around the eyes. George Black may not be a professional ball player but he is an alert and canny citizen of our times. He reads the situation and reacts just like a pro. He knows instinctively what to do. He sues. Not the batter. Not the pitcher. Not the amateur league he plays in. George sues … Dofasco – the company that paid for and erected the baseball facilities on which George got injured. His reasoning? Impeccable. Dofasco should have had the foresight to erect a screen protecting players from the setting sun. In the lawsuit, Dofasco is charged with “failing to warn (Mr. Black) of the dangers of the sun at the particular time of day.” George himself puts it more succinctly: “There have been no instructions (from Dofasco) in avoiding the sun.” George reckons $1,500,000 would assuage his grief and suffering. Good point. I know when I got that bad sunburn at Tofino last year I didn’t get so much as a sympathy card from the B.C. government, much less a cash settlement. And remember that woman who successfully sued McDonalds a few years back for her burned crotch? She’d purchased a coffee in the McDonald’s Drive-Thru, placed it between her thighs while she drove away, the coffee slopped over and burned her. Burned her! Obviously it was the restaurant’s fault for serving superheated coffee. Heartless bastards. There is some precedent for George’s baseball-oriented lawsuit. In 1985 an aggrieved mother sued Exhibition Place in Toronto after her ten-year-old son was hit by a foul ball during a Blue Jays game. She lost. Back then, judges – even some citizens – subscribed to the theory that “Stuff Happens” and that occasionally it was the citizen’s responsibility to “Get Over It”. Today, George’s lawsuit proceeds apace through the Canadian legal system. Dofasco has been compelled to hire Paul Jorgenson, an American architect who has designed several ball fields across North America. Mister Jorgenson pointed out that most ball fields, like the one George Black was injured on, are designed so that the setting sun shines away from the batter’s eyes, which means that once in a while it’s going to shine into the eyes of at least some of the opposing players on the field. He also pointed out that it would be impractical, if not impossible to shield the eyes of all infield players at all times. He did not add that ballplayers have been performing under these onerous conditions pretty much without complaint for the past century and a half or so. The judge’s response? He sided with … George. Dofasco’s motion to dismiss was tossed and the case could now go to court. My guess is Dofasco will sigh and settle out of court for some lesser amount. George Black will take home a bundle and the city of Hamilton will never see another Dofasco dime for recreational facilities in the city. We all live and learn. And George if you’re reading this, here’s something you might learn. You know how Dofasco failed to warn you “of the dangers of the sun at that particular time of day”? Here’s a tip: this evening, sometime after supper and before it gets really dark…the sun will probably do it again. Not for certain, but that’s been the pattern every day for the past 4.5 billion years. You might want to make a note of that and scotch tape it to your baseball glove. Arthur Black Other Views Common sense: lost in the sun Every journalist hates writing the dreaded correction. There are rules to the correction, mostly made by journalists to protect the sizeable egos of other journalists, where you don’t have to repeat your mistake and you only clarify what inaccuracy you had written and how it may have been perceived to fill the correction criteria. And while in writing a handful of corrections over the years, I have embraced those rules, there are some issues that show themselves to be bigger than the rules of the correction. There have been times that I have allegedly misinterpreted the undertones or unspoken points of someone else’s material, whether it be a press release or an anniversary report, where I was told after the fact that what I wrote wasn’t what they meant or that they had misspoke. I have even been called out by members of a local school board for accurately quoting someone, but told that wasn’t what they meant, or that it was taken out of context. Those are corrections that I take time in writing, dodging accountability that was never mine to begin with, because after all, who hasn’t said something that they’ve immediately wanted to take back? Blaming someone else allows you to do just that. There are also corrections that can’t appear in the next issue quickly enough and as much as it hurts, you can’t wait to get on the phone to apologize for the mistake you’ve made. This is the other side of the correction coin. Covering the 2006 municipal election was one of my first assignments with The Citizen, and after inaccurately directing a negative quote to reflect future Huron East Mayor Joe Seili, a correction could not appear before the impending election. There wasn’t a hole in Huron County big enough for me to crawl into. In last week’s issue, I encountered one such inaccuracy. Perhaps after misinterpreting information given to me over the years, I have now been told by several people that deceased war hero Russell Cook was in fact not Blyth’s last veteran of the Second World War. Former Auburn and Blyth resident and member of the Blyth