"I hope we have this problem every year," said Theo Epstein when asked about the final-out ball from the 2007 World Series. You may remember the fiasco and hurt feelings involved when the Sox and Doug Mientkiewicz embarked on their power play over the ownership of the 2004 ball.

Last we heard was that Jason Varitek had slipped it into his pocket at Coors Field, then gave it to Jonathan Papelbon. Well, today it broke that Papelbon took the ball home to Mississippi. Where his dog Boss treated it like dogs usually treat things like baseballs. "I'll keep what's left of it," said an unapologetic Papelbon.

Oh, well. Easy come, easy go. Good thing baseball doesn't give every player a Stanley Cup to take home with them for a day. We'd hate to think what Boss would have done to that.

Image from Yahoo movies. Thanks to alert reader Josh for the tip.