Gibson’s missing sock is more of an L.A. mystery

It was the most fitting, frightening thing to happen in baseball this season.

The Boston Red Sox lost their mind over a red sock.

You heard about it, right? A few days ago, an announcer reported that one of the Red Sox had claimed that the infamous bloody sock worn by pitcher Curt Schilling during the historic 2004 postseason was fake.

Doug Mirabelli, a backup catcher, reportedly told Baltimore Orioles announcer Gary Thorne that Schilling had painted red on his sock, then fabricated the story of how he won two games on an ankle that was bleeding through torn stitches.

Thorne casually reported the story from a broadcast booth during a game.

You would have thought he reported it from the middle of Boston Harbor while importing tea.

The town went nuts. The team went ballistic. The pitcher offered $1 million to anyone who could prove the blood was not real.

There were calls for a Thorne apology. There were calls for DNA testing of the bloody sock in baseball’s Hall of Fame.

There was, finally, a clarification from Thorne, who said he misinterpreted Mirabelli’s comments and confirmed that the catcher believed the bloody sock was real.

All this hoopla over a piece of hosiery made me sick.

Then it made me jealous.

I thought, how come Los Angeles doesn’t have a similar Shroud of Sports? Why don’t we have a historic item so symbolic that people are willing to fight for it and sue over it and risk their reputations to preserve it?

Then I realized, we do.

But it has disappeared.

It was the key item in what is generally recognized as the most memorable moment in Los Angeles sports history.

But nobody has claimed to have seen it since.

It was Oct. 15, 1988, first game of the World Series, two out in the bottom of the ninth, Dodgers trailing the Oakland Athletics by a run, Hall of Fame reliever Dennis Eckersley on the mound, sore-legged pinch-hitter Kirk Gibson hobbling to the plate.

You remember the lunging swing toward right field. You remember the suddenly flashing brake lights beyond right field.

You remember the fist pump. You remember the painful limp. You remember the dugout dance.

But do you remember the baseball?

Where is the baseball?

The Dodgers don’t know. Gibson doesn’t know. Even the most fervent of Dodgers memorabilia collectors don’t know.

As if it were some magical sphere that existed only for that one swing, the ball crossed the right-field fence and promptly vanished.

“It’s our biggest mystery,” said team historian Mark Langill. “We have no idea where it ended up.”

It is, in fact, one of baseball’s biggest memorabilia mysteries since folks began saving home run balls after Roger Maris hit his 61st in 1961.

“It’s a very historic ball ... it’s amazing that nobody claims to have it,” said Sal La Rocca, a former Brooklyn businessman and noted Dodgers collector who lives in Tennessee. “By now, you would think somebody would have shown up with the ball just to get the headlines and the money.”

The Dodgers usually send a clubhouse worker into the outfield to retrieve milestone homers, but, because this was a game-ending blast, the kid couldn’t get there in time.

Gibson said that several years ago, a woman sent him a photo of where the ball had bruised her leg, but he has never heard anything about the actual ball.

I was contacted a few years ago by a local man who said that, in gathering the personal effects of his dying father, he came across the dusty ball on a cluttered mantel. But when I requested an interview, he said his father was fearful of the attention, and I never heard from him again.

Langill said he has examined videotape in hopes of seeing the face of the person who actually caught the ball but, again, no luck.

“There is no defining video of someone holding up a ball,” Langill said. “The cameras go from the brake lights to Gibson rounding the bases, and they never go back into the stands.”

Surely somebody caught it, right? In the modern history of baseball, has there ever been a home run ball, even of those that leave the stadium, that wasn’t eventually picked up by somebody?

Of course, this is Dodger Stadium, and we’re sort of casual about these things.

Players here have seen personal milestone homers disappear when fans would stick the balls in their pockets and leave early to beat traffic.

Legend has it that after Mike Piazza became the first Dodger to hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium -- knocking it into the player parking lot beyond left field -- infielder Adam Riggs’ girlfriend picked it up and casually handed it to a bystander.

I have personally seen Dodgers fans using home run balls to play catch while waiting for parking lot traffic to dissipate.

But, in recent times, the famous homer has driven people batty.

Mark McGwire’s 70th homer sold for $3 million. Barry Bonds’ 73rd homer sold for $450,000 after it sparked a celebrated legal battle between two guys who claimed they caught it. Even Sammy Sosa’s 66th homer sold for $150,000.

Wouldn’t Gibson’s ball make its owner at least a little rich, if not a lot famous?

“It’s probably too late for that now,” La Rocca said.

Indeed, if someone came forward with the ball now, they would have to bring ticket stubs, photos and statements from witnesses with ticket stubs to authenticate it.

“It’s impossible to prove,” La Rocca said.

“Nobody has the ball, so everybody has the ball,” Langill said.

Well, c’mon now. Somebody has the ball.

And, after much thought, my fervent request to that person is this:

Stay quiet. Keep hiding. Don’t call me. Don’t call the Dodgers.

With no ball, there can be no controversy. There can be no conspiracies. There can be nobody demanding that the ball be cut open to see if it was legal.

With no ball, nobody can sue, nobody can slander, nobody can do anything but close their eyes and remember.

With no ball, Kirk Gibson’s blast will forever be the most perfect of home runs.

It was going, going -- gone.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.