Word: contracting
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...Fifty-three days after announcing a tentative agreement, the Giants and Bonds completed a contract Monday with a most unusual provision. It says, in essence, that the team can void the deal if Bonds is indicted "for any criminal act" specified in the contract, according to the Associated Press, and that Bonds waives the right to challenge - or to authorize the players' association to challenge - the team's decision. In the baseball business, that's called a cover-your-ass clause, and in the case of Bonds, it makes a lot of sense...
...Bonds is widely suspected of having misled a federal grand jury in 2003 when he allegedly denied knowingly using steroids. The San Francisco Chronicle disclosed evidence supposedly showing that Bonds intentionally took the drugs, and the contract provision is designed to protect the Giants in case prosecutors pursue charges of perjury or related crimes...
...collective bargaining agreement provides for a uniform contract that sets employment terms for all players. A player and team cannot change it except to increase the minimum salary or to add "special covenants that contain an actual or potential benefit to the player," explains Clark Griffith, a lawyer and sports law professor in Minneapolis, Minn. Bonds would obviously not benefit from either an out-clause for indictments or a waiver of the right to challenge a Giants decision, so both provisions would seem unenforceable...
...uniform contract also allows teams to void a deal if the player misbehaves - meaning the player doesn't act like a good citizen or sportsman, doesn't stay in shape, refuses to play or otherwise breaches the contract. Teams often argue without success that this provision covers a host of sins, but Paul Weiler, a sports law professor at Harvard Law School, says behavior that prompts an indictment is probably just the type of bad citizenship contemplated in the language. Unless Bonds is convicted, though, "I doubt [the Giants] would enforce it," Weiler explains, because "Bonds is in his last...
...reports that the baseball commissioner's office rejected the contract because of the indictment provision, they're false. On Tuesday, the office told the Giants that language involving the personal appearances that Bonds would have to make on behalf of the team was inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement. "It was a minor thing," said baseball spokesman Richard Levin. "We told them to delete it or rephrase it." By the end of the day, the AP reported that the Giants had already sent Bonds' agent a revised contract, but that he was not yet ready to sign...