The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated

Home > Other > The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated > Page 23
The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated Page 23

by David Nemec


  7.02 Suspended, Postponed, and Tie Games

  A game shall become a suspended game that must be completed at a future date if the game is terminated for any of the following reasons:

  (4) Darkness, when a law prevents the lights from being turned on;

  The marathon 26-inning 1–1 tie game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves on May 1, 1920, at Braves Field came forty-nine years too soon. Rather than Brooklyn’s Leon Cadore and Boston’s Joe Oeschger probably throwing well over 200 pitches each to no avail, now the game would have been suspended when darkness made it impossible to continue (and the field was without lights, as they all were in 1920) and then resumed at the top of the 27th inning the next time the teams met. Before 1969, however, a game called at the end of a completed inning with the score tied after nine or more innings was declared a draw and then replayed from scratch later in the season.

  The 1969 rule change enabled the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers to break the record in 1984 for the longest game inning-wise in American League history. On May 8, 1984, the two clubs battled for 17 innings to a 3–3 stalemate at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, resuming the struggle the following day. Harold Baines eventually slammed a walk-off homer off the Brewers’ Chuck Porter with one down in the bottom of the 25th to give the White Sox a 7–6 triumph. Tom Seaver, who worked the final inning of the suspended game in relief and then started the regularly scheduled game and went 8⅓ innings, won both contests for Chicago. Note that Rule 7.02 (8) specifies that if a game is suspended before it becomes a regulation-length game and then resumed prior to another regulation game, the regulation game that day is trimmed to seven innings unless it should happen to be a postseason game.

  Previously, the record for the longest game in American League history had been 24 innings, last done on July 21, 1945, at Philadelphia when the A’s and Detroit Tigers were forced to settle for a 1–1 tie. Had the current rule been in effect then, the game would have been completed at a later date, as would have the Dodgers and Braves 26-inning classic. As it stands, the longest game in National League history played to a decision came on September 11, 1974, when the Cardinals beat the Mets, 4–3, at Shea Stadium on an errant pickoff throw in the 25th inning.

  Meanwhile, that 26-inning tie continues to be the longest game inning-wise in MLB history. The contest lasted three hours and fifty minutes, and featured Boston second baseman Charlie Pick going a single-game record 0-for-11 and Braves shortstop Rabbit Maranville the only starter to bat .300 on the day, going 3-for-10. The following day, a Sunday, the Dodgers played at home against Philadelphia and lost, 4–3, in 13 innings. They then journeyed back to Boston that evening, and on Monday afternoon lost, 2–1, to the Braves’ Dana Fillingim in 19 innings, giving them a total of 58 innings played in a three-day period and nothing to show for it (except the 26-inning tie). Nonetheless, they won the 1920 NL pennant by a comfortable seven-game margin over the New York Giants.

  7.02 (b)

  A suspended game shall be resumed and completed as follows:

  (5) Any postponed game, suspended game (that has not progressed far enough to become a regulation game), or tie game that has not been rescheduled and completed prior to the last scheduled game between the two teams during the championship season must be played (or continued, in the case of a suspended or tie game) to a completed regulation game, if the League President determines that not playing such game might affect eligibility for the post-season and/or home-field advantage for any Wild Card or Division Series game.

  Major-league teams nowadays not only devote maximum effort to complete suspended games and make up postponed games, but are in fact required to do so—especially when the game(s) in question could have a bearing on a pennant or division race. Such has not always been the case. This issue was first addressed after the 1908 season, when Detroit copped the American League pennant by a half-game over Cleveland. The margin of victory was a postponed game at Washington the Tigers had not been required to play, leaving Detroit at 90–63, whereas Cleveland, playing a full 154-game slate, finished at 90–64.

  Cleveland fans were understandably upset, but White Sox followers also had a legitimate grievance. The White Sox finished a game and a half behind Detroit at 88–64 after failing to replay two games that ended in a tie. Had the Tigers played their postponed game and lost them, and the White Sox won both of their replayed games, the 1908 American League race would have ended in a three-way tie, with Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago all at 90–64.

  Few historians have noted that the 1908 season was the fifth in a row in which postponed games were a significant factor in the American League pennant race. In 1904, the first year that both major leagues adopted a 154-game schedule, Boston and New York tied in victories with 92, but Boston had three fewer losses. Philadelphia and Chicago both garnered 92 wins in 1905, but postponements reduced the A’s slate to 148 games, whereas the White Sox played 152. The following year the Sox benefited by postponements, finishing three games ahead ofNew York as both teams were held to 151 contests; had the clubs been required to play out the schedule, New York could have tied the Sox at 93–61.

  The 1907 season was the only time in major-league history that a pennant winner lost more games than an also-ran. A rainy summer in the East shaved nine games off the Philadelphia A’s schedule, while Detroit lost only four contests to the weather. Philadelphia finished at 88–57, a game and a half behind Detroit’s 92–58 mark. Had the full slate been played, the A’s record conceivably could have been 97–57, leaving the Tigers five games back at 92–62.

