One of the perks of having your team located in the Nations Capitol is access to celebrities like Supreme Court Justices.
The Nationals recent tapped of “The Nine” for a First Pitch ceremony. Justice Sotomayor did not disappoint, bringing the heat right down the pipe.
You may know that one of my favorite sports random trivia facts is that the Phillie Phanatic was at a big Judge Alito birthday party (as referenced in The Nine and in a recent Blog on Gameops.com – Supreme Mascot Court.
More random fun below, with a note on how Sotomayor was also partly responsible for ending the baseball strike….
Justice Sotomayor threw—and I cannot stress this enough—a strike. https://t.co/Ff2QYnXU9l
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) September 26, 2019
Sotomayor helped end the 1995 Major League Baseball strike with a ruling against Major League Baseball owners in their collective bargaining dispute with players…
Sotomayor, an ardent New York Yankees fan, issued an injunction against baseball team owners in 1995 for alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act. The owners had sought to end the existing free agency and salary arbitration systems and imposed a lock-out against players as negotiations crumbled. The ruling ended the strike, which had begun on Aug. 12, 1994 and ended up cancelling the World Series that season.
By March 29, 1995, the MLB players association voted to return to work if Sotomayor ruled against the owners. She did on March 31, and the 232-day strike ended two days later.
The ruling was later upheld on appeal.
“Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball,” Obama said in announcing his choice. (ESPN)
