by David Nemec
But suddenly with us are situations fringing on ludicrous where relief pitchers can enter a game and depart without throwing a single pitch even though they are credited with facing a batter. The first to do so was Cleveland Indians reliever Oliver Perez on June 29, 2018, at Oakland. In the bottom of the seventh inning, with the Indians trailing the A’s, 2–1, Cleveland manager Terry Francona brought in the southpaw Perez to relieve starter Trevor Bauer and gain the platoon advantage with lefty hitter Dustin Fowler due up. As soon as Perez’s name was announced, A’s skipper Bob Melvin countered by sending righty hitter Mark Canha up to pinch-hit for Fowler. Francona then opted to intentionally walk Canha with lefty Matt Joyce slated to bat next. But Melvin again countered the platoon advantage by pinch-hitting righty Chad Pinder for Joyce. Francona’s answer was to remove Perez before he had thrown a single warm-up pitch with right-hander Zach McAllister. McAllister fanned Pinder to end the inning without any damage being done, and thereupon avoided the embarrassment of having Perez charged not only with a walk but with an earned run despite never actually participating in the game.
Note that the Perez episode may never occur again if a radical new rule, introduced in 2020, proves effective. In an effort to reduce the number of pitching changes, MLB will institute a rule that requires pitchers to either face a minimum of three batters per appearance or pitch to the end of a half-inning, with exceptions for injuries and illnesses.
5.02 (b)
The pitcher, while in the act of delivering the ball to the batter, shall take his legal position;
In the nineteenth century, the rule regarding a pitcher’s legal position changed almost every season and balks were called when he failed to comply with the new restrictions. Today a balk is an infrequently seen event.
See BALKS in the DEFINITIONS OF TERMS chapter for more on the nature of balks throughout history.
5.02 (c)
Except the pitcher and the catcher, any fielder may station himself anywhere in fair territory.
Since no team in its right mind would station its players anywhere but in fair territory nowadays, Rule 5.02 (c) (formerly Rule 4.03) on the surface might seem superfluous. The rule was put in partly to keep any team or player from making a travesty of the game. Rube Waddell reputedly would call all his infielders and outfielders to the sidelines sometimes in exhibition games and then strike out the side while working with just his catcher. No one cared to see a pitcher try this in a regulation game.
There was a time, however, when players not only could legally be stationed in foul territory but it behooved them to do so. In 1876, the National League’s first season of operation, it was still a rule that any batted ball that struck earth initially in fair territory was fair regardless of where it ended up. Many players, headed by Ross Barnes—the 1876 National League batting champ—mastered the fair-foul hit, which involved chopping down on the ball in such a way that it hit in front of the plate and then immediately spun off into foul territory. To protect against these batsmen, teams were compelled to position their first and third basemen outside the foul-line boundaries.
Speaking of foul-line boundaries, initially they were only chalk lines drawn between home plate and first and third bases. The two foul lines beyond the bases were generally made by digging furrows with a plow; but by the early 1860s, in most parks used by teams that took the game seriously—were extensions of the chalk lines that theoretically could, in cases where there were no outfield fences, go on as far as the eye could see (although they seldom did). Many parks, beginning in the 1860s, did install foul posts extended to the length of the field, however, and beginning in 1878 foul lines often were extended to the length of the foul posts as well. The posts varied in size and were sometimes topped by a flag, but it was doubtful that any were taller than a few feet.
Note that 5.02 (c) says, “Except for the pitcher and catcher, any fielder may station himself anywhere in fair territory.” This wording can create a situation that will confound the best umpires in the game. One such time happened on June 14, 1958, at Wrigley Field. Facing a sacrifice situation in the second inning, Cincinnati Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts had second baseman Johnny Temple and first baseman George Crowe switch positions. Crowe, however, continued to wear his first baseman’s mitt. Temple charged the plate on Bob Purkey’s pitch, caught pitcher Johnny Briggs’s pop bunt with the runners on the move, and fired to Crowe, who was covering first, for a double play. Cubs manager Bob Scheffing protested the game, but it was withdrawn when the Cubs won, 4–3. Nevertheless, NL president Warren Giles later ruled that a first basemen switching to another position must discard his mitt in favor of a glove. But Giles’s adjudication may have been meaningless since nothing in the rules defines what a first basemen is or where he must play other that he must have both feet in fair territory when he is stationed on the first base bag to await a pickoff throw with a runner on first. It would seem therefore that one of the seven non-pitchers in fair territory, regardless of where he chooses to station himself, is entitled to wear a first basemen’s mitt. To further complicate the matter for rules gurus, Crowe, a lefty, was credited in the box score of the game with having played both first base and second base and registering put outs at each position.
George Crowe, among the few lefties to play second base, did it for all of one batter but was credited with a putout at that position.
Tebbetts, an exceptionally heady former catcher in the Paul Richards mold, employed an equally imaginative defensive alignment in his rookie year as a manager with the Reds. On May 22, 1954, at Busch Stadium I, the Reds led St. Louis, 4–2, with two out in the bottom of the eighth behind Art Fowler. But after Red Schoendienst singled, bringing up Stan Musial, Tebbetts replaced Roy McMillan at shortstop with Nino Escalera, a rookie left-handed outfielder. The Reds then played minus a shortstop and deployed Escalera in deep right-center. The ploy worked when Musial fanned to end the inning. Tebbetts then removed Escalera in the bottom of the ninth in favor of utility infielder Rocky Bridges and escaped with a 4–2 win while Escalera was credited with his only major-league game at shortstop. Tebbetts went on to deploy four-man outfields several more times during his managerial career.
5.03 Base Coaches
(a) The team at bat shall station two base coaches on the field during its time at bat, one near first base and one near third base.
Base coaches have been with us ever since it was recognized that a baserunner could not both keep track of the ball and make time on the bases. To assist runners, teams in the early days customarily stationed two players outside the first-base and third-base foul lines. These players were called “coachers.” Once the realization evolved that a coacher could do more than just stand and wait for a runner to come his way, a new breed of base coach developed.
5.03 (b)
Base coaches shall be limited to two in number and shall be in team uniform.
In amateur and sandlot games, teams often use people as base coaches who are not in uniform. This first became illegal on the major-league level in 1957. Until then a Connie Mack or a Burt Shotton—to name but two of the managers who have piloted their teams while wearing street clothes—was free to coach third or first any time the mood struck him.
5.03 (c)
Base coaches must remain within the coach’s box consistent with this Rule, except that a coach who has a play at his base may leave the coach’s box to signal the player to slide, advance or return to a base if the coach does not interfere with the play in any manner. Other than exchanging equipment, all base coaches shall refrain from physically touching base runners, especially when signs are being given.
A form of this rule first appeared in 1914, with embellishments to it coming in 1920 and 1949. Not until the latter year, however, was a runner who was touched or physically assisted in any manner by a coach declared out even if no play was made on him. Before 1914, a coach was licensed to tackle a runner if need be to keep him from making what seemed to the coach a foolhardy bid to score.
Nowadays, it is considered coach’s interference even if a runner racing for a base runs past it and accidently collides with a coach.
5.03 (c) PENALTY:
If a coach has positioned himself closer to home plate than the coach’s box or closer to fair territory than the coach’s box before a batted ball passes the coach, the umpire shall, upon complaint by the opposing manager, strictly enforce the rule. The umpire shall warn the coach and instruct him to return to the box. If the coach does not return to the box he shall be removed from the game. In addition, coaches who violate this Rule may be subject to discipline by the League President.
Base coaches are indeed occasionally ejected from games for ignoring repeated warnings to stay in their boxes and for straying onto the playing field—even if only accidentally—while time is in. Boxes for base coaches were first established in 1887. Before then, the only restriction on coaches was that they could not come within 15 feet of the foul lines to coach baserunners. The 15-foot restraining lines were first required to be drawn on all professional fields in 1877, and they appear in many game photos between that year and 1886. The 1887 rule also stipulated that all team members not at bat or on the bases had to stay at least 50 feet outside of the foul lines except for the two base coaches.
The coaches’ boxes began 75 feet from the catcher’s lines when they were first established in 1887. According to the new rule, coaches had to stay in their boxes at all times when the ball was in play and were restricted to only coaching runners. If a coach left his box, he could be fined $5 by an umpire unless he was also the team captain and ventured outside the box to appeal a decision that involved a misinterpretation of the rules.
How much money did the National League and the American Association collect in 1887 from coaches who were fined for leaving their boxes? The answer is about as much as they got earlier in that decade from pitchers who were fined for deliberately hitting batters. With all the minds there were in the nineteenth century working on refining the rules, until 1898 there was still usually only one umpire on the field to act as their enforcer. The newly designed coaches’ boxes no more kept coaches within their confines than the many interference rules on the books stopped fielders from tripping base runners. Until the early part of the twentieth century, base coaches were even free to deceive enemy fielders—as did Ned Hanlon in a National League game on May 9, 1883, between the Detroit Wolverines and the Chicago White Stockings.
Never more than an average player, Ned Hanlon quickly grew into a venerated manager once his playing days ended. But after he won five pennants in a seven-year span, he spent most of the rest of his career wallowing in the second division.
Though only in his fourth major- league season, Hanlon, an outfielder, had already displayed the ingenuity that would make him one of the game’s greatest managers a decade later when he took over the reins of the moribund Baltimore Orioles. As a result, Wolves manager Jack Chapman frequently used Hanlon to coach third base. He was there on that May afternoon with runners at the corners. When the runner on first attempted to steal second, White Stockings catcher Silver Flint rifled the ball to shortstop Tom Burns, who had moved over to cover the bag. Burns was among the better shortstops in the game at the time, yet managed to fall victim to Hanlon. Upon seeing that his teammate would be out at second, Hanlon faked a dash down the third-base line as if he were the runner on third trying to score. Decoyed by the move, Burns held the ball, allowing the runner to slide into second safely.
Even though the game was at Chicago, Hanlon was applauded by the crowd for his fast thinking, but it was not uncommon for a baseball audience in that period to see a base coach act similarly to deceive a fielder. In 1904, a rule was finally introduced to declare a runner at third base out if the third base coach, with less than two out, broke toward the plate on a ground ball to draw an unnecessary throw. Ten years later, an addendum also made this true for a fly ball, and the rule has since been refined to make it interference any time a third-base coach leaves his box in an attempt to deke an opponent.
An eerie example of Rule 5.03 (c) in action took place in a Georgia-Florida League game on June 21, 1953, between Fitzgerald and Tifton. Nursing an 8–7 lead in the bottom of the ninth with the bases jammed and two out, Tifton’s Bob Badour went to a 3-and-0 count on Don Stoyle. Badour then threw the next pitch wide, and for a moment it seemed that Stoyle had walked to force in the tying run. But the plate umpire noted that Fitzgerald catcher Tony Fabbio, coaching at third, had faked that he was stealing home on the pitch and properly called the runner on third out to end the game. Along with depriving Stoyle of the game-tying RBI, the decision took away what ought to have been his 100th ribby of the season; he finished with 99.
Fabbio’s fabricated theft of home occurred in a lower minor-league game well over sixty years ago, but current major-league coaches can also blunder. On September 5, 2010, the Texas Rangers trailed the Minnesota Twins, 6–3, in the top of the ninth at Target Field, but rallied and were down, 6–4, with runners on second and third with two outs against beleaguered reliever Matt Capps. Designated hitter Vladimir Guerrero then hit a grounder up the middle that Twins second baseman Orlando Hudson gloved, but realized he would be unable to catch Guerrero at first as the runner on third scored. Instead, Hudson threw late to third in an attempt to trap the trailing runner, Michael Young. But Young, in rounding third, made contact with third-base coach Dave Anderson’s extended arm and was immediately ruled out on coach’s interference by third-base umpire Alfonso Marquez, ending the game forthwith with the final score 6–5, Twins.
The problem of base coaches who unduly taunt umpires or badger opposing players was first addressed by the rule book as far back as 1887, though umpires usually tried to ignore the offender unless he became inordinately loud or profane. All the rules prohibiting it notwithstanding, heckling a thin-skinned opponent or arbiter has always been part of a base coach’s job. Pitchers in particular are considered fair game.
In almost every case, it is now against the rules for a base coach to distract a pitcher while he is in the midst of his delivery. It is not illegal, however, for a base coach to try to disrupt a pitcher’s rhythm or to hoodwink him. One nugget, now forbidden, that was worked on unwary pitchers—particularly during the era when pitchers clandestinely doctored the ball—involved a base coach, ideally with a runner on third, calling to a pitcher that he was certain the pitcher was illegally doctoring the ball and demand to be shown it. If the unsuspecting pitcher was so foolish as to toss the coach the ball for an examination, the coach stepped aside and let the throw go by him while the runner waltzed home. On August 7, 1915, at Robison Field, the St. Louis Cardinals pilfered a run from the Brooklyn Robins when St. Louis player-manager Miller Huggins, coaching at third, pulled this trick on rookie hurler Ed Appleton and Dots Miller trotted home with what proved to be the winning run in the Cards’ 6–4 victory.
By the mid-1880s, teams like the St. Louis Browns were utilizing their most vociferous players as coachers and licensing them to jeer opponents and umpires along with encouraging their teammates. The Browns’ leading coacher was third baseman Arlie Latham, a relentless heckler and an ace sign stealer. So vaunted did Latham become at the job that he carved a new niche in the game after his playing days were over. In 1900, Cincinnati Reds owner John Brush, at the behest of his manager, Bob Allen, hired Latham to do nothing more than coach runners, making him the first contracted base coach.
5.04 Batting
(a) Batting Order
(1) Each player of the offensive team shall bat in the order that his name appears in his team’s batting order.
(2) The batting order shall be followed throughout the game unless a player is substituted for another. In that case the substitute shall take the place of the replaced player in the batting order.
Here, in (2), we discover that in the event the order is not correctly followed, a player can be declared out and charged with a time at bat even though he never steps up to the plate.
This deprivation has happened many times, and to some of the game’s greatest stars. In a game against the Philadelphia Phillies on July 24, 1953, St. Louis Cardinals immortal Stan Musial was ruled out in the following manner for violating then-Rule 6.07.
Cards player-manager Eddie Stanky turned in a lineup card showing shortstop Solly Hemus leading off, himself batting second, and Musial up third. After Hemus followed Stanky and singled, Phils skipper Steve O’Neill bolted from the dugout to appeal. Hemus’s hit was nullified and Musial was declared out because he, rather than Hemus, had been slated to follow Stanky according to the lineup card. The unemployed time at bat cost Musial a point on his batting average. He finished the season at .337 but would have had a .338 mark were it not for Stanky’s oversight.
Big Steve Bilko once came to bat twice in succession in the same inning. A rule violation negated his first at bat, but in his second appearance he homered.