"Don't rub it too high or someone will cry, and steal your homerun away"

July 24, 2023 5:09 PM

FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY: With the Kansas City Royals trailing 4–3 in the top half of the ninth inning and two out, future Hall-Of-Famer third baseman George Brett hit a two-run home run off of "Goose" Gossage (also a future Hall of Famer) to give his team the lead. Yankees manager Billy Martin, who had noticed a large amount of pine tar on Brett's bat, requested that the umpires inspect his bat. Home plate umpire Tim McClelland ruled that the amount on the bat exceeded what was allowed, nullified Brett's home run, and called him out. Brett, having already rounded the bases and returned to the dugout, launched himself towards home plate in a rage, requiring his manager and teammates to drag him screaming and cursing away from McClelland... but the story doesn't end there.

(Post title comes from Red River Dave McEnery's "The Pine-Tarred Bat (Ballad of George Brett)"

(Previously on MetaFilter, kinda: The Baseball Bunch)

The Royals protested the decision, and four days later, in a decision that made the front page of the NY Times (under the fold), American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the Royals' protest and ordered that the game should be resumed and played through to the end.

Resuming the game on August 18 became a legal challenge, after fans got an injunction and sued the Yankees for not honoring ticket holders to the original game (reasoning that hey, it's still the same game, isn't it?) It came down to the wire, with the Royals boarding their plane in Kansas City not knowing for certain if New York's Appellate Court would overturn the injunction.

Once play was resumed, Billy Martin made a dramatic turn for the Kafka-esque, telling Yankee pitcher George Frazier to throw the first ball to first base to challenge Brett's home run on the grounds that Brett had never touched first base. When the umpire called safe, Martin argued saying that this new ump hadn't been present at the original game. Frazier then threw to second, claiming that the base was touched by neither Brett nor the other player scoring on the home run, until the new head umpire produced a notarized statement, signed by all four umpires from July 24, indicating that Brett had touched every base.

From that point on the Yankees played under protest. The final four outs of the game -- ending the top and bottom of the ninth inning -- occurred in short order. The game had no effect on either teams standings in the League, and neither made the post-season. The bat (and several other items associated with the game) now resides in the Baseball Hall Of Fame.

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (60 comments total)

What advantage would excessive pine tar give?
posted by Keith Talent at 5:27 PM on July 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

Having grown up in KC at the time, and now being a Mariners fan, all I can say is:

YANKEES SUCK!

And I switched seats with GB on a flight from KC to Denver. (He was like in a back row seat next to my wife and toddler, LOL).
And he showed up at our JHS cast party, at like midnight, totally drunk, as he was renting a house next door.

And nearly batted .400. Legend
posted by Windopaene at 5:28 PM on July 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

I grew up in New York and was a huge Yankees fan, and I was watching this game live (on WPIX, of course) when this happened. It was just unbelievable, and if you've never seen the video of the event, trust me, you've got to click the link in the FPP. Watch at about 2:40 when the umps make the call and the camera is right on Brett in the dugout. It's incredible.

I'm too lazy to chase this down, but iirc, one of the Yankee players -- maybe Graig Nettles or more likely Lou Piniella, who was known to be a baseball savant and would go on to be one of the best managers in the game -- had spotted the excessive pine tar on Brett's bat earlier in the season and told Billy Martin. Rather than use it then and there, they saved the info for the right moment-- months later, on that game-winning home run.

Great post, The Pluto Gangsta. Thanks for bringing back a vivid memory.
posted by martin q blank at 5:29 PM on July 24, 2023 [9 favorites]

To my knowledge George Brett is the only one involved in this incident to have inspired a number one pop song so I’d say he got the last laugh.
posted by The Gooch at 5:31 PM on July 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

Amazing. I love the shenanigans these professionals get up to. The Hall of Fame link has a couple of the formal documents, which are interesting to read.

