Can you say scumbag?

BaseballGuy · Jan 7, 2005

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspsctnhdln>Sox first baseman keeps ball gloved for last Series out</TD></TR><TR><TD height=7><SPACER height="1" width="1" type="block"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
January 7, 2005

BOSTON (AP) -- Red Sox fans have seen the video over and over again. A ground ball to pitcher Keith Foulke. He tosses it underhand to backup first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who raises it high as Boston celebrates its first World Series championship in 86 years.

Mientkiewicz still hasn't let go of the ball. But now the Red Sox want it back. Calling the ball, ``my retirement fund,'' Mientkiewicz stored it in a safe deposit box. Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said Thursday he's going to ask Mientkiewicz to return it to the team.

``We want it to be part of Red Sox archives or museums so it can be shared with the fans,'' Lucchino told The Boston Globe. ``We would hope he would understand the historical nature of it.''

Mientkiewicz seems to understand it very well, which is exactly why he held on to it.

Historic baseballs have recently fetched impressive sums. The baseball Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk banged off the foul pole in the 1975 World Series sold for $113,373. The ball Barry Bonds hit for his 73rd home run went for $450,000. The most expensive baseball of all time is Mark McGwire's 70th homer, which went for $3 million.

Mientkiewicz said he thinks the Boston World Series ball has more value than a home run ball.

``Those are important and all, don't get me wrong, but there are always going to be more home runs,'' he said. ``This is something that took 86 years, and 86 years is a long time. Personally, I went through hell and back this year. But winning the World Series is something I'm going to remember for a long time.''

Mientkiewicz came to Boston from Minnesota in the three-team midseason deal that sent Boston shortstop Nomar Garciaparra to the Chicago Cubs.

Mientkiewicz, who batted .215 for Boston, was used primarily as a late innings defensive replacement, and the former Gold Glove first baseman has indicated his unhappiness with the role.

Boston broke its championship drought by beating the New York Yankees in seven games in the American League Championship Series, then sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in four games in the World Series.

After the game, Mientkiewicz said he put the ball in his locker, then gave it to his wife, Jodi, who put it in her purse. The next day, the ball was authenticated by Major League Baseball.

Carmine Tiso, spokesman for MLB, told the Globe that Mientkiewicz owns the baseball, though Joe Januszewski, Red Sox director of corporate partnerships, said he thinks the team owns it. Mientkiewicz couldn't be reached for comment Thursday by the Globe after Lucchino said the club wanted the ball back. But on Wednesday, he left no doubt that he believes the ball belongs to him. ``I know this ball has a lot of sentimental value,'' Mientkiewicz said. ``I hope I don't have to use it for the money. It would be cool if we have kids someday to have it stay in our family for a long time. But I can be bought. I'm thinking, there's four years at Florida State for one of my kids. At least.''

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EveryGamblersDream · Jan 7, 2005

The scumbags are the Sox organization & the clowns who side with them.

SevenOut · Jan 7, 2005

I agree GamblersDream...Just because they are the Sox they think they are entiltled to the ball. Hey I'm a Sox fan I am entitled to some free tix??

Glaken · Jan 7, 2005

Sorry to hear the Florida State quote...I believe MLB owns the balls at all games..and technically the ball belongs to them...will see this in a court eventually.

I will try and find out more and post later.

wilheim · Jan 7, 2005

One Mientkiewicz is a scumbag thread offshore is enough. I left the original posted a couple of hours before this one offshore.

wil.

Glaken · Jan 7, 2005

The New York Times
January 25, 2004
Low-Wage Costa Ricans Make Baseballs for Millionaires

By TIM WEINER

TURRIALBA, Costa Rica, Jan. 22 — The game of baseball is a pure product of America. The ball itself is another matter.

Every baseball used in the major leagues is made here, millions of them. They are handcrafted with the precision of a machine by the men and women of Turrialba and
the towns in the green hills beyond.

The baseball workers typically make about $2,750 a year. A baseball player in the United States makes, on average, about $2,377,000, the Players Association
says.

"It is hard work, and sometimes it messes up your hands, warps your fingers and hurts your shoulders," said Overly Monge, 37. Temperatures inside the factory can
rise to 90 to 95 degrees, he said, and when they do, "we suffocate."

He makes $55 a week after 13 years at the baseball factory, barely above Costa Rica's minimum wage. After he pays for the necessities of life, he has about $2 a
day left over for himself, his wife and daughter. His salary, adjusted for inflation, is about the same as when he started.

But that's life, he said with a shrug. Hard work, but far better than no work at all. Many of the coffee and sugar cane plantations around here have collapsed, done in
by the forces of globalization. There is only one other factory in Turrialba, population 30,000. Without baseballs, Mr. Monge said, life here "would be more like
Nicaragua," the poor neighbor to the north.

