quote: Red Sox fans have seen the video over and over again. A ground ball to pitcher Keith Foulke. He tosses it underhand to backup first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who raises it high as Boston celebrates its first World Series championship in 86 years.
Mientkiewicz still hasn't let go of the ball. But now the Red Sox want it back.
Calling the ball, ``my retirement fund,'' Mientkiewicz stored it in a safe deposit box. Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said Thursday he's going to ask Mientkiewicz to return it to the team.
Whose ball is it? Should he have to give it back? Steve and I are both torn on this issue.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Depends on what it's being asked for. If it's going on permanent display, for example, I think it belongs to the team.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
But what if he had just tossed it into the crowd? What if it had been a home run that was the last play of the game? Would a fan have to return it?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I wouldn't force him to return it, or penalize him if he doesn't. I just think that he, as should any Sox fan, donate it to the posterity of the team.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
If it goes in the stands and a fan caught it, he can decide whether or not to give it back.
At the time Mientkiewicz caught the ball, he was working for the Red Sox during a game he was being paid for. If the ball belongs to anyone, it belongs to the team owner.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Is there not a contract governing this situation? I guess he is ensuring there will be in the future.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Trish, I imagine this has come up before. It might be in his contract, but it sounds like it isn't. As far as giving a fake ball, he had it authenticated.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Well, I'm sure the team owner isn't hard up for funds. But it would be nice to have on display. And for the one guy to keep it is kind of like saying he was solely responsible for the win. Which doesn't seem very sportsmanlike.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
He is not saying he is responsible for the win. He is very clear that he wants t for the money.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I say that everybody ignore him, and the value of that ball will be no more than the value of any other.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I see no reason why he should be permitted to keep it. After I have written a particularly excellent database, I do not expect to be able to keep the computer on which I've written it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I honestly don't know. There may be, because baseball is full of useless, wacky old traditions like that. In football and other, better sports, however, the game ball is shared by the winning team.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:But doesn't capitalism depend on the ruthless enforcement of contracts?
Partly.
But I think there's an underappreciation of the ruthless use of loopholes written into contracts by those that have the smarter lawyers. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:In football and other, better sports, however, the game ball is shared by the winning team.
I know nothing of football, but I just got a very strange visual of a football team sitting around a dining table, waiting patiently while their coach carves up the ball.
Anyone else get that or was it just me?
*sigh*
thought so.
(must be I OD'd on "The Far Side" over Christmas)
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Well, don't feel bad, because your image gave me the image of those ancient folks who played games with the heads of their enemies.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I agree with zgator. Mientkiewicz was performing his duties as a member of the Sox organization. This selfish attitude of, Catchers keepers, losers weepers is disheartening and sets a bad precedent. Can't you just envision future games where the players are embroiled in a brawl over who gets to keep which ball, bat, glove or whatnot. It's greedy and disgusting in my book.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
But isn't pro sports greedy and disgusting these days? I am not excusing his behavior, I'm just sayin.'
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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"Indeed, if the Cardinals provided the balls, the balls were their property at the outset. The question is whether their handing the balls to the Red Sox to be pitched surrendered ownership or not; I'm not sure whether it did, because that also depends on industry custom, if there is one here. But my basic point remains -- the balls surely aren't property of the players, unless there's some contrary custom, which I find quite unlikely."
So, it's the Cardinals' ball. ha ha.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
The greed and power of the baseball players union soured me on baseball 10 years ago. I think this particular example is even more disgusting because he didn't win the game by himself. He's grabbing a ball that has poetic significance for the whole team. He's holding it hostage for his own monetary gain and this shows that he has no regard for his teammates. ME! Me! Me! It's gross and just enhances my disdain for baseball players.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I still would think he should hand the ball over, but if he was an outfielder who made an outstanding catch to get the final out, I would at least have a bit of sympathy towards him.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I wouldn't have sympathy in the case that you mentioned zgator, because no matter how great the catch is, that one catch can't win the game by itself.
If there is no understanding that the winning team gets to keep the ball, then it belongs to whoever bought it and allowed the teams to use it. In this case - the Cardinals.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Give it back to the Cardinals? It was caught in their stadium, and home team provides the balls. I doubt that the RedSox contract reads: Any ball caught by one of our players in somebody else's stadium becomes property of the RedSox. By baseball custom, the possessor of a ball owns it. eg If the game had ended with a homerun, a fan would have been the owner.
Since it was a WorldSeries game, MajorLeagueBaseball may have provided the balls. (I think they do) And they don't retain ownership of the ball either by contract or by custom.
quote:YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Todd Kincannon writes:
There is an extremely well established custom in Major League Baseball that players get to keep significant baseballs unless they end up in the stands. Umpires will stop games so that a player can retrieve a significant ball, such as the one he just got his 3000th hit with, or his very first hit, or was the ball he just made an unassisted triple play with, etc...
One potentially important distinction here is that this ball is not particularly symbolic of a personal achievement by Mientkiewicz (he gets a put-out on the play; not a huge statistical deal), but instead is symbolic of a Red Sox team victory.
So I don't think the outcome is quite as clear cut as you do.
