The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated

by David Nemec

  This comment bids us to inquire what an umpire should do if a player carrying the game-winning run passes home plate without touching it but the opposition fails to realize it. The answer is an umpire should do absolutely nothing. He keeps his mouth shut, gives no signal of any sort as to whether the runner was safe or out, waits for the players in the field to vacate their positions, and then walks off the diamond himself.

  That was precisely the manner in which way Game Five of the 1911 World Series ended. The Philadelphia A’s and the New York Giants were tied, 3–3, in the bottom of the 10th frame at the Polo Grounds on October 25 when Fred Merkle of the Giants hit a potential sacrifice fly along the right-field line with Fred Snodgrass on second and Larry Doyle on third. Doyle tagged at third, waited for A’s right fielder Danny Murphy to make the catch, and then scooted home well ahead of the throw and leaped into the arms of joyous teammates, none of whom noticed that Doyle had skipped past the plate without touching it. When catcher Jack Lapp and the rest of the A’s also failed to spot Doyle’s misstep, home plate umpire Bill Klem just smiled to himself, though later he acknowledged to an Associated Press reporter that he would have ruled Doyle out if the A’s had appealed. The gift victory extended the Series to a sixth game the following day at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, but when the A’s won a 13–2 blowout, Doyle’s phantom run became insignificant.

  5.09 (c) Appeal Plays

  (2) With the ball in play, while advancing or returning to a base, [the runner] fails to touch each base in order before he, or a missed base, is tagged;

  Among the most hilarious illustrations of this rule in action occurred on June 17, 1962, at the Polo Grounds in the first game of a doubleheader between the Cubs and the fledgling New York Mets. After the Cubs scored four runs in the top of the first inning, aided by a fielding obstruction call against Mets first baseman Marv Throneberry, Throneberry came to the plate in the bottom half of the first with the bases loaded and no outs. Facing Cubs starter Glen Hobbie, Throneberry temporarily redeemed himself for his defensive bungle when he tripled to deep right-center, scoring all three runners. But, to add insult to injury. he was called out by umpire Dusty Boggess after Cubs first baseman Ernie Banks took a relay throw and stepped on second base while informing Boggess that Throneberry had missed the bag. Boggess agreed with Banks’s appeal. When Mets manager Casey Stengel strolled out to argue the call, Boggess told him, “Don’t bother arguing Casey, he missed first base, too.” There are several versions of this story, but most agree that Stengel, after a pause, replied, “Well, I know he touched third base because he’s standing on it!” Throneberry’s mistake proved costly, as the Cubs won the game, 8–7, but he nonetheless was credited with three RBIs on a single, a rarity.

  “Marvelous Marv” Throneberry epitomized the New York Mets’ ineptness as a National League expansion team under Casey Stengel in the early 1960s. In the mid-1950s, however, he terrorized Triple-A pitchers as a Yankees farmhand, culminating in 1956 when he led the American Association in homers (42) and RBIs (145) in the second of his three consecutive seasons with Denver.

  Throneberry came to be known facetiously as “Marvelous Marv” after his gaffe, but he maintained a sense of humor about it. Later in life, he became one of the original spokesmen for Miller Lite beer, poking fun at himself in a series of TV commercials. His most famous line was: “If I do for Lite what I did for baseball, I’m afraid their sales will go down.”

  Throneberry’s tale gives rise to the question what the ruling would have been if he had indeed missed first base but, because the appeal was made at second base, would he been credited with a single if his had been the Mets’ only hit in the game? The answer is yes, absolutely yes, but no if the appeal had been at first base instead.

  Before he died in 1959, Howard Ehmke was the leading specimen of how a pitcher could still be credited with a no-hitter if a rival batter stroked a clean hit but was subsequently declared out for missing first base. Pitching for the last-place Boston Red Sox on September 7, 1923, Ehmke twirled a 4–0 no-hitter against the A’s at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park that was nearly aborted early in the game when Ehmke’s mound rival, Slim Harriss, cracked a liner over the shortstop that rolled all the way to the left field wall for an apparent double. But Sox first sacker Joe Harris, spotting that Harriss had missed first, called for the ball, thus preserving Ehmke’s no-hit bid.

