Red Sox first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz caught the baseball used to make the last out in the 2004 World Series. He wants to keep it.
The Red Sox want it.
Major League Baseball says the ball belongs to Mientkiewicz.
The Red Sox don't care.
Mientkiewicz, who wasn't exactly the happiest camper in Boston after his acquisition from Minnesota last season, won't give it up.
The Sports Prof has a solution. But I have to ask the Professor: If you had posession of the ball, would you auction it off for charity?
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh weighs in, but still isn't able to establish who really owns the ball. The issue here: Who provided the balls for the World Series?
Under MLB rules, the home team is responsible, which would mean the Cardinals own the ball. However, some of Volokh's readers have written in to say that MLB provided the balls for the Series, hence it belongs to the league.
Here's Volokh:
Of course, if the contract provided that employees get to keep some property, that would be enforceable. Likewise, there might be implicit terms of the contract that flow from industry custom. (If I recall correctly, there's been some debate about whether fans are entitled to keep balls that they catch; the theory there would be this sort of custom.) But I highly doubt that there's anything like that here
Have you seen my baseball? – Larry Lucchino.
Little known fact – if you touch Lucchino’s ears – he goes nutty.
From the article:
Doug Mientkiewicz 2004 Salary:
$2,800,000
Just sayin’
Oh, I left out the part where he calls the ball “my retirement fund”.
So I guess I’ll add his complete salary history:
1999 $200,000
2001 $215,000
2002 $285,000
2003 $1,750,000
from baseball-reference.com
The struggles he must go through. Keep that ball man, keep that ball.
I admit, I’d probably have a different attitude about it if money was never mentioned, after all, it’s a nice piece of history – but it was mentioned, and more than once.
Dear Doug,
I don’t care what you do with the ball. If MLB says it’s yours I’m fine with that. But for the love of all that’s good, don’t sentence your children to Florida State already. I’m sure you had a great time there- afterall, they do have top notch baseball program. But let your kids decide where they want to go. Who knows, maybe they want to go to one of daddy’s home state schools- Ohio State or Cinci- but let them choose, ok?
Sincerely,
A Concerned Sports Fan
how did it work on a team you were on? i thought so.
The Mookie ball is an interesting data point, but whatever custom there is clearly less established. Even Minky didn’t say that everyone knows players get to keep balls, or anything like that, but every 7 year old knows you get to keep caught balls. The difference is significant because there’s a good argument that fans keeping foul balls in an implied term in the ticket contract but players keeping them is not in the players’ contract (especially since the latter is heavily negotiated and the former not at all).
It appears to be the case that Minky is not exactly the greedy pig Shaughnessy made him out to be. In many cases I’d take the sportswriter’s word — but this is Dan Shaughnessy and he’ll do anything for a little controversy.
Lots of quotes and such like on Boston Dirt Dogs here.
You Gotta Lotta Bawls….
Off Wing Opinion adds the precedent of the ball that went through the legs of the aforementioned Bill Buckner and was given by the umpire to a Mets official who later auctioned it off for charity.
I don’t buy that the custom argument saves Minky. …
Eric: Thanks for the mention. I think that if it were mine, I’d still offer it up for auction. There are certain points in everyone’s life where you have to put much more important things ahead of your narrow personal interests, even when you might lose some money. Mientkiewicz has plenty compared to the average guy, and the money raised could do a world of good for people who really need it. Auction it, I say!