In essence they determined that excessive pine tar (or some other anomaly) is a good reason to eject the bat — but not the batter. The fact that the bat was not doctored to improve the "reaction or distance factor" is important, as is that no one seems to have had a problem with the bat until the moment the guy holding it hit a home run.

I just love the legal battle, though. Notarized ump decisions! My god, they probably would have required notary inspection on every decision before long if not for the recent speed-ups.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 5:35 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

What advantage would excessive pine tar give?

None. The rule about not allowing pine tar above a certain point on the bat is so that pine tar doesn't get on the ball, which would force the ball to be discarded. Home teams are responsible for supplying all of the balls used in the game, and so there is a theoretical hardship if players are marking up the balls unnecessarily. It's a dated rule from when baseballs were kept in play far, far longer than they are in current times, when they are discarded nearly every time they touch the ground.
posted by AndrewInDC at 5:49 PM on July 24, 2023 [13 favorites]

Not a fan of Martin or the Yankees, but gotta admit I've always admired the evil genius of noticing Brett's bat had too much tar and then waiting until he hit a home run to challenge it. I wonder who made the observation and how long they sat on it until the right moment came to use it.
posted by straight at 5:59 PM on July 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

And what was the measuring on home plate all about?
posted by Keith Talent at 6:03 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting! This is wild, and I'm not sure how I didn't know about this.

The rule about not allowing pine tar above a certain point on the bat is so that pine tar doesn't get on the ball, which would force the ball to be discarded. It's a dated rule from when baseballs were kept in play far, far longer than they are in current times.

Heh. So, if anything, it helps the pitcher if it gets a little something on the ball?

. . . no one seems to have had a problem with the bat until the moment the guy holding it hit a home run.

Sometimes you have a window to protest and if you don't, then you've missed your chance. But there are all sorts of other cases where, if you see someone making a mistake, you let it happen, hoping that you can can then get a remedy later if it actually costs anything.

And what was the measuring on home plate all about?

I was sort of assuming the actual rule was pine tar can be up to X inches or something, and the umpires knew the dimensions of home plate? But this is speculation.
posted by mark k at 6:09 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

The one black mark on Billy Martin’s otherwise spotless CV.
posted by badbobbycase at 6:14 PM on July 24, 2023 [33 favorites]

Don't rub it too high or someone will cry, and steal your homerun away

It was not a home run in the first place, and the one who cried (ranted and raved, really) was Brett.
posted by Flunkie at 6:25 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

...according to the writeup it was, and eventually adjudicated to be so with notarized statements?
posted by tavella at 6:52 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

And what was the measuring on home plate all about?
Home plate is 17" while pine tar is allowed 18" up the bat. It served as a reference.

None. The rule about not allowing pine tar above a certain point on the bat is so that pine tar doesn't get on the ball, which would force the ball to be discarded. It's a dated rule from when baseballs were kept in play far, far longer than they are in current times.
This is true; what Martin was doing was trying to conflate this rule with the illegal bat rule (meant for corked or hollow or bats otherwise illegally modified for improved performance) and get the result of the bat turned into an out. The league president decided that those two rules should not be conflated--the pine tar is just a "don't do that" rule--and thus upheld the protest.
posted by stevis23 at 6:54 PM on July 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

This is a terrific post! Thanks The Pluto Gangsta!
posted by JHarris at 7:31 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

according to the writeup it was, and eventually adjudicated to be so with notarized statements?

I agree that it was a home run in the sense that the final, official ruling stated that it was a home run. What I do not agree with is that final, official ruling.
posted by Flunkie at 8:11 PM on July 24, 2023

ESPN had an entertaining article recapping the incident, and it included a interview of George Brett reflecting on it.

I knew a bit about the gamemanship from Billy Martin surrounding the incident, but for me, this event will always be synonymous with Brett's mad dash out of the dugout, arms flailing in disbelief/anger.

