I'll never understand this fascination of memorable/historical baseballs.
El Scorcho
01-07-05, 02:07 PM
1999 200,000.00
2001 215,000.00
2002 285,000.00
2003 1,750,000.00
2004 2,800,000.00
And he's concerned about a baseball so he can put his kids through 4 years of ASU? :hscratch:
twikoff
01-07-05, 02:08 PM
-d
damn flu :(
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:lol:
AndyCapps
01-07-05, 02:20 PM
I don't see how Larry Lucchino gets off saying it's the team's ball. Mientkiewicz held onto it. It's his.
Red Dog
01-07-05, 02:22 PM
Maybe the Cards should get into the bidding war and blow it up like what happened with the Bartman ball.
wabio
01-07-05, 02:26 PM
I hope it goes up for auction and a secret buyer [AKA Steinbrenner] buys it, holds it hostage, and says he won't release it until the next time the Red Sox win the WS!!!!! Muwahahahahahahaha!!!!
I dont see why the Red Sox feel they own the ball. Just because they won the game?
namrfumot
01-07-05, 06:03 PM
He should loan it to the HOF...that way it can still be on display...and he'd still be the legal owner of it.
Goat3001
01-07-05, 06:12 PM
He should loan it to the HOF...that way it can still be on display...and he'd still be the legal owner of it.
Which is what he said he's willing to do. Larry Luchino wants it for the team, and refuses to pay Mientkiewicz for it.
TheNightFlier
01-07-05, 08:30 PM
He should loan it to the HOF...that way it can still be on display...and he'd still be the legal owner of it.
Sounds like the best scenario. Or if Luchino really pisses him off, sell it to Steinbrenner as suggested by others.
Da Thrilla
01-07-05, 09:17 PM
He's the man :lol:
Gallant Pig
01-08-05, 01:11 AM
Sounds like the best scenario. Or if Luchino really pisses him off, sell it to Steinbrenner as suggested by others.
And then Steinbrenner can destroy it publically at a game next year. Makes sense. That'd be cool. :up:
zuffy
01-08-05, 01:28 PM
Since the Red Sox is shopping for a first baseman, they can trade Mientkiewicz to the Yanks. Of course, Mientkiewicz will take the ball with him :D
Canadian Bacon
01-08-05, 01:52 PM
someone suggested on espn radio that he should sell it and give the money to the tsunami relief fund. :up:
this idea :down: you mean he can't put his kids through college with his 7 or 8 digit/ year pay?
wildcatlh
01-08-05, 07:53 PM
Since the Red Sox is shopping for a first baseman, they can trade Mientkiewicz to the Yanks. Of course, Mientkiewicz will take the ball with him :D
They want prospects. The Yanks have none of those. :)
chrisih8u
01-09-05, 07:46 AM
From today's Boston Globe:
For what it's worth, when the Orioles won the 1983 World Series, Larry Lucchino was the team's vice president and general counsel. Cal Ripken caught a line drive for the final out and kept the ball. It is on loan now to the Babe Ruth Museum. No one ever made an issue out of Ripken's ownership of the ball.
nickdawgy
01-09-05, 09:11 AM
I say have some sort of drawing for Sox fans to win it. Or a contest where like the most die hard Sox fan could win it. Or the tsunami donation fund was great, too.
wabio
01-09-05, 12:05 PM
I say end all this hogwash, and just have Mansandwich piss on the damn thing. Then nobody will want it!!!!!
.........well, except for Moises Alou. :eek:
Canadian Bacon
01-09-05, 02:18 PM
I say end all this hogwash, and just have Mansandwich piss on the damn thing. Then nobody will want it!!!!!
.........well, except for Moises Alou. :eek:
rotfl
fumanstan
01-09-05, 02:32 PM
He should give it up.
JurisIL
01-09-05, 11:39 PM
Remember the Bonds home run ball that the two men (the one who first caught it and the other who ended up with it) fought over? Popov and Hayashi (?sp on both) They BOTH ended up in the DEBT after they were done fighting over it.
Legally, the ball belongs to Mientkiewicz (IMLO, a contrary opinion would not survive a motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law, or whatever they call it in Mass.) and Boston will either have to pay him what he wants for it or try to outbid everyone else for it. I suppose there could even be a question of jurisdiction....but I digress:
The guy only played for them in the last half and only as a backup. You can't expect a die-hard Boston player's (or fan's) loyalty from him.
