It was reported last July that former Mets reliever/captain John Franco’s Staten Island estate sale (and please, “Staten Island estate sale” is not a euphemism for anything), featured items including but not limited to, “everything from Mets memorabilia and video arcade machines to 19th-century oil paintings and a Harley-Davidson Roadster“. Alas, it turns out the sales was not the sure-thing windfall that Johnny B. Badd expected, and in the aftermath, the inexplicably popular closer finds himself the target of a lawsuit from a sales agent alleging abusive behavior. From the Staten Island Advance’s Frank Donnelly :
Franco, 52, and his wife, Rose, went ballistic when Wendy King told them the three-day event, which grossed more than $70,000, would have fared better had Mrs. Franco “not interfered with the sale of numerous items, including a piano,” contend court papers.
“For him not to apologize is ridiculous,” Ms. King’s lawyer, Jeffrey B. Gold of the Bellmore, L.I. firm Gold Benes LLP said Monday.
Franco, the career saves leader for left-handed pitchers, refused to let Ms. King leave, shoving her away from the front door and standing there for 15 minutes while glaring menacingly at her, court filings allege. Meanwhile, his wife berated her and called her a thief, contends the Westchester County resident.
At one point, Franco, who amassed 424 saves and 90 wins over 21 years, became enraged and flung an autographed baseball at a wall, Ms. King maintains in the suit, recently filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court.
“John A. Franco acted like a bully, intending to intimidate a woman,” Ms. King’s filing alleges.
Ms. King, who public records show is in her early 60s, alleges unlawful imprisonment, assault and slander. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.