“Read this and let me know if they can really do it,” my assistant said as she handed me the front page of the local paper.  The headline: “MLB says kids teams can’t adopt nicknames.”

We’re in the middle of the World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays and the headline makes it sound like the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Kids can’t emulate their heros?  It doesn’t sound fair.

Actually, the headline is a bit misleading.  It says teams can’t adopt nicknames.  When you read the article you realize its really about trademarked names, not nicknames per se.

Part of every professional sports team’s franchise, or marketing platform, is it’s team name and logo.  Those assets are closely guarded and usually trademarked for added legal protection.

Using someone else’s name without their permission is really a form of identity theft.  It causes confusion and misleads others and that’s where the trademark infringement comes in.

Oh, ‘common you might say.  When Al’s Garage sponsors the local youth baseball team and their team jerseys say “Al’s Yankees” everyone knows it’s not the real NY Yankees.  And besides, how can they own the word “Yankees”? 

True.  They know it’s not the world famous NY Yankees — but seeing the word “Yankees” in the context of a baseball uniform makes people think of the NY Yankees and there’s the rub.  It’s very different than, for example, seeing a Yankees Cheese Shop sign.  It’s a different product and, in legal terms, a different class of goods.  When it comes to baseball, the NY Yankees can own that Yankee space.

Most ethical people would not dream of driving someone else’s car or moving into someone else’s home without permission.  Yet when property is not three dimensional, when you can’t pick it up and hold it, when it’s intellectual property like copyright, trademark, and patents; more people are inclined to rationalize use without permission.

Rather than banning use of Major League Baseball team names on pint size jerseys, the MLB might consider offering a limited license for a very nominal license fee — an amount that could be raised in a bake sale.  In the process they would be teaching the kids that stealing a name is not the same as stealing a base. 

They would also hit a home run for legal literacy by reminding players, coaches, and sponsors that the law, like baseball, has rules that need to be followed if you want to stay in the game.

Richard S. Fuld Jr., the chief executive of Lehman Brothers Holding that owns the financially charred remains of a once formidable investment bank, didn’t look very happy answering angry questions from Henry A. Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform yesterday or when dodging the protesters waiting for him outside who hurled insults and held up signs reading “crook” and “shame.”

I bet Mr. Fuld is not used to people talking to him like that.

He’s also not used to being held accountable to people who talk to him like that.  The only problem now is that he can’t flick them off like flies the way he did back in June when he dismissed a call by certain shareholders to forgo bonuses this year and mockingly noted “they are only people who think about their own pockets.”

The tide has now turned against him.  The FBI and at last count 3 U.S. attorneys offices are investigating whether positive statements made by Fuld to analysts about the health of Lehman’s balance sheet five days before the company filed for bankruptcy amounted to fraud.  The Securities Exchange Commission is also examining Lehman’s asset valuation practices.

One internal Lehman document dated June 8, 2008 shown to Fuld during yesterday’s hearing warned about Lehman’s financial condition and asked, “Why did we allow ourselves to be so exposed?”  Yet Fuld claimed he never saw the document before.  Maybe he didn’t see that particular document before, but had he heard that there might be a problem from some other source?

It’s hard to believe he could be that clueless.  It makes you wonder how someone so smart could be so blind.

That incongruity offers a few interesting leadership/ legal lessons for managers of any size business:

1.  Periodically reexamine the assumptions of your cash cows.  Those cows are not sacred.  Everyone loves to make money and no one wants to lose out on the latest market trend; but, if you don’t respect business fundamentals you stand to lose even more — maybe everything.

2.  Hedge your assumptions — the goal is to survive and thrive, not gamble and hope for a bailout from Uncle Sam, your shareholders, your friends, or your family.

3.  Remember who your business is serving and serve those constituencies with integrity.

4.  Create checks and balances in your business processes and systems to avoid overconfidence and Hummer-sized blind spots.

5.  Keep your finger on the business pulse more than in the cookie jar.

Keep those 5 principles in mind and you won’t be staring down a legal nightmare or find yourself starring in a Congressional Jerry Springer Show.