Maris suit against A-B winds down

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Anheuser-Busch plotted to destroy the name of the late home run king Roger Maris' relatives as a part of a plan to take away their beer distributorship, a family attorney said Monday in closing arguments of a multibillion dollar defamation trial against the brewing giant.

Repeating that the nation's largest brewer "needs to be stopped," attorney Willie Gary asked the state court jury of six women to award the Maris family $5 billion in damages from a company it already once won millions from. He added that what happened to the family was part of a larger company scheme to seize the best-performing distributors for Busch relatives and friends.

"Your name is all you've got," Gary said. "People can take away a lot of things, but if they take your name away, you're ruined. That's what they tried to do."

Anheuser-Busch denies the Marises' accusation that it lied when it said their distributorship repackaged old, out-of-date beer and that it devised a plan to take away the business and award it to a friend of the Busch family. The company had given Maris the distributorship after he ended his career in 1968 with the St. Louis Cardinals, which it then owned. He died in 1985.

Company attorney Barry Richards, in his closing statement, pointed to the affidavits of former Maris drivers who claimed old beer had been repackaged as "clear and convincing evidence that it was true."

"If people were rubbing off date codes, that's fraudulent. It's misleading. It's deceptive," Richards said. "If my client said it was happening, it's not defamation."

Richards also said that the Maris family lost their contract for not keeping records of visits to retailers and failing to address company concerns about high turnover and getting proper uniforms for drivers.

He also disputed that there was a grand scheme by the company to take away distributorships and award them to Busch family members and friends.

"How could any company come up with a hare-brained scheme?" he said. "It just doesn't make sense."

Deliberations were set to begin later Monday.

Roger Maris held the single-season home run record for 37 years after he hit 61 in 1961 for the New York Yankees. He was traded to the Cardinals after the 1966 season, helping St. Louis to the 1967 World Series title and the 1968 National League pennant.

In 2001, the Maris family won a $50 million award against the brewer for the loss of their contract in 1997. A judge further determined that the family was entitled to $22.6 million in prejudgement interest. They have not received any of that money while the brewer appeals.