Former giant Mac Williamson sues club over concussion that ‘ended my career’

Former Giants outfielder Mac Williamson is suing the organization over the concussion he suffered in 2018 when he tripped over a paddock mound in Oracle Park and hit his head against the wall, stating that he continued to have symptoms including blurred vision and that the incident “ended my career.

“My life has not been the same since I suffered the injury,” Williamson said in a statement issued by a public relations firm for Williamson’s lawyer based in San Francisco, Randy Erlewine.

The rare action by a player against his former team following an injury on the pitch names China Basin Ballpark Company LLC as the respondent. This business is controlled by the Giants Partnership Group.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges negligence and seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages. He says Williamson was “one of the best powerful hitters in Major League Baseball” when he was injured. At a Zoom press conference on Tuesday, Erlewine said Williamson could have won “tens of millions of dollars” had the injury not occurred.

Williamson alleges the Giants maintained a dangerous risk to the players by having the mounds on the pitch and did not move them to a safer location even after the players were injured.

The late owner Peter Magowan apologized to Williamson months after the incident. Williamson alleges that Magowan told him that when the baseball stadium was built, the Giants placed the mounds on the field despite the objection of then-commissioner Bud Selig, who deemed them dangerous.

The club recognized the danger after Williamson’s collision and moved the mounds past the center-field fence ahead of the 2020 season. The Giants were one of three teams that had mounds on the pitch. The Oakland A’s and the Tampa Bay Rays still do.

Williamson appeared at the Zoom press conference and said the realization that the injury had ended his career was “devastating to me.” Everyone’s career ends at some point. But having it removed from me because the mounds of the enclosures were unnecessarily placed on the ground is very difficult to manage.

“Even though I’ll never be cured, my intention to file a complaint is to hold park owners accountable not only for taking my career away from me, but also for carelessly risking the careers of all the other great players by unnecessarily placing mounds. on the ground, ”he said.

Neither Erlewine nor Williamson answered questions.

Giants officials declined to comment, but the team released a statement to The Chronicle suggesting Williamson’s costume may not fly because he had other potential remedies to pursue.

“MLB and its clubs have a long-standing practice of dealing with player injury claims through the collectively negotiated grievance process and workers’ compensation system,” the statement said.

“Williamson’s claims are properly resolved by these processes, not the courts.”

Williamson, 30, was the Giants’ third-round pick in 2012. He made his Giants debut in 2015 and played five-season games in San Francisco, struggling to find a place in the daily roster.

Hopes were high at the start of the 2018 season. Williamson reworked his swing during the winter under the guidance of Los Angeles-based private instructor Doug Latta. His bat was showing promise after his April 20 recall from Triple-A. He’s hit three home runs in his first five games.

In his fifth game, against the Nationals on April 24, Williamson hit a home run on a tape measure before tripping over the home bullpen mound over the left field line while chasing a foul ball of Bryce Harper, who suffered a concussion.

Williamson had post-concussion symptoms which he said persist almost three years later. He last appeared in the majors in 2019 and played 40 games this season for the Samsung Lions of the Korean Baseball League.

“The concussion ended my career and left me with lifelong injuries that also had a big impact on my personal life,” Williamson’s statement read. “I suffer from nausea, trouble sleeping, mood swings and other issues.

“I wake up every day hoping today is a better day and that I will get closer to how I felt before the injury.”

In the press release, lawyer Erlewine said the injuries “should never have happened, and we believe (the owner’s) decision to use bubble pens in the field, and his inability to deal with them. move later, put his career and that of other players at risk. “

Such a trial is rare but not unprecedented. Former 49ers running back Reggie Bush won a $ 12.8 million jury judgment against the Rams after slipping on an uncovered concrete strip after going out of bounds in a 2015 game in Saint -Louis, before the Rams come back to Los Angeles.