Minty, they’re not inapplicable. I can’t remember the furor, but I remember this exact event happening before, over what I think was the ball that broke Clemens’ hitting streak. Does anyone actually remember it, who can fill in the details? I recall the catcher kept the ball and sold it. I may be wrong about any or all specific parts of this, but I’m only mentioning it so someone with a bit more interest in sports memorabilia can cite.
Oh, and yes, MLB supplies the balls. You didn’t know? I think they also supply the bats and possibly the bases, but I may be wrong. This is to enforce uniformity.
Nope, players supply their own bats, but the bats must be within MLB regulations.
Yes, the ball is his.
First, Roger Clemens is a pitcher. If he ever had a hitting streak during his single year in the National League, it probably didn’t go past two games–not exactly memorabilia material.
Second, in whatever case you’re thinking of, did the cather’s team assert a claim to the ball? Sure, the Red Sox could let Mientkiewicz keep the ball if they were so inclined. The question is whether they must let him keep the ball, even though he acquired it by reason of and in the course and scope of his employment by the ball club. Ordinary employees in other industries would never be permitted to retain the fruits of their labor, so why should this schmuck?
What happened to all the other last out balls from World Series? Did they go to the team? Or did the player keep them? Tell me Josh Beckett doesn’t still have the ball from game 6 of the 2003 WS. The players always keep the balls. This is a non-story. Not that the knee jerk moral indignation of The Public isn’t amusing to watch. Tell them they oughta be outraged, and by God, they’re outraged.
Cite, please, that he has superior title to the ball over his employer?
It’s in the OP: Carmine Tiso, spokesman for MLB, told the Globe that Mientkiewicz owns the baseball.
(I mean, in the story linked by the OP)
I know Clemens is a pitcher. I’m trying to remember whatever the heck incident it was. It was, uhm. Two or three years ago. And I do seem to recall the team wanting it. I may be wrong. It wasn’t Nolan Ryan’s iron man run, was it?
I thought there was a single source of supply for the bats, though. How about the uniforms? Masks?
Whomever walks off the field with the ball keeps it. It’s been that way for as long as any of us has been alive.
In any case, the ball was MLB’s property, and THEY say it now belongs to Mientkiewicz. It was never the property of the Red Sox and they don’t have any standing to make a “claim” to it. The issue is absolutely closed.
How is a baseball “the fruits of his labor”? He did absolutely nothing to produce or procure the ball. At best it is a tool of his trade, but a tool owned by MLB, not the Red Sox.
Pardon me, but I asked for a cite as between Mr. Mientkiewickz and his employer. MLB is not his employer, who paid him many millions of dollars in salary last season and is legally entitled to the fruits of his labor in connection with that employment.
And no, the issue is not absolutely closed, RickJay. MLB’s position is all fine and dandy, but that position does not override either the contract between employer and employee or the ordinary principles of agency, employment, property, etc.
Say I’m a cop. I’m walking my beat one day when I find an envelope stuffed full of cash. As is it is part of my duty as an employee of the police department, I turn the cash over to the Department of Lost Property, where it lies unclaimed for the requisite period of time.
Do I now own the cash?
Hell no. It goes to my employer, because I obtained it during the course of and within the scope of my duties as an employee of the police department.
The contract, presumably, does not mention what happens with the baseballs. That is determined by Major League Baseball.
What happens in your imaginary life as a policeman and your assumptions about what happens in the imaginary life have nothing to do with this case. MLB buys the balls. MLB says the ball is his. There’s a long, long legal precident of players keeping balls from big games. Case closed.
I too presume that his written contract does not address what happens to balls acquired by the player during the course of a game. I also presume that the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the MLBPA does not have any relevant terms.
But that doesn’t answer the question, legally speaking, since the common law of contracts/employment, agency, and property still govern the legal relationships between and among MLB, the Red Sox, and Mientkiewicz.
The previous owner of the baseball (MLB) has a policy of relinquishing its ownership of all balls acquired by players, fans, etc. during the course of a baseball game. But MLB does not affirmatively grant ownership to anyone else in particular–it merely stays out of the way of anybody’s claims to the ball, as happened a few years back with those two Giants fans who were suing each other over the ownership of Barry Bonds’ record-breaking home run ball.
Mientkiewicz is an employee and agent of his employer, the Boston Red Sox.
Employers are entitled to the fruits of the labor of their employees that is within the scope of the employment relationship, as a simple matter of the common law.
The baseball is a valuable item that was acquired by Mientkiewicz during the course and within the scope of his employment by the Red Sox.
Therefore, the Red Sox have, if they choose to assert it, a superior claim to the ball over the claim of their agent and employee, Doug “.225” Mientkiewicz.
Enough with this “fruits of his labor” nonsense. The baseball isn’t “the fruits of his labor,” the OUT is. I have not heard that Mientkiewicz intends to keep the out. The RedSox are entitled to the out.
Minty, I think you’re on the outside looking in at this one.
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Tradition indicates that the possessor of the ball has title to it. Well and good.
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There is an ENORMOUS easement at work here. If the team involved owned the balls in play there would be NO market for such balls as each time a fan/player/umpire/wandering seagull caught an ‘important’ ball the team would swoop in, claim ownership, and heave it up to Christie’s for auction. Instead there’s an existing pattern of allowing those rights to exist with the ‘catcher’ of the ball to do with as they wish. Without that all those McGwire baseballs from 1998 would have reverted to the team, same with the Bonds balls, same with the Buckner ball, etc. I think it could be successfully argued that MLB teams, as a whole, long ago allowed their rights to any balls in play to lapse into the public domain.
And to all of you people saying ‘he’s a greedy bastard! He’s just in it for the money!’
What do you think the Red Sox will do with the ball? They won’t auction it off…they’ll use it to promote ticket sales for next year and years beyond. It’s not like they’ll give it to charity of something.
Really, it’s like the people who say ‘Ballplayers shouldn’t make so much money!’ It’s not like the team will lower ticket prices if the average salary suddenly drops to $6.15 an hour. So your choice is who do you wish to monetarily benefit? The players or the team owner?