In the interview, Brett mentions how a minor league affiliate of the Royals once gave out bobbleheads of Brett as part of a promotion... but instead of the head bobbing, it was the arms going up and down, pine-tar-tantrum style.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 8:55 PM on July 24, 2023 [11 favorites]

July 24th is my birthday. I will always remember this blown call for almost wrecking a perfectly good party.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 9:10 PM on July 24, 2023

I agree that it was a home run in the sense that the final, official ruling stated that it was a home run. What I do not agree with is that final, official ruling.

That's pretty silly. In either the mechanical sense -- it was a ball that went out off the field in fair territory; or in the game sense -- it was confirmed as a home run by the league -- it was a home run. Words have meaning, and "it wasn't a home run in the first place" is false.
posted by tavella at 9:56 PM on July 24, 2023

"A ball that went out off the field in fair territory" is not the definition of a home run. An obvious counterexample is a ground rule double. Another, a ball that is thrown into the stands in fair territory. Another, a ball that is hit out in fair territory during batting practice.

And yet another, a ball that is hit out in fair territory using an illegal bat.
posted by Flunkie at 10:02 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

I mean, I get the desire for the league's ad hoc and post hoc decision to be correct. But the argument for that seems to essentially boil down to "Awwwwww, c'mon!"
posted by Flunkie at 10:05 PM on July 24, 2023

> the argument for that seems to essentially boil down to

The argument boils down to, the consequence of hitting with a pine tar bat is having the bat confiscated - not having any play made with the bat nullified.

That is different from the consequence for playing with, say, a corked bat. That is an actual cheating bat so the consequence is to have any play made with the bat nullified.

And . . . it wasn't an ad hoc decision, but rather following a precedent that had been set earlier for the same infraction.

Summary of reason for the reversal:

MacPhail's ruling followed his own precedent established after a protest in 1975 of the September 7 game played between the Royals and the California Angels. In that game, the umpiring crew had declined to negate one of John Mayberry's home runs for excessive pine tar use. MacPhail upheld the umpires' decision with the interpretation that the intent of the rule was to prevent baseballs from being discolored during game play and that any discoloration that may have occurred to a ball leaving the ballpark did not affect the game's competitive balance./<blockquote

posted by flug at 10:16 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

There would be a competitive advantage to the batter from a marked ball in my opinion, because a batter could use the mark to see the spin of the ball, which would tell him what the pitch was and how it was likely to move. My bet is that Brett was trying to mark the ball for that purpose.

True master of deceptive pitching Greg Maddux, who used exactly the same arm motion for every pitch, claimed there was only one batter he ever faced who could see the spin of the ball without some kind of assistance. I believe that batter was Kirby Puckett, but I'm not sure
posted by jamjam at 10:34 PM on July 24, 2023

When i think of George Brett i always think of this
posted by lips at 10:40 PM on July 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

The argument boils down to, the consequence of hitting with a pine tar bat is having the bat confiscated - not having any play made with the bat nullified.

Are you sure about that? Can you show it? I am having trouble finding a 1983 rulebook, but I have long been under the impression that the consequence was not explicitly mentioned specifically in the pine tar case. The umpires therefore ruled that the ball was hit with an illegal bat, which would mean, as they said, that it was not a home run.

MLB later modified the rule to say that the protest must be made before the apparent result of the plate appearance, which (to me) does not lend much credence to the theory that the consequence was supposed to be mere confiscation of the bat.
posted by Flunkie at 10:41 PM on July 24, 2023

Here is a relatively recent article from a lawyer about it. Unfortunately he does not explicitly quote all applicable rules (I am still looking for a 1983 rulebook), but he says (emphasis mine):

MLB Rule 1.10(c) stated: “The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from the end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18-inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.” At the time, such a hit was defined in the rules as an illegally batted ball, and the penalty for hitting “an illegally batted ball” was that the batter was to be declared out, under the explicit terms of the then-existing provisions of Rule 6.06.

posted by Flunkie at 10:53 PM on July 24, 2023

I have just purchased a 1983 official rule book. I should receive it well before this thread is closed. I will report back here with what I find in it.
posted by Flunkie at 11:05 PM on July 24, 2023 [12 favorites]

Last month was the 30th anniversary of a similar sports equipment check.

