Red Sox Want Their Ball Back

The Boston Globe reports this morning that lawyers for the Boston Red Sox filed suit yesterday seeking ownership of the baseball closer Keith Foulke threw to 1B Doug Mientkiewicz last October to clinch the World Series.

You may recall that Mientkiewicz actually kept the ball after the game was over, refusing to turn it over to the Red Sox. Mientkiewicz and the Sox reached an agreement that the Sox would get the ball temporarily but it would be returned to Mientkiewicz at the end of the year unless ownership had been resolved.

Well, ownership has not, in fact, been resolved and the Red Sox are claiming that they own the ball, essentially because Mientkiewicz was a team employee.

So, who's ball is it? Lucinda Treat, GC of the Sox, spoke to my sports law class last spring, and made a great case that the ball belongs to the Sox (essentially because he was a team employee). However, Mientkiewicz did have actual possession of the ball. It will interesting to see how this plays out.

One other group who may have a claim: the St. Louis Cardinals (Lucinda actually brought this possibility up when she discussed the issue) . . . since the clinching game was, in fact, played at their stadium.

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