Well, as I mentioned, the issue does turn on custom, which sometimes can be treated as an implied term of a contract, if it's clear-cut enough (and, as the second paragraph suggests, it may not clearly apply here). I still doubt that there would be such a custom, especially as to balls where the person who happened to end up with it didn't do anything that remarkable; but perhaps I'm mistaken.
See I agree here that in cases where individual achievement is stressed, there is no reason not to let the person have the ball. But, this was not significant to the player, this was simply the last out in a significant TEAM victory, and therefore, even by baseball custom, it should belong to the team.
In fact, if I know my baseball custom at all, I think there is a tradition of the coach awarding the game ball to a player that made a significant contribution to the win of the game. Which suggests that the game ball belongs to the team, not the person who happned to be holding it when the last out was made.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
BTW, TomDavidson, a touchdown football useta be routinely tossed into the stands in professional games for a fan to have unless the particular touchdown had a specific meaning to a player's career or to the team's career. A football kicked into the stands in the point after or field goal attempt became the property of the fans. A punt that bounced into the stands could be kept by the fan who caught it
Sometime well after the SuperBowls began, the owners passed a rule forbidding players (with a hefty fine: I think it was originally $25thousand) from tossing a football into the stands. And placed a net behind the goalposts during the point after and field goal attempts.
Awarding the game ball to the most valuable player (or just to a player who requested one) was a football custom, not one of baseball.
posted
Also, in football (NFL), I seem to remember a certain Emmit Smith who kept EVERY SINGLE football he scored a touchdown with, whether it was an 80-yarder, or from the 2-inch line. Lot's of players keep the ball for their first touchdown, or interception, or other big event.
posted
Hmm. Well the fact that it was the Cardinal's stadium does make it less clear, though I still think the classy thing would be to give it to the team. If he keeps it as just his ball, and it isn't the Red Sox world series winning ball, is it really worth as much? Kind of like MPH said at the start.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
The fine is why the pro football players now often "spike" the ball into the ground so that it rebounds in a huge bounce when a touchdown happens rather than throwing it into the stands. Though some players prefer to make other less traditional guestures.
posted
Emmit Smith kept each football he carried across the goal line for a touchdown.
Mark McGuire's ball was given to him. Could the team have demanded it back?
The player could legally have given it to a fan at the time he caught it. I'd say that means he had ownership, and that the Red Sox had abandoned it. If I was his attorney that is.
What park were they playing in at the time? Might this be the other team's ball? Or MLB's?
quote: It is commonplace for players to hold on to baseballs after the last out of a game, be it in the regular season or in the postseason. Mientkiewicz also fielded the final out of Game 7 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium and presented that ball to winning pitcher Derek Lowe.
That would seem to invalidate any claim the Red Sox have and it's interesting to note that the Red Sox never make a claim that they own the ball, just that they'd like it back.
It's also interesting to note that they didn't ask for it back until after the original article ran in which the first baseman made the joke about the ball being his retirement fund.
And, whatever the settlement is, it seems to have been taken care of.
quote: "Today I finally heard something from the Red Sox. [Owner John] Henry and I talked about it, and that's all I'm going to say about it. But not before this, not before the article. It's a shame it has to come out through the paper, which, to me, is crazy," Mientkiewicz said in his radio interview. "It's something that Red Sox fans should want to see and I want them to see that. Would you rather have one person have it and run away with it and never have a chance to see it again? That's kind of why I kept it, so it's in a player's hands and I can do with it what I may."
posted
And by invalidate, I mean it along the lines of copyright. If you don't contest every infringement, you lose the ability to contest any infringement. Or so I've heard.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
You don't lose copyright if you don't enforce. You do lose trademark (and trade secrets, but that's a bit different).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Okay, well it sounds like it is resolved. It is unfortunate he made the retirement fund remark, but I believe him that he ultimately wants everyone to enjoy it rather than it wind up in the Konishi toy museum.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I say the following as a long-time baseball fan:
I think the whole idea of "winning balls" or balls in play during particularly historic moments suddenly becoming worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars is just silly. It's a ball, for goodness' sake, not a semi-religious relic.
For an interesting discussion of the "historicity" of objects and their worth connected to that historicity, read "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
According to Kornheiser and Wilbon, the player has already stated that he's willing to loan it to the Baseball Hall of Fame or other organizations to put it on display.
I think they also made a good point by arguing that if the Red Sox want it back, their owner has more than enough money to buy it at a fair price.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Whether or not there is any legal grounds for him keeping the ball matters not to me in my regard for the man's integrity. I would feel different if this was a ball that signified some personal milestone or achievement. Mientkiewicz has no personal achievement attached to this baseball. Any significance attached to this souvenir (other than a monetary one) is historical.
Let me posit this scenario: You've been hired to work as part of a team that is looking for gold lost with a ship that sunk in the ocean. While going about your duties as part of the team you discover a cache of diamonds that is unexpected. Would you feel comfortable in claiming that they belong to YOU?
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
If common trade practice in the gold-recovery industry was that anyone who found other minerals got to keep them, then yes, I'd feel comfortable doing that.
Since that's probably not actually the common trade practice, I wouldn't.
posted
The point I was getting at is that as part of a TEAM he should think of those that facilitated his discovery. I'm not so ticked about his stiffing of the owners as I am his (possible) disregard for his teammates.
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