BRONX — An aggrieved Yankees fan teased by the team's announcers for falling asleep in the stadium is hitting back.
Andrew Robert Rector, who attended an April game between Yankees and the Red Sox, lobbed a lawsuit at Major League Baseball, ESPN, the Bombers and announcers Dan Shulman and John Kruk demanding $10 million for using video of him "napping" in the stands and opening him up to a barrage of insults.
The typo-filled suit, filed in Bronx Supreme Court on July 3, accuses Shulman and Kruk of unleashing an "avalanche of disparaging words" against him when their color commentary during the broadcast poked fun of him.
MLB's YouTube video of Rector asleep during the game, titled "Fan sleeps in stands during game vs. Red Sox," racked up nearly 700,000 views and nearly 300 comments.
Both announcers expressed surprise and amusement in the video that Rector was asleep, with Kruk saying, "This is not the place you come to sleep. I'll tell you what, though, how comfortable is that? He probably won't have any neck problems tomorrow."
Rector claims in his suit that the announcers opened him up to a host of vitriolic comments, calling him everything from "stupor," "fatty," "unintelligent" and "stupid."
MLB continued this onslaught on its website, "comparing the plaintiff to someone of a confused state of mind, disgusted disgruntled and unintelligent and probably intellectually bankrupt individual," according to the lawsuit.
The suit claims that the publicity generated by this video caused Rector to suffer "adverse consequence of unimaginable proportion."
Among the insults the suit cites are: "Plaintiff is a fatty cow that need two seats at all time and represent symbol of failure," "Plaintiff is a confused disgusted and socially bankrupt individual" and "Plaintiff is so stupid that he cannot differentiate between his house and public place by snoozing throughout the fourth inning of the Yankee game," according to the lawsuit.
A spokeswoman for ESPN described the lawsuit as frivolous in an email.
"The comments attributed to ESPN and our announcers were clearly not said in our telecast," she said. "The claims presented here are wholly without merit."
Rector's attorney, Valentine Okwara, could not be reached for comment.
A Yankees spokesman declined comment, and MLB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
