Baseball is America’s national pastime. So is litigation. In recent years, the two have converged in the most obnoxious way, with fans suing each other for ownership of home run balls.

On Monday, the Florida Marlins received a subpoena for video footage from Justin Kimball, a 25-year-old fan who attended the team’s June 9th game. According to Justin, on that day he caught Ken Griffey Jr.’s monumental 600th career home run in his wool cap, but the ball was ripped away from him by a fan identified only as “Joe.” Joe, however, contends that he caught the ball in his glove.

Last Wednesday, Justin filed a motion in Miami-Dade court, seeking a temporary restraining order prohibiting Joe from selling the disputed baseball. Although Justin’s motion was denied, he plans to continue litigating.

This is not the first time that grown men have fought over a baseball. In December 2002, a California judge in Popov v. Hayashi (PDF) ordered two men, each of whom claimed to own Barry Bonds’s historic 73rd home run ball, to equally split the proceeds. In that case, Alex Popov, owner of a Berkeley, CA health food restaurant, brought suit against Patrick Hayashi, a software engineer from Sacramento. Popov alleged that he owned Bonds’s baseball because he was the first to get his glove on the ball, and that Hayashi tore the ball from his glove during the ensuing melee. Hayashi argued that he was the first to have actual possession.

Read more about the law of history-making baseballs, after the jump.

While the judge in Popov v. Hayashi ordered the ball sold in an auction, many academics frowned upon the ruling. This is because the ruling did not resolve the longstanding conflict between “acquisition by pursuit” and “acquisition by possession” (yes, the same issue featured in the seminal 1805 New York case Pierson v. Post ).

Nevertheless, even if the Popov court had ruled in favor of one of the litigants, it would not have solved the greater problem of fans hazardously chasing windfall baseballs. A milestone baseball is often worth two to three years of Biglaw salary. For example, Barry Bonds’s 73rd home run ball sold at auction for $450,000.

Thus far, nobody has been seriously injured during the pursuit of one of these baseballs. But what if, by chance, a milestone baseball heads directly toward a child, senior citizen, or disabled fan? Do you think all of the Popovs, Hayashis, Justins, and Joes of in a ballpark are going to pursue the ball gingerly? Expect someone to get trampled.

To deter fans from going after these balls with mob mentality, Major League Baseball may wish to change its policy and require fans to return certain balls (obviously announcing this to fans in advance). Maybe the teams should give milestone baseballs to the player who reaches his milestone, or to the Hall of Fame, or even to charity. Maybe Major League Baseball should sell these balls and use the proceeds to provide free tickets to all fans in attendance that day — a way of splitting the windfall amongst a wider group of fans. All of these alternatives make some sense.

However, brawls over milestone baseballs need to stop. Teams risk tort liability, property lawsuits, and all types of annoying subpoenas. Fans risk bodily harm. And even the lucky fan that leaves the stadium with the milestone baseball generally cannot keep it. If the fan does, a huge tax bill from the IRS will likely follow.

P.S. Several weeks ago, I blogged about one of the ongoing Seattle Supersonics lawsuits, filed against the team’s current ownership by former owner Howard Schultz. The other ongoing Sonics lawsuit, filed by the City of Seattle, seeks to prevent the team from breaching its lease agreement with Key Arena. On Monday, the trial in that suit began. For some early analysis of the trial, see here and here. For an interesting piece specifically about why sports economist Andrew Zimbalist’s testimony failed to help the City of Seattle, see here.

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Marc Edelman is an attorney, business consultant, published author and professor, whose focus is on the fields of sports business and law. You can read his full bio by clicking here, and you can reach him by email by clicking here.