The baseball workers arrive at 6 a.m. and work until 5 p.m. Peak production pressures have pushed the day deep into the night. Each can make four balls an hour,
painstakingly hand-sewing 108 perfect stitches along the seams. They are paid by the ball — on average about 30 cents apiece. Rawlings Sporting Goods, which runs
the factory, sells the balls for $14.99 at retail in the United States.

"After I make the first two or three balls each week, they have already paid my salary," Mr. Monge said. "Imagine that."

Warny Goméz, 33, worked for four years at Rawlings, put himself through college and became a primary school teacher. "People here have no choice but to work
there," he said. "There are almost no other jobs."

"There's tremendous pressure to produce," he added. "The balls have to be exactly alike, totally perfect, and for this work people are paid $50 or $60 a week. A
machine can't make them — it has to be done by hand. But they demand the precision and speed of a machine."

Rawlings workers past and present say that while their real wages have not risen over the years, workplace safety has improved — particularly since a new manager,
Ken West, arrived four months ago. Previous bosses, they say, screamed at them, pressured them to go faster. Mr. West, an affable 62-year-old Missourian, is not
that kind of boss.

Rawlings, founded in 1887, has had an exclusive contract to supply the major leagues with baseballs since 1977. Mr. West says the Costa Rica plant makes about
2.2 million balls a year and sells about 1.8 million of them to the majors. Officials at K2 Inc., the sporting goods company that acquired Rawlings last year, say the
wholesale price the majors pay for those balls is a trade secret. Industry analysts say Rawlings sells about $35 million worth of baseballs a year, about one-third of the
world market.

Rawlings came to Costa Rica 16 years ago, from Haiti, where workers made $15 to $25 a week. It moved after a 1986 coup deposed the dictator Jean-Claude
Duvalier.

"About the time the coup was going on in Haiti, they could see some problems coming," Mr. West said. Rawlings sought "a neutral country that has a good work
force."

Rawlings was awarded a 54,000-square-foot free-trade zone by Costa Rica. It pays no taxes. It imports duty-free the makings of millions of baseballs — cores from
the Muscle Shoals Rubber Company in Batesville, Miss.; yarn from D&T Spinning in Ludlow, Vt.; cowhide from Tennessee Tanning in Tullahoma, Tenn.

Its operations are a harbinger of a pending free-trade accord between Costa Rica and the United States; negotiations on that agreement, expected to bring more such
ventures to Costa Rica, are in their final stages.

"Free trade is excellent for the United States, because they consume so much," Mr. Monge, the Rawlings worker, said. "For other nations, it's more complicated."

As the sole source for major league baseballs, and the biggest employer by far in Turrialba, Rawlings seems to have things sewn up. Mr. West sees no social or
economic tensions at the plant. He says his work force is more like a team or a family.

"These people are so good — they're just very good at it," he said. "I am just so impressed by the people."

"The best thing's the pay," he said. "We're a good place to work." The work itself, he said, is "not demanding." As for repetitive-stress injuries, like carpal tunnel
syndrome, "we just do not have that problem."

However, Dr. Carlos Guerrero, who worked at the Rawlings plant as a company doctor in 1998, and at the national health insurance clinic in Turrialba from 1991 to
1997, said a third of Rawlings workers developed carpal tunnel syndrome in those years. (The syndrome, which causes pain and numbness in the hands, is common
among assembly-line workers, typists and computer operators worldwide.) He said perhaps 90 percent of Rawlings workers experienced pain from their exacting
work, from minor cuts to disabling aches.

Officials at Major League Baseball headquarters in New York referred questions about the plant to Rawlings. The head of baseball's Players Association, Donald
Fehr, said workplace injuries at the plant had not been brought to his attention. Dudley W. Mendenhall, a senior vice president of K2, also said he was unaware of
any workplace injuries at the plant.

Few baseball players are aware of where the ball comes from, said Charles Kernaghan, the executive director of the National Labor Committee, an international
workers' rights group based in New York. "But if the players would actually stand up, it would have enormous consequences" for the baseball workers, including
better pay, he said.

Some past employees say they had to quit after developing repetitive stress injuries, and they have the medical records to prove it.

"The work deforms your fingers and arms," said Maribel Alezondo Brenes, 36, who worked seven years at the plant — until her doctor told her to stop sewing
baseballs.

Soledad Castillo, 46, cannot make a fist, or touch her right palm with her middle finger after nine years at Rawlings. Disputing Mr. West's contention that workers are
not injured by their labor, she said, "If he ever worked a day sewing, he'd know it's hard."

Despite their injuries, the two women say they liked the camaraderie and the atmosphere at the Rawlings plant. "I can't complain about the work environment," Ms.
Alezondo said. "The ventilation improved over the years," even if the pay did not. There was time to make small talk and good friends.

Still, when she talks about the difference in wages between baseball workers and baseball players, it takes her breath away.

"We sacrifice a lot so they can play," she said. "It's an injustice that we kill ourselves to make these balls perfect, and with one home run, they're gone."