Ha ha ha ha.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/12/20/world.series.ball/index.html
I noted back in '04 that random shit happens to the world series baseballs all the time. Mientkiewicz got a bunch of shit from practically everyone, while this is just a lark. Go figger.
(I don’t particularly care to respond to arguments that the '04 ball was “bigger,” than this one. Doug played by the same non-rules as everyone else and got treated like a criminal for it.)
But it was… The 2004 ball is the iconic symbol of the End of the Curse, which spanned generations of rabid fans in the Northeast Corridor (both For and Against the Curse), the subject of essays, books and films, and is a permanent part of baseball lore.
The 2007 ball is “just” the last out of a World Series, and one that only went four games at that, for a team that had last won the Series just three years prior. Not particularly dramatic or historical. Just another entry in the books.
Another example would be the “Bartman ball” that symbolically killed the Cubs in the playoffs a few years back. It was valuable/interesting because of its drama; factually speaking, it wasn’t even the last out of the game, much less the playoff series. Nobody bothered to hunt down and bid up on the last ball of Game 7 of the NLCS to detonate as a symbolic gesture, did they?
That’s because Cubs fans are idiots who insist upon believing their players are cursed rather than, you know, they suck. Sports fans can be like that. In this case it’s easier for Cubs fans to blame it on Bartman even though he didn’t boot a ball or give up six or eight runs in an inning.
It’s not that the 2004 ball isn’t “bigger,” than the 2007 ball. It’s that people allowed themselves to get whipped into a judgmental fury over a guy doing something he had every right (by tradition) to do. Doug didn’t do anything wrong, and many people – including people on this board – were spraying spittle and pointing fingers and being outraged because they were told they ought to be, despite the long-standing tradition of players keeping balls. There is certainly nothing morally or legally definitive about a ball being “different” because it means more to fans (they didn’t even think about the last-out ball, and neither did the Red Sox mgmt, until several months later).
If there’s a comparison between Bartman and Mientkiewicz it’s how quick people are to judge and slow they are to think.
Wait. They changed the size of baseballs between 2004 and now?
No, but according to the Mitchell Report, the size of some baseball players balls has changed since 2004.
Agreed, he didn’t do anything that tradition didn’t entitle him to: keep the ball from the final play as the player that received it in the game-ending play. If the Red Sox organization wanted the ball for its historicity, they should have (and apparently did) recompense Doug for it.
However it was clear that he knew at the time that this ball would be especially valuable, as he joked about it being part of his “retirement fund”. And I think part of what turned public opinion against him is that he was a career bench player, had only joined the team midway through the season, and this was the only play he made in the entire game, having just come in as a defensive replacement. If David Ortiz or even Dave Williams (another short-time Red Sox) had claimed the ball, I think many more fans would have been willing to say, “Yeah, he clearly earned it”.
Do I think Doug in any way did something wrong, immoral, unethical, or even against baseball tradition? No, not at all. Does he come off as a little bit mercenary? Maybe – but more accurate would be to say, he pulled the curtain a little bit to show that for professional players and owners alike, the game is primarily about money and not romance, drama and history the way it is for the fans.
Note that when Paul Konerko, a long-time player and a team leader, was in the same position with the White Sox, he immediately (and publicly) handed it over to Reinsdorf during the celebration. With a much bigger paycheck the value of the ball was not as big to him as the downside of potentially causing fan angst.
[QUOTE=robardin]
If David Ortiz or even Dave Williams (another short-time Red Sox) had claimed the ball, I think many more fans would have been willing to say, “Yeah, he clearly earned it”.
QUOTE]
I think you mean Dave Roberts, if you mean the guy mostly brought in to steal bases.
Mientkiewicz wasn’t a “career bench player” until the Red Sox acquired him. He played first base every day for the Twins for years.
“Bartman”? Is this a Simpsons reference?
Not a fan of professional sports, here. If it’s not a Simpsons reference, don’t bother explaining it for my benefit.
It’s not a Simpsons reference, and I will refrain from explaining, since you asked. I will, however, roll my eyes at the predictable and inevitable intrusion of some asshole in a sports-themed thread who wants us all to admire him because he doesn’t “get” the sports references, and wants us all to admire him because he’s “above” sports.
Thank you for clarifying that it’s not a Simpsons reference. I’m not sure how you read all of those motivations into my post, but ummm…bite me?
Wow. That is possibly the most defensive, and the most unnecessarily defensive, post I’ve ever seen. You may want to work on an issue or two.
I bet he didn’t really roll his eyes, either. I mean, how hard can it be to post a rolleyes smiley? :rolleyes:
Like that.
He has always been a tool. It’s nice when his toolishness is revealed.
Even if it’s true?
So how WAS your first day on the Internet?
Oh, believe me, I rolled them. Sorry I didn’t give you visual evidence, Mr. “Oh, I just wandered in here to see if there might a Simpsons reference.” Why, I’ve managed for years to avoid any Josh Whedon, Star Trek, or Dungeons and Dragons threads BECAUSE I don’t care. I don’t find myself wandering in just to tell people I don’t care. But sports threads, for whatever reason, seem to attract the indifferent. They can’t wait to feign helplessness as they say, “Babe Who?” and “What’s a football?” Nobody is fooled for one second into thinking these histrionic shrugs are NOT accompanied by a warm little glow of smugness.