In a legal loophole between "Is nothing sacred?" and "Omigod!" are the bobblehead justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Yes, Rehnquist, Brandeis and Blackmun now share more in common with Hrbek, Carew and DiMaggio than just the 1922 Supreme Court ruling protecting Major League Baseball from antitrust laws. (Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 U.S. 200.)
A rare and complete collection of the 22 justices currently cast in ceramic now is in session at the University of Minnesota's Mondale Hall, courtesy of a gift by James Rosenbaum, a former U.S. district court judge for Minnesota from 1985 to 2008, and its chief judge for those last seven years.
His first bobblehead was a surprise witness, so to speak.
"I was in my office one day and I get this box and there is a William Rehnquist bobblehead," Rosenbaum said. "I just broke out in laughter. He's the chief freaking justice of the United States and I have a bobblehead of him."
The doll came without explanation, only that it was from the Green Bag, an Entertaining Journal of Law.
The Green Bag is a quarterly legal journal founded by Ross Davies, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia who has a knack for being both amusing and informing. He's said that the bobblehead idea came to him in the shower.
While droll, Davies also had a serious intent, writing annotations of major decisions and working with designers to add telling details to each doll that illuminate legal history.