The Red Sox are continuing to put pressure Doug Mientkiewicz to hand over the ball from the World Series-clinching win. But in an added twist the team is taking preventative measures:

[President Larry] Lucchino also said the team is working on a policy to avoid another fight over, say, the ball that clinches the first Red Sox World Series repeat since 1916.

Besides the hubris that this statement displays, and the lack of concern for Denis Leary losing his one remaining nut, underneath it all Lucchino is really expressing his altruistic concern for this guy.

For all the whining that the baseball gods were against the Sox and their fans, it turns out that they were just innocent bystanders in the gods' hatred for Steven Manganello, a Red Sox fan who spent most of the playoffs in a coma. His state was caused by being hit by a cab in Tokyo on October 1. Though Mangallo awake before the playoffs were over, he remembers none of it.

It kind of reminds me of the scene in "Good Will Hunting" in which Robin Williams' character describes in wildly emoting detail how he missed the Carlton Fisk World Series homer because of a date with a girl. It's a new spin on the ultimate loser scenario.

Or as Matt Damon would say, "How do you like them apples?"