Legion Stewart Ament, who now resides at Braemar Retirement Centre in Wingham, is still with us. He enlisted with the Armed Forces in 1942, took part in the D-Day invasion and served thereafter in Holland, eventually returning to Huron County. In an issue very soon, I will be sitting down with Stewart to talk about his experiences at war, coinciding with the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. It also should be noted that while I have received several comments notifying me of where I went wrong, none of them were meant to disparage Russell’s contribution to his country, as every correspondence I received began with a compliment of my coverage of Cook’s death. I was told that Stewart was in tears upon reading The Citizen, overwhelmed with a feeling that his community had forgotten about him. Upon hearing this, I immediately called Stewart, apologized profusely and assuring him that his community hasn’t forgotten him. Since I began writing this column, I have committed a lot of ink to my appreciation for our men and women in uniform and Stewart is no different. I have been told that admitting such a mistake in such a public way is brave, but paying respect where respect is due, no matter the circumstances, shouldn’t be brave, it should be mandatory, especially when matters of real bravery are being discussed. Hot housing market can burn Mistakes will happen Anyone who ventures into Ontario’s red hot housing market risks being burned and there are more sparks flying around than governments have noticed. Several members of the legislature and a federal agency trying to prevent monopolies have raised one concern. This is realtors’ associations that provide lists of houses for sale, through their multiple listing services, that, almost inevitably because they compile them, mention only houses offered for sale through their members. Being listed is almost essential to obtain maximum exposure that brings more competition and higher prices. Realtors charge commission, normally five per cent of selling price, to list with them, which means $50,000 on a house sold for $1 million, which is not uncommon in Toronto. This is not quite as much for the realtors as it may seem, because commissions are split equally between agents representing the seller and buyer. But 5 per cent is a large slice of a selling price at any time and particularly when houses sell for huge prices and with less effort, and the realtors eventually will be forced at least to offer more flexible rates. The problems officialdom has failed to mention include the tactics some realtors use to obtain listings and sell houses, which this writer recently experienced. The most common is to sell through a so- called auction after a breakneck process supposed to create buzz and momentum, in which agents make it clear offers will not be considered until after they list the house to other agents, invite them and their clients to see it, put up signs, list for the public, advertise once in a newspaper and hold two open houses, all in the space of a week. This time can be too short. Some possible buyers may not have a chance to see the house and at this owner’s request consideration of offers was postponed a week and a buyer then emerged. Some realtors suggest an owner offer a house for sale at substantially less-than-market value, claiming this will snare more bidders and the price will soar quicker, and an owner does not have to sell if the price does not rise enough. The writer suggested this is deceitful and a customer in a store that offers for example a TV set for sale at $500 expects to buy at this price, but the agent said realtors call their practice “testing the market”. The writer refused to list his house for sale at a lesser price than he was prepared to accept and chose another agent. Another dubious tactic some agents use hoping to coax owners to list with them, which has become more common, is to produce a list of what they claim are recent sales of comparable houses in the same neighborhood. These selling prices are less than the owner hoped for, but, if scrutinized closely, the houses prove to be less desirable, with fewer amenities and on busier streets. The realtors are trying to trick unwary owners to list at a low price to assure themselves of a sale and more intent on selling than getting more commission through a higher price. Real estate agents also provide some lesser irritations, including fancier names to boost areas where they sell. They have now given every formerly run- down part of Toronto names such as Seaton, Beaconsfield, Parkdale or Liberty Village, which sound much more inviting and conjure visions of cozy rural havens, which they definitely are not. One this week pretentiously calls its new condo building The Address At High Park. Every real estate company also runs full page advertisements in newspapers several times a year identifying its salespeople who have won its president’s, chairman’s, directors’, diamond, gold or platinum awards for selling houses. All real estate agents get awards they can brag about when asking owners to sell their houses through them. No other industry runs so many ads praising itself and it may feel the need to assure itself it does a good job. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Shawn Loughlin SShhaawwnn’’ss SSeennssee Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise.