Historic Memento Comes With Catch

The most significant baseball in Red Sox history is sitting in a safe-deposit box next to Doug Mientkiewicz’s Olympic medal.

Mientkiewicz, who caught the final out of the 2004 World Series, is claiming possession of the ball. The Red Sox, though, say they should have the ball that ended the 86-year title drought.

Is there a rift between the player and the team?

“It’s not a huge controversy,” Red Sox spokesman Glenn Geffner said Friday. “This story has been blown way out of proportion.”

The story blew up Friday, when the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy wrote a column about the apparent rift between the Red Sox and Mientkiewicz. Shaughnessy quoted President Larry Lucchino as saying the team would ask for the ball so it could be archived with the team.

And Mientkiewicz was quoted as saying the ball was his and referred to it as his “retirement fund.”

As the story spread Friday, Mientkiewicz and the Red Sox were besieged with calls. Mientkiewicz went on WEEI-AM in Boston and his wife, Jodi, posted on a message board on the team’s website.

Husband and wife said Shaughnessy misrepresented Mientkiewicz’s intentions.

“The whole thing about me wanting to sell it ... I was saying it laughing,” Mientkiewicz said on WEEI. “It was all in jest.”

Mientkiewicz kept the ball in his glove after taking the game-ending throw from Keith Foulke, and his wife took the ball from his locker during the postgame celebration. The next day, Major League Baseball officials authenticated the ball with a sticker.

Mientkiewicz took the ball to his Miami home and put it in a safe-deposit box with his 2000 Olympic gold medal. And although he joked that he would sell the ball to finance his retirement, he says he intended all along to keep it as a memento.

He also said he is willing to lend it to a museum or the Red Sox, but he is not giving it to the team.

“The last thing I am is money crazy,” Mientkiewicz said. “I’m also not going to give the thing away. I’d be more than happy to loan it out and let people see it.... If they want to show it to fans, I’d be happy to.”