by David Nemec
All four of these contingencies to Rule 5.10 essentially are designed to achieve the same result: that each new pitcher entering a game must pitch to at least one batter before he can be removed. A nascent form of the essence of these contingencies first appeared in rule books prior to the 1910 season. Managers like John McGraw made it necessary to stipulate that any player who assumes the position of pitcher must pitch to at least one hitter before he can be replaced on the mound. Prior to 1910, whenever one of the New York Giants’ starting pitchers ran into trouble and McGraw had no one ready, he would replace the besieged hurler with a substitute player, sometimes even himself, who would then stall on the mound until the relief pitcher they really wanted was warmed up. Since the first sub—whether it be McGraw or one of his utility men—would exit without having thrown a single pitch, his name would usually not even appear in the box score.
Despite the presence of Rule 5.10 (f), a pitcher can still receive credit for a mound appearance without throwing a single pitch in earnest. Many pitchers have entered in relief and promptly picked off a runner to end an inning or even a game before they delivered a pitch. In such an instance, a pitcher still is credited for having worked a third of an inning. Perhaps the most significant incident when this occurred was the 1954 All-Star Game at Cleveland. In the top of the eighth, with the National League leading, 9–8, the NL had runners on first and third with two out when Washington Senators lefty Dean Stone was brought in to relieve right-hander Bob Keegan of the White Sox in order to face Brooklyn’s lefty slugger Duke Snider. Before Stone could even deliver a pitch, Red Schoendienst, who was on third base, took a long lead and then suddenly broke for home. Stone hurriedly threw the ball to Yankees catcher Yogi Berra in time to catch Schoendienst stealing for the third out. The National League clamored that Stone had balked, but home-plate umpire Eddie Rommel stood behind his call, and after the American League tallied three runs in the bottom of the eighth to go ahead, 11–9, Stone was credited with the win when that score stood.
Once announced into the game, a hurler can gain a mound appearance even without toeing the rubber while the ball is in play. On June 21, 1957, Jim Brosnan, later the author of several fine baseball books, including The Long Season, came out of the Cubs bullpen to face the New York Giants in the top of the 10th inning. While taking his warmup tosses, Brosnan slipped off the rubber and pulled the Achilles tendon in his left ankle. The umpire-in-chief properly waived the rule requiring Brosnan to face at least one batter and allowed Cubs manager Bob Scheffing to bring Dave Hillman into the game. Danny O’Connell and Bobby Thomson swiftly tagged Hillman for solo home runs to give the Giants a 12–10 victory.
The following year Brosnan played a role in a very different situation that featured a pitcher entering and leaving a game without throwing a pitch. On June 29, 1958, with the Cardinals leading, 4–3, they brought reliever Billy Muffett into a game against the Phillies in the bottom of the eighth frame at Connie Mack Stadium. The game was summarily suspended due to the Philadelphia Sunday curfew, however, before Muffett completed his warmup tosses. On July 29, when the game was resumed with different umpires, Brosnan was allowed by the suspension rules then in effect to replace Muffett. He held the Phils scoreless in both the eighth and ninth innings to earn a retrospective save.
A pitcher can also be credited with a start even though he never throws a single pitch. On September 15, 1950, St. Louis Cardinals scheduled starter Cloyd Boyer hurt his arm while warming up prior to a game at Brooklyn. Red Munger replaced Boyer and received credit for a complete-game 6–2 win over Don Newcombe, even though Boyer was deemed the starting pitcher. A similar event occurred fifty-five years earlier, some fifteen years before there was a rule that a starter, unless injured, had to face a minimum of one batter. On September 27, 1895, in a National League game at Washington, Boston manager Frank Selee penciled in future Hall of Famer Kid Nichols as his starting pitcher. But when Boston posted 12 runs and a multitude of hits in the top of the first inning, including a single by Nichols, Selee decided not to waste his ace. Before facing a single Washington batter, Nichols was removed from the game in favor of rookie Bill Yerrick, who gained an easy 14–2 complete-game victory, as had Munger, despite not being the official starting pitcher. But unlike Boyer, Nichols was not credited with a start even though he had actually appeared in the game, if only as a hitter.
