This sounds like a made-up or exaggerated headline, but Hall of Fame baseball player Robin Yount did in fact shoot Chicago Cubs manager Dale Sveum in the head.
But don't expect any criminal charges or even a lawsuit in this case.
The two are friends and were reportedly hunting quail in Arizona. Yount saw a bird in front of him and took a shot. He ended up bagging the bird. But he also bagged his friend too, accidentally hitting him with shrapnel in the back of the right ear, reports ESPN.
Sveum said that the bird was in front of Yount and that he was 50 yards up a hill near the bird. Svuem told reporters that Yount must have lost track of him and immediately regretted taking the shot, writes ESPN.
The gun fired off a six-shot pellet, and one of the pellets nicked Sveum. Sveum indicated these accidents are fairly typical as pellets will fall on you, but usually an individual is far enough so that the pellet won't do any damage.
Despite drawing some blood, the Chicago Cubs manager said that he was not injured too badly and is not worried about it.
For those of us who are not gracious enough to forgive someone shooting us in the head, you should know that you may be able to sue in such a situation. Similar to a golfer shouting "fore" or taking a look down a public fairway before taking a shot, a hunter has a duty to make sure that there are no people in the vicinity of where he is shooting. It's not clear if Yount looked before pulling the trigger, or if the hill obscured his view of Sveum.
Perhaps the only penalty that Yount will suffer is being compared to Dick Cheney. As you may remember, the former vice president famously shot his friend in the face, also while quail hunting. But unlike Sveum, the victim in that incident suffered serious injuries, as The Washington Post reported at the time.
Related Resources:
- Dale Sveum was accidentally shot by Robin Yount during a recent quail hunt (Yahoo!)
- What Led to Chiefs Linebacker Jovan Belcher's Murder-Suicide? (FindLaw's Tarnished Twenty)
- Mark Grace to Prison for DUI? (FindLaw's Tarnished Twenty)