  Red Sox pitcher Howard Ehmke (left) and Yankees hurler Bob Shawkey. The picture was probably taken at Yankee Stadium after the game of September 11, 1923, between the two teams in which Ehmke had lost his chance at a second consecutive no-hitter on a controversial scorer’s decision.

  Four days later, the breaks evened out for Ehmke when he lost his shot at becoming the first pitcher in major-league history to hurl two consecutive no-hitters. Working at Yankee Stadium, then in its first season, official scorer Fred Lieb ruled that a groundball Red Sox third baseman Howard Shanks mishandled on the Yankees’ very first batter in the game, speedy center fielder Whitey Witt, rated a single. The tainted hit turned out to be the only one Ehmke surrendered in the game. One can only speculate today over what Lieb’s ultimate ruling would have been if Witt’s bobbled grounder had come in his final at-bat in the bottom of ninth inning rather than in the bottom of the first. As it was, in his autobiography, Baseball As I Have Known It, Lieb deemed his call that day “perhaps the saddest decision I ever made.”

  Many players in the early days lost inside-the-park homers for missing a base, and many in the years since have come away with less than a four-bagger when a teammate ahead of them on the bases either missed a base or mistakenly thought their hit was caught and peeled off toward their team’s bench. In 1931, Lou Gehrig would have won the American League home run crown outright rather than sharing it with Babe Ruth if Yankees teammate Lyn Lary had not deprived him of a homer with a baserunning blooper in a game against Washington on April 26. Occupying second base in the top of the first inning when Gehrig rifled a ball off the Senators’ Firpo Marberry into the center-field bleachers at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, Lary left the basepaths after misinterpreting third-base coach Joe McCarthy’s hand motion to slow down and trot home as a signal that the ball had been caught. Gehrig then passed Lary and was ruled out by umpire Bill McGowan. The Yankees ultimately lost the game, 9–7.

  Similarly, Hank Aaron cost Milwaukee Braves teammate Joe Adcock a four bagger in one of the most famous games ever played, when he was guilty of mistakenly leaving the basepaths after Adcock hit an apparent game-winning home run.

  Facing Pittsburgh southpaw Harvey Haddix on May 26, 1959, Aaron and the rest of his mates were set down in order for 12 straight innings. But when the Pirates were also unable to score off the Braves’ Lew Burdette, Haddix was forced to take the hill again in the bottom of the 13th, even though he had already retired a single-game record 36 consecutive batters.

  The Braves 37th batter, Felix Mantilla, led off the 13th by reaching first on a throwing error by Pirates third baseman Don Hoak, thereupon ending what was then considered the longest perfect game in MLB history. After Eddie Mathews bunted Mantilla to second, Aaron was purposely passed to set up a possible inning-ending double play. But Braves first baseman Joe Adcock laced Haddix’s second pitch to him over the right center field barrier in Milwaukee’s County Stadium for what seemed a game-winning three-run homer. However, Aaron thought the ball had landed in front of the fence. He touched second base and then headed toward the dugout. Adcock, who missed seeing Aaron leave the basepaths, was called out for passing Aaron by the time he reached third base, and the final score, instead of being 3–0, was 1–0, as only Mantilla’s run counted. Haddix finished the night with a 13-inning one-hit loss and Adcock with the Braves’ lone hit, though only a double instead of a home run. Note that first-base umpire Frank Dascoli initially determined the final score was 2–0 but was overruled by NL president Warren Giles, who rightfully pointed out that since the hit was only a double officially just one run actually sco
red.

  Fortunately, Aaron touched second base before he deserted the basepaths. If there had been two outs at the time and Aaron had left the field without touching second, on an appeal play he would have been called out at that base for the third out, neither Adcock’s hit nor Mantilla’s run would have counted, the game might still be in progress, and Aaron would now be as infamous as Fred Merkle—and for much the same reason.

  No pennant race or World Series has ever turned on a home run that was canceled when its striker missed a base, but all who were either in attendance or watching on TV when the Giants’ Bobby Thomson hit his three-run “Shot Heard ’Round the World” that won the 1951 National League pennant still remember Jackie Robinson of the Dodgers holding his ground at second base and watching carefully to make sure Thomson touched them all before he finally bowed his head to the inevitable and left the field.

  5.09 (c) (4)

  He fails to touch home base and makes no attempt to return to that base, and home base is tagged.

  We have already cited an example of this rule in action in a World Series game, but in the discussion of 5.09 (c) (4) the following appears for no clear reason in the fourth paragraph.

  Appeal plays may require an umpire to recognize an apparent “fourth out.” If the third out is made during a play in which an appeal play is sustained on another runner, the appeal play decision takes precedence in determining the out. If there is more than one appeal during a play that ends a half-inning, the defense may elect to take the out that gives it the advantage. For the purpose of this rule, the defensive team has “left the field” when the pitcher and all infielders have left fair territory on their way to the bench or clubhouse.

  The paragraph pertaining to the possibility of an umpire having to recognize a “fourth out” first appeared in the 1958 manual in an effort to prevent further miscarriages, like one that occurred in an International League game on August 30, 1957. On that date, the Buffalo Bisons engaged in a tight struggle with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the IL pennant, hosted the lowly Montreal Royals, destined to finish in the cellar.

  Montreal owned a 1–0 lead with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but Russ Sullivan, acquired only days before from Columbus, and all-league second sacker Lou Ortiz then proceeded to reach base for Buffalo. Third baseman Bill Serena followed with a long drive toward the center-field scoreboard. Thinking the blast was ticketed for extra bases, both Sullivan and Ortiz took off at full tilt. But Montreal center fielder Bobby Del Greco made a miraculous last-second grab and then wheeled and fired to first base, easily doubling Ortiz up for the third out. The sad problem for Montreal was that Sullivan crossed the plate before the third out was registered and the insoluble problem confronting umpire Harry Schwarts was that he had to rule Sullivan’s run good even though Sullivan hadn’t tagged up after Del Greco’s catch and would have been subject to being doubled off second base if the Royals had not already recorded their third out of the inning by doubling up Ortiz.

  Sullivan’s tally knotted the score at 1–1 and Buffalo went on to win in 12 innings, 4–2. The Bisons ultimately fell a half game short of the IL pennant in 1957, but the controversy over Sullivan’s tainted run and two other similar incidents during the 1957 season roused the rules committee to draft a revised section of the playing code stipulating that an umpire may be required to recognize an apparent “fourth out” when an appeal play on another runner is sustained subsequent to the third out.

  The change in the rule meant that in a situation like the one in which Schwarts was forced to award Buffalo a run, the team in the field in the future would not be barred from making an appeal on a play more to its advantage solely because the side had already been retired. If today’s rules had prevailed in 1957, Montreal would have been able to appeal Sullivan’s run until its defensive corps “left the field” or when the Royals pitcher and all four Montreal infielders had left fair territory on their way to the dugout.

  In the papers of Frederick E. Long, which reside at the Hall of Fame, historian/writer Richard Hershberger discovered an early day example where the fourth out rule could have been applied way back when if anyone on the field at the time had known the appeals process then in vogue. In a letter Boston player-manager Harry Wright wrote to Long on October 21, 1873, describing a game his club had played at Baltimore that afternoon, he concluded:

  Andy [Leonard] made an exceedingly brilliant catch in left field off a hit by [Lip] Pike he running with the ball and taking it at arm’s length with a high jump. The bases were full and all started to run, the hit looking quite safe, but he returned it to second base, making a double play, closing the innings for a blank, one hand being already out. Had Andy not made that catch, it would have been very bad for us, as it would have given them the lead, at the close of the fifth inning. They claimed that the man’s run, who was on third base when the ball was hit, counted, he getting home before the third man was put out. The umpire decided against them, and then there was a row. They objected to his continuing to act.

  Hershberger noted: The 1873 rule read, “A player running the bases shall, after touching the home base, be entitled to score one run, but if a fair ball be struck when two hands are already out, no player running home at the time the ball is struck can make a run to count in the score of the game if the striker or player running the bases, is put out before touching the first base.”

  This reader observed that since the rule did not apply when only one hand was out, the runner on third tallied a run that ought to have counted because the appeal was made at second base rather than third base. Seemingly no one on the Baltimore club was cognizant of the situation, a fairly complex one, but it is surprising that Wright, a walking rule book, did not seem to realize his club’s errant decision. What’s more, the run would have also counted according to the current rule unless the team in the field, in this case Boston, had awakened to its mistake before abandoning the field.

  5.10 Substitutions and Pitching Changes (Including Visits to the Mound)

  (a) A player, or players, may be substituted during a game at any time the ball is dead. A substitute player shall bat in the replaced player’s position in the team’s batting order.

  For many years, a manager was allowed to substitute for a player in his lineup only when a disabling injury occurred. Even then, the opposing manager could refuse to allow the substitution if he felt the injury was not severe enough. Oftentimes an argument ensued, with the umpire forced by the rules to side against the team with the injured player. Unable to substitute, the loser of the argument then either had to struggle onward with the injured player or play a man short. Sometimes a team was forced to play short a man solely because it came to the park with only eight men and could not find a suitable player in attendance who would agree to fill in that day. This happened to the Cleveland Forest Citys on July 6, 1872, when they appeared at the park used by the Brooklyn Eckfords for a National Association contest after Al Pratt and Rynie Wolters—both of them pitchers—abandoned the club. Pressed into service in the box for Cleveland was left-hander Charlie Pabor, normally an outfielder but with enough pitching background to be arguably the game’s first southpaw of consequence. When Pabor beat the Eckfords, 24–5, with only two outfielders behind him, the headline in the New York Times the following day was: “The Eckfords Beaten by Eight Men.”

  There can be no doubt that players in the nineteenth century were a hardy breed. In 1878, the Boston Red Caps went through the entire National League season with only ten players, winning the pennant in the process. At that, the team’s lone sub, Harry Schafer, got into just two official league games.

  But most clubs were not as free of mishap as the 1878 Red Caps. One of the most famous instances when a team was compelled to finish a contest with only eight men came on July 22, 1884, in a match between the Providence Grays and Philadelphia Phillies at Providence. In the box for the Grays was Charlie Sweeney, who only the week before had been made the club’s ace after Charley Rad
bourn was suspended for drunkenness and insubordination. Holding a 6–2 lead over winless Philadelphia rookie Jim McElroy after seven innings, Providence manager Frank Bancroft decided to save Sweeney’s arm and ordered him to right field, bringing right fielder Cyclone Miller in to pitch.

  As though offended by the idea, Sweeney stalked off the diamond and headed for the dressing room. Finding him there changing into his street clothes, Bancroft demanded he return to the field, but Sweeney refused to comply. The suspicion was that Sweeney wangled the showdown with Bancroft so that he could gain his release from Providence and sign with the St. Louis Maroons of the rebel Union Association. At any rate, the Grays had to play the rest of the game a man short, the rules at the time giving Bancroft no other recourse when a player who was not injured refused to remain in action. Providence somehow survived the eighth inning unscathed, but then the roof fell in. According to one account: “In the ninth Miller was hit freely, the ball going just where the [two remaining] outfielders could have handled it had they been in their regular places. Errors crept in fast, and the Philadelphias scored eight unearned runs.”

  After the disheartening 10–6 loss (which provided McElroy with his first and only major-league win), Providence released Sweeney, reinstated Radbourn, and went on to bag the National League flag. But teams continued to play shorthanded on occasion until 1889, when a limited substitution rule was drafted, allowing one player for each team (whose name was printed on the scorecard as an extra player) to be put into the game for any player on the field at the end of any complete inning, with the replaced player not permitted to return to the game.