Brosnan and Boyer recovered from their injuries to enjoy lengthy careers, but Robin Yount’s older brother Larry was not as fortunate. The elder Yount’s entire taste of life in the majors consisted of a single warmup toss for the Houston Astros. After being called up from the Astros’ Oklahoma City farm club in 1971, Yount was summoned in relief to face the Atlanta Braves in the ninth inning of a game on September 15. In his exuberance he aggravated an old elbow injury on the first preliminary pitch he delivered and had to be removed. But even though Larry Yount never faced a single batter, his name is in the record books as having appeared in a major-league game.
The compelling question now is can there be a situation in which an umpire will allow a pitcher who is not injured to exit from a game before he pitches to the required one batter? Yes, there can, and Western International League fans saw one of most singular examples of it on June 17, 1952.
While outfielder John Kovenz of the Tri-City Braves was at bat in the ninth inning, pitcher Bill Wisneski of Victoria was removed when his first serving to Kovenz was a ball. Eric Gard came on in relief. As Gard wound up to make his first pitch, Kovenz stepped out of the box. When Gard paused in his windup, plate umpire Herman Ziruolo shouted, “Balk!” and waved the tying run in from third base.
Storming in from the mound to protest that he thought time had been called when Kovenz stepped out, Gard brushed against Ziruolo and was promptly tossed out of the game. Another Victoria reliever, Ben Lorino, then took the hill, finished pitching to Kovenz, and went on to blank Tri-City and earn credit for a 10-inning 10–9 win. Gard is only one of several hurlers to be thumbed from a game before they could pitch to the required one batter, but Kovenz may be the lone hitter ever to face three pitchers in a single turn at bat.
Another compelling question is has there ever been a situation at the major-league level since 1910 when a pitcher was mistakenly removed before he faced the minimum of one batter? And again, there has. As but one example, on July 4, 1946, in the first game of a doubleheader at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium, Cleveland player-manager Lou Boudreau sent Joe Krakauskas to the mound in the eighth inning in relief of Pete Center and then pulled him in favor of Joe Berry after he reached a 3-and-0 count on Detroit shortstop Eddie Lake. Lake eventually walked, but no damage was done as the score remained 8–4 Detroit, which was the final tally. As of yet, no researchers have reported whether any action was taken by the American League office against umpires Hal Weafer, Joe Rhue, and Art Passarella for allowing Boudreau to make an illegal pitching change.
A more egregious example came on May 9, 2013, at Houston’s Minute Maid Park in the seventh inning of a game between the Angels and the Astros. With runners on first and second and two out, Astros manager Bo Porter summoned Wesley Wright from the pen to replace Paul Clemens. With his team trailing, 5–3, Angles skipper Mike Scioscia called on Luis Jimenez to pinch hit for J. B. Shuck. Porter immediately countered by bringing on Hector Ambriz to face Jimenez, but Scioscia instead sent Scott Cousins out to bat for Jimenez and then announced he was playing the game under protest because Wright had not faced a batter or been injured. Porter later claimed the rules allowed him to replace his pitcher when the second pinch-hitter was announced, but the rules of course clearly say otherwise. When the Angels won, 6–5, the protest was withdrawn, but umpire Fieldin Culbreth nevertheless was suspended for two games for permitting Porter’s gaffe to occur. Culbreth took the fall because he was the crew chief; all four umpires should have known the rule but apparently took Porter’s word for what it said.
5.10 (l) Visits to the Mound Requiring a Pitcher’s Removal From the Gam
e
A professional league shall adopt the following rule pertaining to the visit of the manager or coach to the pitcher:
(1) This rule limits the number of trips a manager or coach may make to any one pitcher in any one inning;
A form of the rule limiting a manager or pitching coach to one trip to the mound per inning first appeared in the 1967 manual. Its purpose is to prevent managers and pitching coaches from traipsing back and forth endlessly between the dugout and the mound to confer with their battery men. The one-visit limit helps so much to speed up games that it becomes all the more difficult to believe that in the early part of the century, when managers could hold as many mound pow-wows as they pleased, contests often took little more than an hour. If a manager or pitching coach pops out of the dugout a second time in an inning, it can only be to make a pitching change. However, a second mound visit is allowed if a pinch-hitter is inserted for the batter due up next, but even then a pitching change must be made. Visits to the mound by teammates in the game are also limited depending on the length of the game and whether or not it is a postseason game.
5.10 (m)
Limitation on the Number of Mound Visits Per Game
In 2019, this rule was revised to limit the number of mound visits without making a pitching change to five per game instead of six. These visits include catcher, infielder, and outfielder conferences with a pitcher.
5.11 Designated Hitter Rule
Any League may elect to use Rule 5.11 (a), which shall be called the Designated Hitter Rule.
(a) The Designated Hitter Rule provides as follows:
(1) A hitter may be designated to bat for the starting pitcher and all subsequent pitchers in any game without otherwise affecting the status of the pitcher(s) in the game. A Designated Hitter for the pitcher, if any, must be selected prior to the game and must be included in the lineup cards presented to the Umpire-in-Chief. If a manager lists 10 players in his team’s lineup card, but fails to indicate one as the Designated Hitter, and an umpire or either manager (or designee of either manager who presents his team’s lineup card) notices the error before the umpire-in-chief calls “Play” to start the game, the umpire-in-chief shall direct the manager who had made the omission to designate which of the nine players, other than the pitcher, will be the Designated Hitter.
Rule 5.11 (a) (1) Comment: A correction of a failure to indicate a Designated Hitter when 10 players are listed in a batting order is an “obvious” error that may be corrected before a game starts.
Although the notion of a DH had first been proposed as early as the late 1880s and there was even a failed league vote on whether to adopt the DH in 1892 after it was prosed by Pittsburgh official William Temple (for whom the Temple Cup is named), the first major-league official to present persuasive case for the addition of a DH to the rules oddly enough was National League president John Heydler, back in 1928. Senior loop owners felt that action lagged when pitchers batted and were solidly behind Heydler’s proposal, but it fell flat after American League moguls vetoed it, believing the game already had enough offensive punch. Forty-five years later, when the concept was next seriously entertained, the two leagues were still at opposite poles, only by then each had undergone a complete 180-degree reversal. In 1972, the last season that pitchers batted for themselves in both leagues, NL teams outhit AL clubs by nine points and tallied 824 more runs. The following year, with its pitchers no longer batting except as occasional pinch-hitters, the AL topped the NL in batting by five points and scored 252 more runs.
Designated hitters first appeared in World Series action in 1976, when the Cincinnati Reds swept the New York Yankees. Dan Driessen served as the Reds’ DH in all four games, whereas the Yankees divided the assignment among Carlos May, Lou Piniella, and Elliott Maddox. For reasons that made little sense in 1976 and still seem quixotic at best, major-league officials voted to allow DHs every other year in Series play. Series participants continued to use DHs only in even years until 1986 when the present rule was adopted, limiting their use to games hosted by American League teams.
In 1985, the last time that pitchers were required to bat for themselves in every World Series game, pitchers for the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals went a combined 0-for-30.
Since the designated hitter rule now seems here to stay in the AL and to remain anathema forever to NL magnates, it is time to consider the offshoot of it that seems destined to generate the most controversy in future years. Although some reactionaries will never stop lamenting that the perfectly symmetrical game Alexander Cartwright and his colleagues devised was irrevocably impaired the moment all nine men in the field were no longer required to take their fair turn at bat. Cartwright’s crew of rulesmakers never intended for there to be pinch- hitters or defensive substitutions either, and few now quibble with their usage. Almost every serious baseball analyst and historian is disturbed, however, by the way the DH rule has enabled so many players to compile career and single-season stats that seem bogus in comparison to the accomplishments of players who had to do full duty both in the field and at bat.
Included among the ersatz achievements are the hit, home run, and RBI career totals compiled by Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Harold Baines, Brian Downing, Frank Thomas, Orlando Cepeda, Rico Carty, Tony Oliva, George Brett, Al Kaline, Rusty Staub, Alex Rodriguez, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Murray, and Jim Rice, to name just a few of the many players whose careers were extended when they were relieved of any necessity to play in the field—and to say nothing as yet about the case of David Ortiz. Ortiz played in 2,048 major league games, compiled 541 home runs, a .931 career OPS, and a 56.7 offensive WAR. However, he played 50 or more games in the field just once in his 20-year career and finished with a -20.9 defensive WAR even though he seldom ventured outside the dugout when his team was in the field (89 percent of the games he started were as a DH). Ortiz is arguably the most glaring example of a one-dimensional player even though he likely will make the Hall of Fame in 2022, the first year he is eligible. But less obvious is the impact of the DH rule on pitchers’ career totals. In 1990, Frank Tanana became the first pitcher to post 200 wins, even though he had yet to score a run in a major-league game. One must doubt, too, that Phil Niekro would still have been a starting pitcher at age forty-eight and amassed 318 wins if he had not been exempted from having to bat and run the bases during the last few years of his career.
5.11 (a) (2)
The Designated Hitter named in the starting lineup must come to bat at least one time, unless the opposing club changes pitchers.
When the DH was established in the American League in 1973, Earl Weaver was beginning his sixth season as manager of the Orioles. At the time, the new position came with just one stipulation: The designated hitter had to be selected prior to the game and included in the lineup cards presented to the home-plate umpire. In short order Weaver, cut from the same cloth as Paul Richards, found a loophole he could exploit at his pleasure. Rather than simply naming a decent hitter who was either a poor fielder or a player who needed rest from fielding duties, Weaver would often pencil in as his DH a pitcher he had no intention of using that day and then send up the hitter he actually wanted when that spot in the lineup was first due up. The move allowed Weaver to summon from his bench the ideal batter in his estimation depending on the game situation at the time.
In 1979 alone, Weaver pulled his “Phantom DH” trick 21 times. Surprisingly, however, the American League did not add contingency (2) to the rule book until after the 1980 season.
It should surprise no one that Weaver, in a sense, borrowed a page from the master of similar trickery—Paul Richards. Fifteen years before the DH rule was implemented, Richards presented a starting lineup that had three pitchers in the batting order. On September 11, 1958, in a meaningless late-season game at Kansas City, Richards, the king of unorthodox stratagems, started Billy O’Dell on the mound, batting ninth, but in addition listed pitcher Jack Harshman in center field, batting fifth, and rookie
right-hander Milt Pappas in the seventh spot, playing second base. Harshman and Pappas had started two of the Orioles’ previous three games on the mound and hence were not slated to pitch under any circumstances that day. Richards’s one-off plan depended on the Orioles’ first four hitters in the lineup enginering a scoring opportunity in the first inning against KC starter Ned Garver, in which case he would pinch-hit for Harshman and later in the frame, if necessary, for Pappas. At the close of the top of the first he would then, regardless of his experiment’s outcome, send his regulars, Jim Busby and Billy Gardner, to center field and second base, respectively. To a degree, Richards met with success even though he was partially foiled by KC helmsman Harry Craft. With Dick Williams (later one of the many future managers who had learned at Richards’s feet) on second base and two out, Craft ordered Garver to walk Baltimore’s cleanup hitter Bob Nieman intentionally to force Richards’s hand with Harshman. Richards’s response was to bring in Gene Woodling to bat for Harshman. But Woodling flied out to right fielder Roger Maris to spoil Richards’s latest brainstorm and bring Busby and Gardner into the game. As for the final outcome that day, Garver hurled a complete-game four-hitter and won, 7–1.
5.11 (a) (3)
It is not mandatory that a club designate a hitter for the pitcher, but failure to do so prior to the game precludes the use of a Designated Hitter for that club for that game.
Almost always an AL manager’s failure to properly utilize a DH is entirely the result of carelessness rather than by plan. A prime example occurred on July 22, 1999, when the Cleveland Indians hosted the Toronto Blue Jays. The Indians at the time happened to have two outfielders named Ramirez: Manny and Alex. Tribe manager Mike Hargrove opted to play them both, listing Manny as the DH and cleanup hitter and Alex as the right fielder, batting seventh. But when Cleveland took the field in the top of the first, Manny was in right field rather than Alex. Whether Hargrove was responsible for the confusion or one of his coaches, the outcome was the same; once Manny took the field the Tribe lost its privilege to employ a DH and Alex Ramirez lost his spot in the batting order. Instead, Cleveland starter Charles Nagy, a .105 career hitter, albeit in just 19 at-bats, had to hit in the seventh spot. He went 0-for-2 and absorbed a 4–3 loss to the Jays’ David Wells.