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Posted By: warshawlaw

At every game I have ever attended, the PA announcer says that the home team (fill in the name here) is happy for you to keep whatever ball goes into the stands. This also implies to me that the team supplying the balls (the home team) owns the balls until title is transferred in some respect. I checked the back of my latest Dodgers tickets and did not see any reference to it, so the announcement would stand as the team's position on the issue. We've also had many, many instances of significant balls being caught and never has a team claimed ownership.

Given that the home team supplies the game balls and offers to transfer title to them to customers if they leave the field, my conclusion in the case of the cursed Botox ball from last year's horrid WS is that the Botox have no standing (legal right) to claim ownership of the ball. Only the Cardinals, who supplied (hence owned) the ball would have a superior claim to title than Menkacwhatever does. If the chowderheads sue Menkcablahblah for the ball, the case would likely be thrown out on the basis of lack of standing because the team cannot show an ownership interest in the ball. Given that MLB says Menkawhoozie owns it, I seriously doubt that the Cardinals would bother to enforce their ostensible ownership rights, leaving the chowderheads where they belong, SOL.

There is one more wrinkle on the situation, which also favors Menkamoron: the venerable tradition of a player being able to keep a memento of a significant event that is otherwise "team property". We see examples of this every year: bases being taken when milestone stolen base is attained, game balls being taken by pitchers, etc. If I represented Menkashmuck in defense I would present all these instances as establishing an implied contract between the player and the team that the player gets to keep mementos of significant events in his career and that this is just one more instance of such an event.

In the early days, fans were asked to give back a ball hit into the stands because there were so few game balls that they did not want to run out. As far as old famous game balls go, the items were not considered to be valuable, hence the issue was never a concern.

Lastly, given the huge price increase in these things and the whining about this ball, I would not be surprised if the issue creeps into the next collective bargaining agreement so that the rights of the parties are better defined.