Dershowitz Teaches Law of Baseball

When the Red Sox clinched the American League Wild Card on Tuesday, 12 Harvard Law School students sitting in the box seats of the team’s CEO had an extra incentive to watch: course credit.

This semester, Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is co-teaching a first-year reading group—the Law School’s equivalent of a Freshman Seminar—with Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino.

“I’ve been a fan of baseball since I was 10, when Jackie Robinson first debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947,” Dershowitz said.

The class, “about the business and law of sports,” covers how to acquire a franchise, how to value players, how to deal with sports agents, the role of antitrust law, and how to get a stadium built. Thus far, the class has met twice—the second time in Lucchino’s box seats at Fenway.

Lucchino and Dershowitz both attended Yale Law School, and Lucchino came to Boston seven years ago when he took over the Red Sox.

When the reporter said he had only ever been to a Nationals game, Lucchino had a ready retort, flashing his team allegiance. “You can’t go see the Nationals,” he said. “That doesn’t count.”

Lucchino said he “used to be a real lawyer,” and explained how he found it “easy to strike up a friendship with Dershowitz.”

During an offseason trip to the Galapagos Islands, Dershowitz “concocted” the idea for the class, Lucchino said.

“It’s good for my personal development to be around the brightness of HLS students,” he said.

Lucchino explained that he “grew up with baseball,” a “part of Americana.”

“The daily competitiveness appeals to me,” he added.

But the spirit of the class is more relaxed, according to students.

“For most of the class, Lucchino and Dershowitz bounce ideas off each other. It’s pretty informal,” said Crosby W, Scofield, a first-year from San Antonio. “I’d never been to Fenway, It was great to see the World Series trophy and the executive meeting room.”

Scofield said that the course was a nice alternative to the 80-person classes typical of the first year of law school, as reading groups contain only ten to twelve students and are not taken for a grade. David M. Zucker, a first-year from Natick, Mass., cited the advantage of being able “to know a professor on a personal level.”

“It was a great opportunity to see the real world applications of what we’re learning in law school,” said Zucker, a “diehard” Sox fan. “[Owning a baseball team] is not the path most people take as lawyers, so it’s interesting to see what people who chose that path do.”

When asked if the new, laid back class meant that he was mellowing out, Dershowitz responded, invoking his Red Sox alter-ego: “No way. No way. No way. I’m the Kevin Youkilis of the Law school faculty. I get very angry when I don’t get my way.”