June 3, 1993. The Montreal Canadiens were playing Wayne Gretzky and the LA Kings for the Stanley Cup. The Kings won the first game of the best of seven; the second game is also in Montreal and the Habs are down 2-1 in the third period, basically heading for a disaster if they head to LA down two games. Only twice in NHL history at this point has the home team lost the first two games and still won the Cup.

With two minutes remaining, Montreal's coach, Jacques Demers calls the referees over and complains that Marty McSorley's stick has an illegal (excessive) curve. It's a high risk call. The penalty for illegal equipment is 2 minutes, but if a team challenges a piece of equipment and it's legal, then they get a 2 minute delay of game penalty. No one ever calls for a measurement of the stick; it's almost a forgotten rule. (Last season, there were over 10,000 penalties called in the NHL. Illegal equipment -- any equipment -- was not called once; nor in the season before.)

The referees bring out a measuring device that no one's ever seen before, and sure enough, McSorley's stick is curved too much. He goes into the penalty box, the Canadiens pull goalie Patrick Roy so they have a 6-4 skater advantage, and they score the game-tying goal with 1:13 remaining. The game goes into overtime; the Forum is going nuts and all the momentum is on Montreal's side; the Habs score under a minute into overtime, and the series is tied going into LA. Eventually, the Canadiens win it in five.

The rumour is that the Kings left their stick rack in the Forum overnight between the back-to-back games, and the Habs staff were able to measure the sticks secretly.
posted by Superilla at 11:28 PM on July 24, 2023 [14 favorites]

Huge Yankees fan and my favorite player of all time is Thurman Munson. I always felt that while it may have made no difference, a rule is a rule. Change the rule in the off season if it makes no sense. Certainly there were not a lot of players with the pine tar more than 18" up the bat. I also always felt that when George Brett (a deserved HOF player) came running out flailing and attacking the umpire, that that was a pivotal moment in bad entitled athlete behavior. He got away with it, was actually rewarded for it, and the slope was made slippery. The athlete temper tantrum was born.

They have been telling stories and showing replays of it on the Yankees broadcasts over the weekend. Telling Billy Martin stories too and The Boss stories. I think it was Brett who said he didn't care if they lost every other game as long as they beat the Yankees. I think the hatred between Brett and Nettles should be remembered too with the only baseball fight I recall where actual punches were thrown after Nettles kicked Brett after a slide into 3rd.

I too watched it live. It was a great summer of baseball, but they all are to me. Let us not forget Chris Chambliss'HR, but that is for another post.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:28 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

My bet is that Brett was trying to mark the ball for that purpose.

The ball wouldn't be marked until after he hit it though. If it's fair his at bat is over and the mark doesn't help. An out of play foul ball is replaced. So he's trying to hit a very specific type of foul ball up near the stem of the bat; a miscalculation is a wasted strike or an out. A success is a strike and a marked ball that he hopes the umpire doesn't notice?

If he's really trying this plan I'm torn between respecting his athletic ability and thinking he's not good at calculating odds.
posted by mark k at 11:38 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love that this is being re-litigated in the comments. From what I read in the decision:

6.06a says the batter is out if he hits an illegally batted ball, e.g. with an illegal bat as defined in 1.10.

1.10 says an illegal bat as defined shall be removed from the game.

The umps said that it is not "logical" that the rule should specify removal if the consequence is actually an out. But removal of the bat could very well be in addition to the out. It does seem clear. You apply rule 1.10 (bat ruled illegal and removed) and if a hit was made with it, you apply rule 6.06a (hitter out and play nullified). The umps' decision that the bat should be ruled illegal but the hit not so doesn't really hold water.

Of course... if it were to be taken that a bat was tacitly permitted by the umps if they did not actively disapprove of it during an at-bat (as they provide for in the case of a colored or corked bat) then the ball was not illegally batted. But if that's the case, the only way to get an illegally batted ball is for the ump to say "hey, what's with this bat?" and the batter somehow gets a hit anyway. So that doesn't hold up either.

