Boston Process Server Tom Cabral Angers Red Sox Fans, Gets the Job Done

• October 06, 2011
• by ServeNow Staff

When Boston process server Tom Cabral received an assignment from a client in Kentucky, he never guessed that within 24 hours he’d be a sworn enemy to thousands of Red Sox fans. His assignment was to serve child support papers to Red Sox player Erik Bedard, who just happened to be the starting pitcher in the Yankees-Orioles game the following night.

Cabral said when he opened the documents he was supposed to serve, he was momentarily surprised.

“When I saw Erik Bedard’s name and the address at Fenway Park, I was a little shocked because he was the starting pitcher. But a job is a job,” Cabral said.

And it was just a job until things got a little weird. We’ll give you the play-by-play below.

The Serve

The Red Sox requested that Cabral wait until after the game to serve Bedard, but there was a need for urgency that couldn’t be ignored. Bedard is a Canadian citizen, and Cabral’s client was concerned that Bedard would head back to Canada after the game. This, added to the fact that Bedard’s ex-flame had been unsuccessfully trying to serve him for quite a while because he resides in Canada, meant that there wasn’t time to waste.

The serve went smoothly before the game, and the Red Sox organization even helped him do his job by contacting Bedard and arranging for a meeting at Fenway Park’s player parking garage. According to Cabral, Bedard was very pleasant while being served, and Cabral told him, “I’m not trying to bust your chops. I’m a Yankees fan but just trying to do my job.” Bedard signed the papers, thanked Cabral and that was it. Mission accomplished.

It was the media’s onslaught right after he completed the serve that caught Cabral off-guard.

The Media Frenzy

Reporters began to crowd Cabral and ask him about serving papers to Bedard, and then they noticed his Yankees shirt. That’s when the backlash from the media and Red Sox fans began to snowball.

“They asked, ‘You’re wearing a Yankees shirt?’” Cabral said. “I said I always wear a Yankees shirt. One report said I walked in with an entire Yankees uniform. They (Red Sox fans) were incensed by that,” Cabral said.

Bedard struggled in his appearance on the mound that night, leading some Boston fans to blame Cabral for distracting the pitcher before the game. Sports bloggers picked up where the newspapers had left off, and the story grew even larger when someone allegedly hacked Cabral’s Facebook page and saw that he had shared messages that people perceived as “bragging” about the serve.

Cabral said he once served a New England Patriots player while wearing a New York Giants jersey, but the player thought it was funny and it garnered no media attention. Not so in this case, where a simple process serving assignment was now national news.

The Reactions

According to Cabral, the reactions from people about the situation have varied quite a bit - some good and some on the mean side.

“To be honest with you, I get a lot of nasty emails from Red Sox fans. A Yankees site named me the fan of the year. I’ve had three or four attorneys call and say they’d be sending me papers to serve,” Cabral said.

He said his fellow process servers have empathized with him, and many people in the process serving community have given him pats on the back for getting the job done. Despite the support from his process serving peers, Cabral said he is well aware that he hasn’t made any friends within the Boston sports community.

“The people on the outside who don’t understand and Red Sox fans - I’m not getting any Christmas cards from them this year,” he said.

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