Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 21, 1993                   TAG: 9307210135
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BALLGAME'S OVER; SUIT DISMISSED

Roanoke Circuit Judge Roy Willett dismissed the lawsuit one month after it was filed.

Craighead had hoped to collect $4 million in damages from the city for being unfairly thrown out of a I think the judge further agreed that the courts do not exist to resolve the most petty irritations that people may have in their lives Wilburn Dibling City Attorney summer league softball game - an offense he claimed deprived him of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The city, however, maintained that softball was not on the minds of our founding fathers when they wrote the Constitution.

"He simply had not made out a cause of action," City Attorney Wilburn Dibling said.

"I think the judge further agreed that the courts do not exist to resolve the most petty irritations that people may have in their lives."

Craighead, who represented himself during Tuesday's hearing, could not be reached for comment.

In his lawsuit, he had claimed that his ejection at the thumb of umpire James Whorley last October caused him "great mortification, humiliation, shame, vilification, exposure to public infamy, and injury to his good reputation," and that he "has been and will forever be hampered in his pursuit of happiness."

The suit also said that Craighead's team, the Bee Bo's, was disqualified from another game for the lame reason of not having enough players to field a team.

Following the disqualification, the suit claimed, Whorley ejected Craighead from a later game for no other reason than "he had to get Craighead before the season was over."