As much as I think the decision to "play ball" rather than let this obviously calculated contrivance stand, I do think that they (likely knowingly) went against the explicit letter of the rules here.

I hasten to add that I know absolutely nothing about baseball.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:18 AM on July 25, 2023

> Are you sure about that? Can you show it?

Did you perchance read any of the links I put in my reply? They explain the situation rather well.

Specifically, there was precedent dating back to 1975 that hits with excessively pine tarred bats were NOT illegally batted balls which should be declared out. Rather, the penalty was simply the removal of the overly tarred bat from the game.

From one of those links:

[In 1975, when a pine tar bat ruling was appealed, asking that the hit with an excessively pine-tarred bat be declared an illegally batted hit and the hit declared an out,] MacPhail's first move was to examine, not Mayberry's bat, but the rule in question. The Playing Rules Committee had added the rule in 1955, with the purpose of preventing bat contact from discoloring baseballs. As MacPhail recalled in 2003, "The clubs were losing a lot of balls because the pine tar was getting on them, and they'd have to be thrown out in batting practice and everything else."

Clean baseballs were a valid concern. Nobody wanted a repeat of Ray Chapman's death from a discolored, difficult-to-see baseball pitched by Carl Mays in 1920. The 1955 rule acted on that matter and apparently no other. There was no concern that pine tar would provide an unfair advantage to the batter.

So at that time, the ruling was the bat was to be removed from the game, but this was NOT an illegally batted hit. The batter was NOT to be declared out.

Furthermore, "The Rules Committee amended rule 1.10(b) the next year to specifically mention pine tar and to state that bats breaking this rule were to be removed from the game. That was virtually all the attention anybody paid the rule for years."

So the precedent, and evidently the intention of the rules change in 1976, was to clarify that the excessively pine tarred bats were to be removed from the game and that there were no further consequences than that.

In 1983, however, MacPhail's statement overturning the umps' decision that Brett's home run was an illegally batted ball takes pains to say that the rulebook was indeed somewhat ambiguous, and that the umps' decision was not, per se, in conflict with the rulebook.

However, MacPhail - taking into consideration the history of the rule, the precedent, and an understanding of the intent behind the 1976 rule change/clarification - knew the actual intent and precedent behind the rule, and that was not for hits with pine tarred bats to be declared illegal hits and the batter out. Rather, all moves in the past on this rule had been precisely in the opposite direction - that the only consequence would be removal of the bat from the game.

In short, the rulebook could conceivably be interpreted either way based on the text of the rulebook alone, but knowing the precedents and history of the rulemaking, MacPhail was clear that the intention was removal of the bat from the game as the only consequence.

As the article points out, MacPhail had never once in his previous 10 years as league president overruled an umpire's decision. That he decided to do so in this case gives a pretty strong indication that he did not see this as an edge case. He saw it as a case where the intention behind the rule was well known to those familiar with the history, but the rules as given in the rulebook were a bit ambiguous and could be interpreted two ways - meaning, the way that was clearly intended when the rule was first written and later, in 1976, clarified, or a different way that was not intended either in 1955 or 1976.

The fact that the rule was again clarified after the 1983 pine tar incident backs this up. This wasn't seen as a rule change so much as clarifying a rule that had previously, and unintentionally, been somewhat ambiguous.

BTW this is a great example for people who like to think about what rules are. You can view them as logical constructs that say what they mean and mean what they say, and that derive their meaning only from what is written down there on the page in black and white.

So a person can "prove" what is right or wrong about the rules simply by quoting the relevant rules and making logical deductions from them.

Perhaps in addition to the text of the rules themselves and logical deductions from those rules, you would like to add information about how the rules were interpreted historically, given special weight to the interpretations given soon after the initial adoption of any particular rule. (If you're on board with this view I've got a spot on the current U.S. Supreme Court with your name written on it . . . )

OR a person can view the rulebook as encoding the traditions and play of the game in language that is bound to be ambiguous in various ways, and that can only be fully interpreted in light of the history behind the rules and why they were enacted, precedent in how they have been enforced, and various human factors related to what the rules mean in terms of current gameplay and interpretation by game officials.

You may like #1 but clearly MacPhail was in Camp #2. And he was the person in the position to make a determination on the matter, whereas you were not.

In that sense, we have a very clear determination about what the 1983 rulebook actually meant WRT pine-tarred bats - it meant whatever MacPhail said it meant.
posted by flug at 1:11 AM on July 25, 2023 [12 favorites]

I love baseball.
I hate the Yankees.
I love this post.
Go Giants!

this event will always be synonymous with Brett's mad dash out of the dugout, arms flailing in disbelief/anger.

MLB.TV runs the scene in the OP video as one of their interstitial "Flashback" scenes during games. It's a slightly shortened version of the video in the post and it remains a thing of great beauty.
posted by chavenet at 1:22 AM on July 25, 2023

I have just purchased a 1983 official rule book. I should receive it well before this thread is closed. I will report back here with what I find in it.

If this isn't sarcasm, I'm genuinely enthused to see this rebuttal as someone with no stake whatsoever in this (what feels like long-settled?) debate. I'm just ... wow, I'm here for it.
posted by revmitcz at 3:13 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

All of the debate here in the comments, which is wonderful, just underscores how Billy Martin, who in many ways was a horrible human being, was a brilliant manager.

Baseball is all about finding that tiny edge wherever you can find it. Think about this -- if you're a baseball fan, how many times have you seen a manager go out to the umpires and persuade them to change a call?

Martin actually rulebook-lawyered them into overturning (briefly) a game-winning home run. He took an observation from one of his players, dug up an obscure rule, paired it with an another obscure rule, and convinced four experts (who generally are suspicious of, if not antagonistic to, managers) to change their ruling. (Generations of D&D players would be proud.)

Also, re jamjam's comment above re. Greg Maddux -- pretty sure his batter nemesis was Tony Gwynn. They faced each other much more than he and Puckett would have, and there's a good bit on the record about their rivalry. From this story about Gwynn (who would make a great FPP himself):

• Gwynn faced Greg Maddux 107 times in his career -- more than any other pitcher. He batted .415/.476/.521 against the four-time Cy Young Award winner and Hall of Famer. That's easily the highest average against Maddux for any player with at least 70 plate appearances.

posted by martin q blank at 7:08 AM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

The Pine Tar Game!! :)
posted by Melismata at 7:39 AM on July 25, 2023

Yes, regarding the Greg Maddux Tony Gwynn thing, there's a wonderful quote from Maddux from a Washington Post article that's behind a paywall but this is the relevant part:

“You just can’t do it,” [Maddux] said. Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different releases points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.

“Except,” Maddux said, “for that ****** Tony Gwynn.”

I don't follow baseball, but that's one of the weird facts about it that's imprinted in my brain.
posted by dismas at 7:39 AM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

.415/.476/.521 against Greg Maddux? Holy shit.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:50 AM on July 25, 2023

Huge Yankees fan and my favorite player of all time is Thurman Munson.

Thurman Munson's plane crashed pretty close to my backyard. As kids we were all confused thinking it was Herman Munster.
posted by slogger at 8:01 AM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yep. Granted, small sample size, but that's basically Ted William's best season ever, and purely against one of the two or three best pitchers in modern baseball history.
posted by martin q blank at 8:03 AM on July 25, 2023

In that sense, we have a very clear determination about what the 1983 rulebook actually meant WRT pine-tarred bats - it meant whatever MacPhail said it meant.

Q: What's the difference between a ball and a strike?
A: The umpire.
posted by slogger at 8:07 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

In the interview, Brett mentions how a minor league affiliate of the Royals once gave out bobbleheads of Brett as part of a promotion... but instead of the head bobbing, it was the arms going up and down, pine-tar-tantrum style.

The bobblehead is a thing of beauty, as is this rendition from The Bobblehead Project.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:33 AM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

It was Tony Gwynn, martin q blank, and I got the unique ability Maddux attributed to Gwynn wrong too:

In fact, Maddux saw Gwynn more than anyone. The former Atlanta Braves hurler faced Gwynn 107 times during their overlapping Hall-of-Fame careers. Maddux didn’t strike Gwynn out a single time — NOT ONCE.

And Maddux knew it. On Monday, ESPN’s Ethan Strauss reminded us about a fantastic quote that Maddux once had about Gwynn that summed up his sensational career. The righthander was discussing how changing speeds and having control are far more important than velocity, because no hitter can tell the exact speed of a pitch. Well, except one…

“You just can’t do it,” Maddux said. “Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different release points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.

“Except for that (expletive) Tony Gwynn.”

posted by jamjam at 8:33 AM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

this post and thread is a gift that just keeps on giving.. flagged fantastic!

the George Brett shitting his pants story, it's about as perfect a narration as you could find.. right down to the tapered perfect shit at the end, the "who's pitching" and it ends.. perfection
posted by elkevelvet at 8:49 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

On the subject of the post - I loathe the Yankees and Billy Martin for tomenting me as a youth. I remember the whole craziness of the "incident" and was happy that the ruling eventually went against the Yanks because boy was it ticky tacky (see also all the recent gear check escapades on pitchers)

About Tony Gwynn - quite arguably one of the sport's best hitters - a friend owns and operates AleSmith Brewing in SD. He's worked with Gwynn's family to support their foundation with proceeds from their ".394 Pale Ale" and he has a room in the brewery set aside as the Tony Gwynn museum. It's awesome
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:54 AM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

My recollections and opinions on the event:

George Brett, asshole due to steroids.
Billy Martin, asshole due to alcohol.

America's game, people!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:08 AM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

this is the george brett talking about shitting his pants video elkevelvet's referring to I think (is it linked somewhere in thread? I can't remember). My wife was asking me about this post last night and I brought this up independent of anything mentioned in the thread, anyway, it's part of my heritage as a native kansas citian.

Casual googling suggests Brett wasn't a steroid user; i think he's just a congenital asshole.
posted by dismas at 9:43 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

My recollections are likely biased by watching him go whole ape on the umpire at the time rage by a big man was often 'roid fueled. I don't retract the asshole part.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:59 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't retract the asshole part.

I mean, that's a pretty broad truth on most successful professional players to the point where it feels like the exception when they're good dudes.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:46 AM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

There should be an option in many sports for the officials to say "You know what, this really is ambiguous." And in those cases, the managers-or-otherwise-bosses should have to disrobe to their underthangs and tussle until one of them admits he or she has been whupped. Immediately, right there in the stadium, while the Star Trek fighting music plays at the maximum volume permitted by law.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:48 PM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Brett looks like a spoiled rich guy to me in this video.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:25 PM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Brett looks like a spoiled rich guy to me in this video.

I'd love to implement for both baseball and football a "respect" rule for coaches. Watching a multi-millionaire scream profanities at much lower compensated officials pisses me off. You do it, you are immediately ejected. Bye.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:42 PM on July 25, 2023

Yesterday, in home run-related excellence, Elly De La Cruz had a home run robbed from him by a great play from the Brewers' Joey Weimer.

The next time Elly came up, the Brewers attempted to troll him about it: "Almost hit a home run in the first inning… but didn’t."

