Baseball, law make for homerun of a career

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For every double off the leftfield wall at Frontier Field that brings fans to their feet comes the behind-the-scenes work resolving liability issues that results in an award-winning, ahead-of-the-curve, allergy-free, gluten-free section of the stadium the Rochester Red Wings call home.

For every called strike that pulls the Wings out of a bases-loaded jam comes negotiations with the state over abandoned Rochester Community Baseball shares, a complicated jam of a different sort that involved an extensive search for shareholders and ultimately allowed the organization to be able to field the requisite quorum for voting on amending by-laws and such (as well as produced an appraisal of the team that basically reads as a history of minor league baseball as it relates to the Wings).

And for every opportunity to play on historic fields such as venerable Fenway Park, famed home of the Boston Red Sox, Philip Fileri had to sign off before the Wings could take the field.

Actually, in this case, not sign off.

“The Red Sox wanted us to assume all liability in case the players got hurt,” Fileri said. “They wanted us to sign a release and basically, I advised not to.”

And they played the game, but don’t expect to see Fileri on the Frontier Field diamond anytime soon.

Fileri, partner at Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, gets to experience many on-field and off-field thrills as counsel to the Wings. And if working with the team and attending as many as 15 games a year isn’t enough, Fileri, of Pittsford, also makes a point to attend quite a few Major League Baseball games, depending on where his schedule takes him.

Baseball, as the old Saturday Night Live skit goes, has been very, very good to him, since he was growing up and playing on the T-shirt league fields in Irondequoit.

“I love the game,” Fileri said. “I loved to play the game and I was always a statistics trivia buff. I followed all the teams.”

To the left, his 14th-floor corner office at the Bausch and Lomb tower offers a spectacular view of the Genesee River and points beyond, and over his right shoulder he can watch as crews work on revitalizing the Midtown Tower. He has no view of Frontier Field, but the consolation prize is a seat from the old Silver Stadium that adorns his office.

Baseball is a sport that lends itself to storytelling, and Fileri has many stories to tell.

Go ahead, ask him about the time he and law partner John Pattison watched Mark McGwire tee-off during an All-Star game home-run hitting contest and suddenly discovered the ball descending on them at frightening speed — only to be saved by a kid and his baseball glove at the last second.

“Great catch,” Fileri said. “We were pretty appreciative of that.”

Growing up, Fileri was a member of the Knothole Gang, a club that enabled youths to attend Wings games for as little as 50 cents. Back in the 1960s, the team played at Silver Stadium, which was not too far away from where he grew up. The Wings were the farm team of the Baltimore Orioles back then, not the Minnesota Twins as is today.

Seeing future Orioles stars like Bobby Grich play in his backyard was both cool and fun, he said. Visits to his uncle in Berkeley, California, meant trips to the old Candlestick Park in San Francisco. That’s why he became a fan of the San Francisco Giants and players like Felipe Alou — because of his first name — and Willie Mays, because who didn’t like the Say Hey Kid?

The love of the game never left him, although mixing law and baseball never occurred to him, at least not until his years at University of Michigan Law School prepping for a career in corporate law. A good friend had taken a job with a law firm that represented the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, which put the idea on Fileri’s radar.

After Fileri graduated, he rejected offers from New York City law firms to stay in Rochester because his future wife, Betty, was finishing up medical school courses at the University of Rochester. He began summer clerking for the firm in 1976 and began practicing at Harter Secrest a year later.

In the early 1980s, former partner Nicholas Robfogel successfully represented current Red Wings president and CEO Naomi Silver in a proxy fight; Fileri worked under Robfogel until he retired in the 1990s.

The work is streaky, Fileri said, ranging from the normal audit committee reports, executive compensation agreements and board meetings to some special projects that pose unique challenges and require a bit of legal finesse.

Take the 2012 season. The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees — the farm team of the New York Yankees — needed a place to play their home games because its new stadium was under construction. Silver, who Fileri described as a leader among owners in the league, offered to let the Yankees play at Frontier Field.

Easier said than done.

To make it happen, the stadium required renovation, which meant modifications in the team’s lease with Monroe County, which supported the idea provided no extra cost to taxpayers was incurred, Fileri said. That also meant determining how to split revenues and treat concession and gate revenues — let’s just say this was an involved deal.

And that’s without figuring out how to squeeze an extra half season on top of the Red Wings home schedule. It all came together, overall attendance increased, more payments were made on the lease agreement and fans got to enjoy more games, he said. A record crowd was even treated to an appearance by Yankee pitcher Andy Pettite, who pitched in Rochester while rehabbing an injury — which Fileri puts among his top baseball memories.

“That was a business deal in the context of a sporting situation,” Fileri said.

Fileri is an excellent and conscientious attorney who is always on top of his game — and a great guy, fan and counsel to the organization, Silver said.

“It’s always wonderful to work with somebody who knows how much the Red Wings mean to the community,” Silver said. “We don’t treat ourselves like a regular business. Phil understands this. He knows our number-one objective is to provide a very good experience for the fan. We couldn’t do it without partners like Phil.”

And make no mistake, Fileri is a fan. If he’s working late and his wife has other plans, he’ll pop over for a few innings before heading to his Pittsford home. No worries about dinner, either, on those nights.

One way to look at the operation of a minor league baseball team is as a food-service company that puts out a product that happens to be baseball in order to generate customers who buy food, he said.

“One of the things about Frontier Field is the food is just terrific,” Fileri said. “They work hard at that. All you have to do is go to other stadiums and you really see the difference. It’s as good as any major league park.”

And Fileri has visited more than a few stadiums.

When his twin sons were younger, they’d visit different parks on vacations. Work brought him to a few other cities. In all, he’s caught games up and down both coasts, in the country’s heartland and in Canada.

“It’s tough to remember park names now because of naming rights changes, and they are revenue generating,” Fileri said. “Putting my lawyer hat on, it’s a good thing having a naming contract.”

Putting his baseball cap on, it’s a good thing having so many baseball memories, from his youth, from watching his kids grow up to the present and the players who have come and gone along the way. He once snapped a picture of the backs of Giants star Barry Bonds and San Diego Padres Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, standing side by side wearing the same All Star game jerseys and gave it to his law partner.

The photo came up after the recent death of Gwynn.

“It’s really a boring picture if you’re a normal person,” Fileri said. “But it’s totally cool if you’re a baseball fanatic.”

The best of the best

Every baseball fan likes to come up with a team of favorite players, and Harter Secrest & Emery partner Philip Fileri is no exception, although this one required a bit of thought, he said.

“The list is a little heavy on some of the older players, which I think is indicative of how we value our memories as a kid,” Fileri said.

Here are his all-time favorite Rochester Red Wings players, by position.

Catcher: Chris Hoiles

First base: Justin Morneau, Boog Powell, Curt Blefary and Chris Colabello

Second base: Bobby Grich

Shortstop: Jason Bartlett, Mark Belanger and Doug Bernier

Third base: Cal Ripken Jr. and Jeff Manto

Left field: Don Baylor

Center field: Paul Blair

Right field: Jason Kubel and Jim Fuller

Pitchers: Francisco Liriano, Mike Flanagan, Scott McGregor, Mike Mussina and Jamie Moyer.