Cub Fan Sues The Cubs For Stealing His Idea
The fan (maybe "former fan") says he had a deal in place with the Cubs, but that deal fell through when the ’84 team was eliminated in the playoffs.
After the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, it seemed like there were roughly 47 million different commemorative items for sale to celebrate the ending of the longest title drought in American sports.
One of the many Cubs-related pieces of merchandise was a Wrigley Field outfield ivy leaf in a lucite-type box. The Cubs produced 2,016 of those, with a price tag of $200.
The problem, as outlined in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, is that Daniel Fox says he came up with the idea and design way back in 1984, when it was thought that the Cubs just might reach baseball's promised land.
Fox says that when the Cubs were eliminated from the 1984 playoffs, his deal with them fell through.
“In its finished form, the Fox Commemorative is a five-by-seven-inch rectangular sculpture based on Wrigley Field’s ivy-covered walls,” the lawsuit states. “It features a single ivy leaf encased in a Lucite block. Above the leaf is the title ‘The Year the Ivy Smiled.’”
But after the Cubs won the championship in 2016, the team started selling an ivy leaf memento with a similar design.
Fox said that it is a copy of his original idea, but he was never compensated.
Here's a comparison: