by David Nemec
What was the pitcher doing up at bat with two out in the ninth inning of a potential perfect game? The score at the time was 0–0! Wiltse subdued the mild threat by retiring Phillies leadoff hitter Eddie Grant, continued to hold the Phils hitless in the 10th, and then got a run in the bottom of the frame to win 1–0 and receive credit for a no-hitter.
Hooks Wiltse, the only hurler to miss out on a perfect game when an errant pitch hit his mound opponent that day with two out in the ninth inning.
Remarkably, Wiltse might still have achieved a perfect game after hitting McQuillan had the National League not encountered rigorous opposition when it quixotically abolished the hit batsman rule prior to the 190l season, along with instituting a rule calling for a strike on every foul hit ball with less than two strikes. Both rule changes were greeted with scorn. Connie Mack, the newly hired manager of the fledgling Philadelphia American League entry, in the March 16, 1901, issue of Sporting Life, remarked “Calling foul ball strikes is an awful ‘doggy’ rule, and the League in legalizing the pitcher to soak a batsman in the head whenever he wants to is going to cause no end of trouble during the season.”
American League president Ban Johnson had already announced that his loop would disdain both of the NL’s new rule changes. He relented on the foul strike rule two years later when the two leagues made peace, but long before then the NL had restored the abolished hit by pitch rule after early results in 1901 spring training games bore out Mack’s prediction. On the eve of Opening Day, April 18, 1901, senior leader president Nick Young announced that NL owners had voted to rescind the rule revision and return to the old hit by a pitch rule, and so it has remained in both major leagues ever since.
An earlier effort by the NL to mitigate the hit batsman rule was likewise met with eventual disfavor. In 1892, when the National League and American Association merged, the hit batsman rule was revised to read that a batter became a baserunner “if, while he be a batsman without making an attempt to strike his person (excepting hands or forearm, which makes it a dead ball) or clothing be hit by a ball from the Pitcher, unless—in the opinion of the Umpire—he intentionally permits himself to be so hit.”
The addendum in parentheses became known as “The Welch Amendment,” although it was never officially called that, and emanated from what were considered cheap bases received, with fleet outfielder Curt Welch the leading culprit. Welch had set a new hit-by-pitch record in 1891 with 36, breaking his old mark of 34 set the year before. With catchers still wearing rudimentary protective gear and no catcher’s box rule yet in place, catchers generally played several feet behind the batter without runners on base while the umpire was stationed behind them. Given that, Welch would often fake a bunt, bringing the catcher racing out from behind the plate to potentially field it and leaving the umpire completely exposed as the pitch came in. While the alarmed umpire was busy ducking the incoming ball, Welch would stick up his left hand and bat—he was a right-handed batter—and deliberately let the pitch graze either the bat or his hand, usually the former. The grateful umpire, often victim for the first time to Welch’s chicanery, usually would give him the benefit of the doubt that he had been making a genuine effort to ward off the pitch when his team began clamoring he had been hit on the hand while the opposition claimed he had brought it on himself.
The present hit-by-pitch rule was not restored until 1897, although there were yearly disputes at NL meetings as to whether the new rule was a good one. The catalytic event occurred on May 12, 1896, at Louisville’s Eclipse Park II when Brooklyn second baseman Tom Daly was hit on the wrist by a Chick Fraser pitch and had to convince Louisville hurler Bert Cunningham, who was umpiring the plate that day as a substitute official, that he was hit on the shoulder in order to get his base. After the game, it emerged that Daly’s wrist had been broken by Fraser’s pitch, an absurd development that led to an almost unanimous vote to rescind the Welch Amendment.
Another point to consider in tracing the history of the hit batsman rule is whether a batter has always been given his base, as he is now, if a pitch merely touches him. The hit batsman rule that the American Association introduced in 1884 read that if a batsman be solidly hit by a ball from the pitcher when he evidently cannot avoid the same, he shall be given his base by the umpire. What constituted a solid hit was left to an umpire’s judgment. In a July 27, 1884, game at Cincinnati, rookie umpire Robert Ross delighted the home crowd when he was bullied into ruling that a pitch by Louisville’s Guy Hecker nicked Cincinnati hurler Bill Mountjoy’s uniform blouse and awarded Mountjoy his base to force home the tying run in the ninth inning. After Cincinnati tallied four runs off Hecker in the 11th to win the game, Mountjoy gleefully confessed to any who would listen that the pitch had never touched him, let alone hit him solidly.
It is also rewarding, and sometimes downright amusing, to examine how an umpire determines that a batter is not entitled to be given his base because he did not make sufficient effort to get out of the way of a pitch. Not being a mind reader, an umpire obviously can’t be certain whether a batter deliberately let a pitch hit him. Experienced arbiters know that even a Phil Niekro knuckler can freeze a batter expecting a fastball and prevent him from dodging it. Umpires therefore almost always give a hit batsman his base unquestioningly, and a fan can go to a game every day for several seasons without seeing a batter denied a free trip to first after being hit by a pitch.
Those fans that were at Dodger Stadium, however, on May 31, 1968, witnessed the most renowned enforcement of stipulation (2B) to rule 5.05 (b). That night, after pitching four successive complete-game shutouts, Dodgers right-hander Don Drysdale was on the threshold of breaking Walter Johnson’s fifty-five-year-old record for the most consecutive scoreless innings pitched (56) as he entered the ninth frame protecting a 3–0 lead over the San Francisco Giants. Drysdale then stumbled and loaded the bases with none out. With a 2-and-2 count on Giants catcher Dick Dietz, Drysdale hit him with his next pitch, apparently forcing home a run and ending his bid to shatter Johnson’s mark. But plate umpire Harry Wendelstedt ruled that Dietz hadn’t made a sincere effort to avoid the pitch and called it simply ball three.
With the count now full, Dietz skied out to left field, too shallow for the runner on third to tag up and score. Drysdale then retired the next two batters to tally his fifth straight shutout and preserve his scoreless skein, which ultimately reached 58 innings before it was halted.
After the game, the Dodgers claimed that Wendelstedt’s call was both correct and courageous. Giants vice president Chub Feeney said it would have been courageous only if Wendelstedt had made it at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.
Dietz and Giants manager Herman Franks naturally argued their cause at the time the incident occurred, but it was in vain. Another argument pertaining to stipulation (2B) to rule 5.05 (b) that prior to the introduction of video review in 2014 was almost always a futile exercise for a batter, was contending that a pitch hit him when an umpire failed to see it. On rare occasions, however, the dispute hinged on evidence of his claim that a batter was unexpectedly able to produce. In Game Four of the 1957 World Series, Nippy Jones of the Milwaukee Braves won his case in the following manner.
With his team trailing the New York Yankees, 5–4, Jones led off the bottom of the 10th as a pinch hitter for Warren Spahn. Yankees southpaw Tommy Byrne fed Jones a wicked low and inside curveball in the dirt that scooted to the backstop in Milwaukee’s County Stadium and then rebounded almost back to the plate. Already embroiled in an argument that the pitch had hit his foot, Jones stooped to retrieve the ball and located a black smudge on it. He then showed the mark to plate umpire Augie Donatelli; Jones contended the smudge was shoe polish while the Yankees said it had been caused by the ball hitting the backstop.
Donatelli sided with Jones and awarded him his base. Felix Mantilla ran for Jones and was sacrificed to second by Red Schoendienst. Johnny Logan followed with a double to tie the game, and then Eddie Mathews hit a two-run homer to win i
t for the Braves, 7–5. Whether Jones was right in his argument or simply lucky will forever be a topic for debate. In any event, his shoe was immortalized even if its owner was soon history. After the “Shoe Polish” incident, Jones never again reached base safely in a major-league game.
5.05 (b) (3)
The catcher or any fielder interferes with him. If a play follows the interference, the manager of the offense may advise the plate umpire that he elects to decline the interference penalty and accept the play. Such election shall be made immediately at the end of the play. However, if the batter reaches first base on a hit, an error, a base on balls, a hit batsman, or otherwise, and all other runners advance at least one base, the play proceeds without reference to the interference.
In the nineteenth century, when most games were under the auspices of only one umpire who often stood behind the pitcher with men on base, catchers would routinely impede an opponent’s bat without being detected. Connie Mack reputedly was a master at hindering a batter’s stroke. The rule book for the 1899 season was the first to stipulate that a batter became a baserunner if a catcher obstructed his swing. Not until twenty-one years later, however, did the manual specify that catcher’s interference occurred even if a receiver merely tipped a hitter’s bat. In amateur games, even though the catcher’s interference with a batter rule is often invoked, for well over a century so few infractions were seen at the major-league level that it earned Baltimore receiver Clint Courtney a spot in the record book when he was cited twice on June 19, 1960, in a game against the Detroit Tigers. In the fourth inning, home-plate umpire Ed Hurley nailed Courtney for tipping Tigers outfielder Sandy Amoros’s bat, and two frames later Hurley caught Courtney repeating the offense against first baseman Steve Bilko.
Courtney’s record has since been tied several times, but the infraction still occurs relatively rarely in the majors, and only seven players have been the beneficiary twice in one game, for a total of eight instances: Ben Geraghty in 1936, Pat Corrales (himself a catcher) twice in 1965, Dan Meyer in 1977, Bob Stinson (also a catcher) in 1979, David Murphy (after a thirty-one-year lull) in 2010, Jacoby Ellsbury in 2015, and Tommy La Stella on June 7, 2018. Ellsbury also holds the single-season record for being the recipient of catcher’s interference calls with 12 in 2016 as well as the career record, formerly held by Pete Rose. On September 11, 2017, he passed Rose with his 30th base received on catcher’s interference in the fourth inning of a game moved from St. Petersburg to New York’s Citi Field due to Hurricane Irma, when he victimized Tampa Bay Rays catcher Wilson Ramos. We say victimized because Ellsbury, in an otherwise uneven career, has made reaching his base via catcher’s interference an art form. Ellsbury missed all of the 2018 and 2019 seasons with hip and foot injuries, but in the interim La Stella, now with the Angels, has emerged as his potential eventual successor. In his lone postseason appearance in 2018 in the National League Wild Card Game, La Stella, then with the Cubs and serving as a pinch-hitter, reached base on catcher’s interference for the fifth time that season, even though he had fewer than 200 plate appearances. In 2019, La Stella reached base on catcher’s interference an American League–leading six times despite being sidelined by a broken leg for a large chunk of the season. On extremely rare occasions a batter is called out for intentionally initiating the interference with a catcher, but it is an almost impossible call for an umpire since he can’t be a mind reader.
Tommy La Stella, the present-day master at reaching base on catcher’s interference calls.
5.05 (b) (4)
A fair ball touches an umpire or a runner on fair territory before touching a fielder. If a fair ball touches an umpire after having passed a fielder other than the pitcher, or having touched a fielder, including the pitcher, the ball is in play.
The first contingency of this rule can often penalize the team at bat, even though a hit is automatically awarded. On September 17, 2010, in a National League game at Philadelphia, after the Washington Nationals had scored a run in the top of the first inning, the Phillies threatened to break the game open in the bottom half. With three runs already home and only one out, the Phils had the bases loaded with shortstop Wilson Valdez at the plate. Valdez rocketed a groundball up the middle past Nats pitcher Jason Marquis before striking second-base umpire Tim Tschida and zipping into center field. Since the ball had passed the pitcher and no other fielder, Tschida properly called the ball dead immediately and gave Valdez first base on a single, allowing all three baserunners to move up only one base due to the force created by Valdez’s single. In all likelihood, the Phils would have scored at least two runs on Valdez’s hit, thus the penalty. But since they ended up tallying six runs in the first after knocking out Marquis and eventually handing Roy Oswalt an easy 9–1 win, in the end Tschida’s unintentional interference made no difference.
Tschida was also involved not long afterward in a play where the second contingency of this rule applied. In a June 8, 2011, contest at San Diego’s Petco Park, Rockies right fielder Seth Smith lined a shot off Padres pitcher Dustin Moseley’s hand that then struck Tschida, again working at second base that day. Because the ball had already contacted a fielder before hitting an umpire, Smith had to leg out a single and Troy Tulowitzki, who was on first, had to make it safely to second on his own.
5.06 Running the Bases
(a) Occupying the Base
(1) A runner acquires the right to an unoccupied base when he touches it before he is out. He is then entitled to it until he is put out, or forced to vacate it for another runner legally entitled to that base.
Rule 5.06 (a) / 5.06 (c) Comment: If a runner legally acquires title to a base, and the pitcher assumes his pitching position, the runner may not return to a previously occupied base.
Supposedly, the comment attached to Rule 5.06 (a) and 5.06 (c) was triggered by Germany Schaefer, a zany infielder with several American League teams in the early part of the twentieth century. But here is another tale that may be more myth than fact. For one, there are at least two very different versions of the motivating incident.
In The Glory of Their Times, Davy Jones insisted it happened in a 1908 game between Detroit and Cleveland. Jones was on third base for the Tigers and Schaefer on first in the late innings of a tie game. Trying to manufacture a run, Schaefer lit out for second, hoping to draw a throw from Cleveland catcher Nig Clarke so that Jones could then score. But Clarke refused to bite. Safe at second with an uncontested stolen base, Schaefer reportedly shouted, “Let’s try it again,” and then raced back to first base. Clarke still did not throw. But when Schaefer again tried to pilfer second on the next pitch, Clarke finally succumbed and threw down to the bag. According to Jones, he took off for home as soon as Clarke let go of the ball, and both he and Schaefer were safe.
Speedster Clyde Milan was the first player in American League history to play as many as 16 seasons, all with the same team, and never be on a pennant winner. A star outfielder with Washington between 1907 and 1922, he retired two years before the Senators won their first pennant. Milan also had the bad luck to overlap with Ty Cobb for his entire career and watch Cobb obliterate most of his otherwise extraordinary baserunning feats.
Another version had Schaefer on first base and Clyde Milan on third for the Washington Senators in the ninth inning of a 1911 game with the Chicago White Sox. The same sequence of events occurred that Jones reported in his memoirs, except that the Sox catcher steadfastly refused to let go of the ball as Schaefer went through his reverse steal routine and Milan failed to score.
Schaefer possibly pulled his stunt on more than one occasion, in which case both stories may be true. But it seems more likely that neither tale has much substance in fact, for a form of Rule 7.08 (i), prohibiting a runner from running the bases in reverse order to create havoc, was not devised until 1920. By then, roughly a decade had passed since Schaefer had reportedly turned the game on its ear with his reverse steal gimmick, far too much time if the rule makers were really as embarrassed as legen
d would have us believe.
5.06 (a) (2)
Two runners may not occupy a base, but if, while the ball is alive, two runners are touching a base, the following runner shall be out when tagged and the preceding runner is entitled to the base, unless Rule 5.06 (b) (2) applies.
Rule 5.06 (b) (2) deals with a runner forced to move up a base tagging that base before a preceding runner, also forced to move up a base has vacated it, in which case the preceding runner is out if either he or the base he was required to move up to are tagged. This rule is so rarely enforced that few fans even know it exists, but contingency (2) of the rule on occupying a base is another matter.
Even though there is no situation, however far-fetched, whereby two runners can legally occupy the same base, despite all the rules against it, a far-fetched situation once occurred in which three runners tried to occupy the same base. The bizarre development came at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on August 15, 1926, with the Robins facing the Boston Braves in the opening game of a doubleheader. Trailing, 1–0, in the seventh inning against right-hander Johnny Wertz, Brooklyn tied the count when Johnny Butler led off with a single and came home on catcher Hank DeBerry’s double into the left-field corner. After pitcher Dazzy Vance dribbled a single down the third-base line and leadoff batter Chick Fewster was hit by a pitch to load the bases, Braves manager Dave Bancroft lifted Wertz in favor of lefty George Mogridge.