Man drags baseball association to court

BY A STAFF WRITER

JERSEY CITY (NJ) — Taney Baseball became a household name in August when the league’s Taney Dragons became the first team from Philadelphia to ever make it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport.

The Dragons’ star pitcher, Mo’ne Davis, who graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and has already secured a book deal for her memoir, became the first girl ever to throw a shutout in the history of the Little League World Series.

Now, Anand and Sujata Kumar, of Cherry Hill, are claiming that a throw from a pint-sized player at a Taney game in May left 73-year-old Anand Kumar ‘disabled and disordered’ and that his wife has also suffered as a result of his injuries.

According to their lawsuit, which was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas last week, the couple was attending their grandson’s baseball game on May 18 at Trolley Works Field, on Schuylkill Avenue near Reed Street, when Anand Kumar was hit in the eye by a baseball while seated in the stands.

The suit states that the ball was thrown during a ‘game of toss and catch between two of the boys who were on a team and who were practicing outside the fence and negligently close to the stands.’

The couple claims that Taney allowed the children to toss the ball too close to the stands, putting spectators at risk.

Anand Kumar said that as a result of the wayward game of catch, he had suffered a corneal abrasion, a ‘deformed pupil,’ double vision and ‘multiple torn sphincter muscles,’ which have caused him to see two crescent rings of light at the bottom of his vision.

Anand Kumar claims his injuries have made him ‘sick, sore, lame prostrate, disabled and disordered’ and that he has endured ‘great mental anguish,’ according to the suit. For her part, Sujata Kumar claims that her husband’s alleged injuries have deprived her of his ‘assistance, society and consortium.’

Evan Aidman, attorney for the plaintiffs, declined to answer any questions about the suit without his clients’ permission. The Taney Youth Baseball Association has not commented on the case.