Ticket Rhubarb : Custody Fight May Go Extra Innings

Thirty minutes into a debate that ranged from the law of contracts through the operation of trusts, arcane rules of evidence and obscure legal bones of contention, the judge paused and gazed toward the lawyers in a rhubarb in front of him.

“Somehow,” Superior Judge Gary L. Taylor said, “baseball just isn’t as much fun as it used to be.”

Taylor was facing a tough task in his courtroom Thursday: trying to decide how--or whether--to divide a block of four California Angels season tickets among former friends.

At stake are rights to prime field-level seats behind first base. They have been bought in a block every year since at least 1971; no alternative seats available today can match the choice location.

In fact, no field-level seats are available closer to home plate than the right- and left-field foul poles, according to the Angels organization, which has sold more season tickets this year than ever before.

The lawsuit over the four season tickets was filed last month by Mike Say and Ruth K. McCray, who are trying to force Dennis M. Alevizon to continue to fulfill the terms of what they allege was an agreement to buy the season tickets jointly and share them fairly.

Say, McCray, Alevizon and Joe Edwards have for years sent separate $648 checks to the Angels to cover the one-quarter shares of the block of seats. Alevizon received all the tickets--for “administrative convenience,” McCray insisted--then the group met and drew lots to select game dates before the season began.

McCray and Say alleged that Alevizon refused to distribute the tickets this year.

Alevizon said the tickets are his. His lawyer, Robert E. Palmer, told Taylor on Thursday that Alevizon had merely been “generous” when he allowed McCray and Say to share.

“The Angels are hot now, and everybody wants the tickets,” said Palmer, who characterized the case as “trivial.”

Alevizon, a lawyer, first shared the tickets with the late Municipal Judge George McCray. The judge’s widow, Ruth, kept up the arrangement, which also included Say, a bailiff for the late jurist.

Attorney Donna P. McCray, representing her mother, alleged that the arrangement amounted to a legal contract. She urged Taylor on Thursday to order Alevizon to distribute the tickets before the opening game of the Angels’ regular season Tuesday.

“If they were his (Alevizon’s) tickets, why didn’t he pay the Angels?” she argued.

Taylor, saying he had found no previous appellate court decisions anywhere giving him guidance, refused to issue an injunction. He found that McCray had failed to show that being denied use of the tickets until a later hearing would subject her to “irreparable harm.”

So Alevizon gets the tickets, at least until the next court hearing, which has yet to be scheduled.

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” Donna McCray said Thursday.