Editorial for Sunday — January 16, 2005

• Major league legalities: Having a ball

Major league legalities: Having a ball

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – January 13, 2005

At 10:40 p.m. On Wednesday, Oct. 27, Cardinals shortstop Edgar Renteria tapped meekly back to Boston Red Sox pitcher Keith Foulke, who tossed the ball to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz for the final out of the 2004 World Series.

New England celebrated the first Red Sox world championship since 1918. The Cardinals and their fans, stunned by a four-game sweep, watched blankly as the Red Sox cavorted on Busch Stadium’s grass.

Nobody paid much attention as Mr. Mientkiewicz ran into the visitor’s dugout and safely stored his glove and the game’s last ball in a safe place. Later that night, he gave the ball to his wife, who stuffed it into her purse.

Now that ball is at the center of a dispute between the Red Sox and Mr. Mientkiewicz, a journeyman player who entered the game as a defensive specialist. The Red Sox want to give the ball a special place of honor. Mr. Mientkiewicz, knowing that historic baseballs can bring ridiculous prices in the memorabilia market, wants to keep it. “It’s four years at Florida State for one of my kids,” he says.

Now comes Professor Paul Finkelman of the University of Tulsa School of Law, an expert in the arcane field of sports property law, to suggest a Solomonic solution: The ball belongs either to Major League Baseball, which provides baseballs for World Series games, or to the Cardinals, who as the home team, were entrusted with the balls for game four of the Series.

Writing in The New York Times, Mr. Finkelman notes that a “fielder who catches the ball is an employee of a team. His job is to catch the ball and make an out; if he has the ball when the play ends, he is supposed to throw it to the pitcher to be used again. He cannot simply stick the ball in his pocket and take it home, even if it is the final out of the game. It is not his ball.

“Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but when you take something that belongs to your employer, the law calls it theft. . . . Doug Mientkiewicz should return the ball to its owner: the St. Louis Cardinals.”

And as true sportsmen, the Cardinals should turn the ball over to the Red Sox in exchange for, say, Curt Schilling.