ChiTownAbs, Inc
01-09-05, 11:58 PM
Maybe you'd have to dig out the employment contract, but the ball may be considered 'equipment' by his contract (along with uniform, gloves, shoes, bats, etc...) and it may actually be that since MLB supplies the balls to the game, it is really their "possession".
I highly doubt it would get into something like that, but maybe if it gets messy.
chrisih8u
01-26-05, 09:49 PM
According to Boston Dirt Dogs, Minky is giving the ball back for 1 year. Then I guess he's taking it back.
B.A.
02-02-05, 07:56 AM
According to Boston Dirt Dogs, Minky is giving the ball back for 1 year. Then I guess he's taking it back.How thoughtful of him - and there isn't a damn thing wrong w/ him taking it back.
kvrdave
02-02-05, 07:05 PM
I'd sell it to the Yankees :lol:
Because it is funny and you know it. :grunt:
chrisih8u
12-01-05, 08:52 AM
To Red Sox fans, it is priceless -- the baseball that Keith Foulke flipped to Doug Mientkiewicz on an October night in St. Louis last year to clinch the team's first World Series championship in 86 years.
Now, 13 months after Mientkiewicz pocketed the ball, the team is playing hardball. Lawyers for the Red Sox filed suit yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court seeking permanent possession of the cherished symbol of suffering redeemed.
When the team first tried to claim it, the light-hitting but slick-fielding first baseman created a furor in Red Sox Nation by refusing to give it up.
In January, days after he was traded to the New York Mets, he and the team announced that the Red Sox would hold the ball temporarily and could display it across New England, along with the World Series trophy. But the agreement said he would get it back at the end of this year ''unless the ultimate issue of ownership has been otherwise resolved."
That clause led Red Sox lawyer John G. Fabiano to the Suffolk civil clerk's office yesterday. The suit asks the court to place the ball in a ''secure location" until ownership is decided.
The club's legal team said that Mientkiewicz had gained possession of the ball only because he was a Red Sox employee and that the ball remained the team's property. He played for the New York Mets last season, then was released, and is now a free agent.
Neither Mientkiewicz nor officials at the Major League Baseball Players Association could be reached for comment last night. He has said he never expected the controversy surrounding the ball.
Similar famous baseballs have fetched six figures in auctions. But the Red Sox insisted that money has nothing to do with the fight.
''From our perspective, it is very important that an artifact with this much history -- it was 86 years in the making -- be part of the club archive and be available for fans to experience," Lucinda Treat, the team's chief legal officer, said in an interview.
Other disputes over ownership of historic baseballs have led to lawsuits, including a fight between two fans over Barry Bonds's record-setting 73d home run in 2001. But Treat said she was aware of only one other case where a team has sued a member of the organization over a memento -- the Baltimore Orioles lineup card in the 1995 game when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games-played streak. The Orioles and former manager Phil Regan reached an out-of-court settlement that allowed Regan to sell the souvenir.
Mientkiewicz drew support from some sports fans in Boston.
Andy Papertsian, owner of Bay State Coin Co., which sells sports memorabilia such as autographed baseballs in downtown Boston, accused the team of breaking its word and called Red Sox management ''small minded."
Papertsian said the team would never have sued Mientkiewicz if he had been a star and had not left after the 2004 season. But Treat dismissed such suggestions.
''It has nothing to do with who the player was or anything of a personal nature," she said. ''It's all about a treasured, historically significant item."
Papertsian said the ball would certainly fetch a princely sum on the open market.
''There's always one person out there willing to pay a ridiculous sum for something like that because he'll have the only one of it," he said.
The ball that went between the legs of Sox first baseman Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series was ultimately bought by actor Charlie Sheen for $93,500.
In 1999, former Cincinnati Reds left fielder George Foster came forward with the ball that Sox catcher Carlton Fisk hit off the foul pole in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. That sold for $113,273.
The priciest ball of all time is the one hit in 1998 by St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire for his record 70th home run, selling for $3 million.
Brian Demers, a 42-year-old Red Sox fan from Needham who works in the telecommunications industry, said the whole flap was silly.
''Although the ball may have some historic value, I don't think it's worth fighting over," he said. ''At the end of the day, they won the World Series."
Buy: