The legal imbroglio over Barry Bonds' record-setting 73rd home run baseball was supposed to end last month when the ball was sold at auction for $450,000. 

Alex Popov and Patrick Hayashi, once courtroom adversaries, shook hands, posed for pictures, and told reporters they were just happy to be part of baseball history — despite a sale price that fell dramatically short of the ball's once-estimated value of more than $1 million.

Now, a ripple effect from the deflated auction price threatens to spark a lawsuit about a lawsuit, after Popov's lawyer obtained a temporary injunction to freeze his former client's $225,000 share of the profits.

Martin Triano

On June 20, Martin Triano filed the petition with the San Francisco Superior Court, claiming that Popov, who retained his services by the hour, owes him the staggering sum of $473,530.32. 

"It was an aggressively litigated case, and we're very proud of what we did," Triano told Courttv.com  "Alex had nothing going into the trial.  This was a very novel case, nothing had been done in the area of personal property since the 1800s."

Popov, who said he has obtained a new lawyer and is mulling a malpractice suit, bristled at Triano's comments.  "It was a very simple case. He was the one that made it complex," he said.  "I trusted the wrong man." 

Superior Court Judge David Garcia will decide July 17 whether Popov's profits from the sale of the ball will be released.  If so, Triano could file suit over his fees, sending the two parties back to court again.

The ball

It was the last day of the 2001 baseball season when San Francisco Giants slugger Bonds, who had already broken the single season home-run record, crushed his 73rd, and last, of the season into the right field stands at Pac Bell park.

Popov gloved the ball momentarily, but lost it in a crush of fans.  Hayashi, a software engineer now going to school in San Diego for a master's degree in business, came up with the ball.  Popov, a restaurauteur in Berkeley, sued Hayashi, saying the ball was rightfully his.

After numerous last-ditch attempts to settle the dispute outside a courtroom, Popov and Hayashi embarked on a bitter three-week court battle that ended with Judge Patrick McCarthy ordering them to do exactly what Barry Bonds himself had suggested: Sell the ball and split the proceeds.

Fast foward to the auction this June. Despite rumblings that the ball would sell low, both men entertained high hopes that the sale price would allow them to turn a profit.  Producer and comic book artist Todd McFarlane had paid more than $3 million for the previous record-setting ball, after all.

But by the time the gavel fell, McFarlane was able to add the ball to his Hall of Fame-worthy collection for less than the legal fees Popov's lawyer now claims he is owed.

Popov claims Triano padded his fees by unnecessarily "double- and triple-teaming" with other lawyers during routine hearings and depositions, drawing out minor courtroom skirmishes, and spending more than 60 hours to prepare his opening and closing statements alone. 

But Triano says Popov's "serious ethical concerns" are just smoke and mirrors.

"I think that Alex is speaking up now basically because he is disappointed with the proceeds of the auction," commented Triano.

"That's a bunch of bullshit," said Popov.  "I've been complaining about his fee since the day after the trial ended in December.  I sat down and talked to him and said, 'This is way out of line.'"

In addition to Triano's petition, an expert brought in to testify about similar property law cases says he is owed $19,000.

Hayashi (left) with lawyer Don Tamaki

Meanwhile, on Hayashi's side of the ball, a rosier picture has emerged, one in which his lawyers seem willing to cut their contingency fees — 20 percent of the sale price of the ball — to ensure that their client won't go home emptyhanded.

"It'll be worth his while.  It's important that Hayashi walks away with some significant amount from this given what he had to go through," said Don Tamaki, one of the San Francisco-based lawyers that handled Hayashi's case on a contigency basis, not an hourly fee.  "I think he ought to be rewarded for what he put up with.  The only way that can happen is if the lawyers cut their fees, and we're going to do that."

If Hayashi had to pay his legal team the full 20 percent of the ball's sale price, he could have actually lost money, after paying trial expenses, taxes and fees on his share of the profit. 

But Tamaki told Courttv.com  he is willing to cut the fee enough to give his client a profit in the "tens of thousands of dollars."

The disbursement, said the lawyer, could come as soon as the end of this week—while Popov's battles continue. 

"I guess the final chapter is still being written," said Tamaki.