While that was still on the screen, Elly hit one 456 feet, literally out of the park.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:05 PM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is the ur-fake bat incident, but my personal favorite is Albert Belle's 1994 corked bat, because the Cleveland Indians tried to make it go away by stealing the bat back. They sent a reliever to retrieve the bat from the Umpires' locker room--he got in by crawling in the area above the false ceiling, Die Hard style
posted by benbenson at 9:44 AM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Unless I missed it somewhere in the comments, a personal favorite of mine, C.W. McCall's "Pine Tar Wars" lays it out plainly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuipvhlJuBY
posted by Transylvania Metro Android Castle at 11:05 AM on July 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Deep cut!
posted by rhizome at 11:53 AM on July 27, 2023

OK, so the copy of the official 1983 rulebook that I recently ordered arrived today. Upon reading the actual rules of the game as they were at the time, I now take even stronger exception to statements like this:

In 1983, however, MacPhail's statement overturning the umps' decision that Brett's home run was an illegally batted ball takes pains to say that the rulebook was indeed somewhat ambiguous

and

In short, the rulebook could conceivably be interpreted either way based on the text of the rulebook alone

There is, in my opinion, no ambiguity in the rules at all, and they cannot reasonably be interpreted in any way but the way the umpires did.

McPhail interpreted them differently, and as you already have admitted, that was through a sense of "I know what they meant to say" (or, as I described the same thing earlier, "Awwwwww, c'mon!"). And that was his prerogative, I suppose, as the official and final arbiter. But it's simply wrong to attempt to lend an air of correctness with regards to the actual rules themselves to his opinion, or to attempt to diminish the correctness of that of the umpires, by saying things like "oh, the rules are ambiguous and in and of themselves can be interpreted either way".

I'll quote in full all rules that I see as being involved. But first, I want to give a tl/dr:

A. Brett's bat was -- and I think there is no argument here -- not in conformance with Rule 1.10.

B. Rule 6.06 says, in part, that a batter is out (plus other penalties) when they hit an illegally batted ball.

C. Here's what I hadn't noticed previously: Rule 2.00 ("Definitions of Terms") explicitly defines the phrase "illegally batted ball". And that definition explicitly includes a ball hit with a bat that does not conform to Rule 1.10.

That 1.10 also adds on that the bat will be removed from the game does not change any of that, and McPhail's assertion that that addition overrides the penalties to the batter as given in 6.06 has no textual backing.

Full text of applicable rules. Well, "full" is not entirely true - I'll omit obviously irrelevant parts (such as the vast majority of Rule 2.00, which defines everything from ADJUDGED to WIND-UP POSITION).

2.00 - Definitions of Terms

(...)

An ILLEGALLY BATTED BALL is (1) one hit by the batter with one or both feet on the ground entirely outside the batter's box, or (2) one hit with a bat that does not conform to Rule 1.10.

(...)

1.10

(...)

(b) The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from the end, may be covered or treated with any material (including pine tar) to improve the grip. Any such material, including pine tar, which extends past the 18 inch limitation, in the umpire's judgment, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game. No such material shall improve the reaction or distance factor of the bat.

(...)

6.06 A batter is out for an illegal action when -

(a) He hits an illegally batted ball;

(...)

So, in summary: Yes, McPhail was within his rights to rule however he wanted. Had he wanted to, he even could have said that not only was it a homer, but it was a three trillion run homer. But please stop pretending that there was anything vague about the rules as written. The umpires were unambiguously correct in their call.
posted by Flunkie at 9:39 AM on July 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

That's my second-favorite C. W. McCall song
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 9:59 AM on July 28, 2023

(incidentally, I've been getting a kick out of the thought of the used book seller I bought it from thinking "Who the hell needs a 1983 baseball rulebook to be sent by priority mail?!)
posted by Flunkie at 10:03 AM on July 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Who? Why, their entire market of course! Even if you hadn't bought it, I have to think the number of eventual purchasers who need it yesterday way outnumber those inclined to wait.
posted by rhizome at 1:48 AM on July 30, 2023

Yeah, this was an iconic moment in televised baseball, as famous a teevee image as Carlton Fisk in the 1975 World Series willing the ball he'd just crushed toward the green monster to veer right and stay fair of the foul pole for a walk-off win in extra innings.
posted by not_on_display at 1:19 PM on August 14, 2023