  Despite a pledge following the 1908 campaign to make up postponed games that had a potential bearing on a pennant race, there have been several occasions in the years since when this was not done. The most glaring was in 1915, when three teams were bunched within half a game of each other at the close of the Federal League season. Owing to postponements, the flag-winning Chicago Whales played just 152 games and finished at 86–66; the Pittsburgh Rebels with the same number of wins but one more loss ended in third place, a half-game back, at 86–67. Finishing second were the St. Louis Terriers at 87–67. The Terriers were just one percentage point off the pace and are the only team prior to the inception of division play in 1969 to lead its circuit in victories yet fail to win the pennant.

  Some critics tend to excuse the Federal League, contending it was not a true major league, but no satisfactory explanation has ever been presented for the American League’s failure to order meaningful postponed games to be made up in 1935 or an even more serious gaffe by the National League three years later. Detroit copped the 1935 American League flag by a three-game margin over the New York Yankees that could have turned into a one-game deficit if both clubs had fulfilled their 154-game commitments. In 1938, the Chicago Cubs triumphed by two games over the Pittsburgh Pirates, but could likewise have wound up one game in arrears had the Pirates played and won four postponed games while the Bruins were losing their two unplayed contests.

  The 1918 and 1972 seasons also saw teams benefit from the full schedule not being completed, but for reasons that were unavoidable. Owing to America’s involvement in World War I, the 1918 campaign was terminated on Labor Day with the huge disparities between the number of home and road games the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians played contributing to a Red Sox triumph by 2½ games. In 1972, after a spring-training lockout delayed the start of the major-league season, it was ruled that all games that were canceled as a result of the lockout would not be made up. Detroit then proceeded to win the American League East crown over Boston by a scant half-game. This memory prompted both major leagues to make up all canceled games during the course of the season when another labor lockout delayed the start of the 1990 campaign.

  7.03 Forfeited Games

  (a) A game may be forfeited to the opposing team when a team:

  (1) Fails to appear upon the field, or being upon the field, refuses to start play within five minutes after the umpire-in-chief has called
“Play” at the appointed hour for beginning the game, unless such delayed appearance is, in the umpire-in-chief’s judgment, unavoidable.

  Technically, the last time a major-league game was forfeited because a team failed to show up was in 1902, when the Baltimore Orioles were unable to field a full team for an American League game on July 17 with the St. Louis Browns at Baltimore. The Orioles were in total disarray at the time after ex-National Leaguer John McGraw jumped the club to join the New York Giants, and he and owner Andrew Freedman induced several key players to also jump to his club. Others were sent to Cincinnati, leaving the Orioles with only three players. To fill out their roster so that they could finish the season without further forfeits, player contributions came from other American League clubs and also the high minors. In consequence, only Baltimore’s three core players participated in as many as 100 games and the Orioles became the first team to complete its full schedule without a pitcher who worked as many as 200 innings.

  Before the Baltimore decimation, the last time a team was saddled with a no-show loss was on October 12, 1892, when the Cleveland Spiders failed to appear for a scheduled makeup game at Pittsburgh. The game the day before had ended in a 4–4 tie, stopped by darkness. Pittsburgh wanted to replay the game and according to the rules notified both the Spiders and the league office. Cleveland insisted it already had scheduled a benefit game back in Cleveland on the 12th and left Pittsburgh on the midnight train. At game time on the 12th, umpire John Gaffney declared the game a forfeit win for Pittsburgh.

  By the 1890s, forfeits for nonappearance were a rarity, but less than ten years earlier, owing to the vagaries of train travel, they had been fairly common. In September 1884, the Washington Unions bagged two victories in the space of 12 days when railway delays prevented, first, the Pittsburgh Stogies and then the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds from reaching the Washington ballyard by game time; the Cincinnati forfeit was later overturned, however, by Union Association officials.

  7.03 (a) (2)

  Employs tactics palpably designed to delay or shorten the game;

  It has been more than sixty years since a major league team last received the ultimate penalty for stalling or deliberately trying to delay a game. On July 18, 1954, facing the Philadelphia Phillies at home in Sportsman’s Park, the St. Louis Cardinals trailed, 8–1, in the second game of a rain-delayed doubleheader with one out in the top of the fifth and darkness fast approaching. Since the game was not yet official and the rules then did not permit turning on the stadium lights to continue play, Cardinals manager Eddie Stanky thought he saw a way to escape defeat.

  Eddie Stanky, known as “The Brat,” exasperated umpires as both a player and a manager but was on three different National League teams that won pennants in a four-year span. He was ejected from more than 50 games in his checkered career.

  After changing pitchers three times in the fifth inning, though the Phils had made just one hit, Stanky decided to go to his bullpen a fourth time; the umpires had already warned Stanky that his tactics bordered on stalling. Meanwhile, the inning was suddenly interrupted for eight minutes by a free-for-all brawl, principally between the Phils’ Earl Torgeson and Cards catcher Say Yvars after Torgeson ranted that Cards pitcher Cot Deal was trying to hit him. When crew chief Babe Pinelli saw Stanky wave in Tom Poholsky from the bullpen, he picked up the field phone and announced that the game was forfeited to the Phils. Because the game went fewer than five innings, the official scorer did not send in a box score. Many of the Phils lost hits and RBIs, and Phils rookie Bob Greenwood was denied an almost certain victory in his first major-league start. The following day, Stanky was suspended for five games—partly for his role in the pre-forfeit donnybrook which culminated with him wrestling Phils pilot Terry Moore to the ground at home plate. But he could be permitted to chortle when Moore designated Greenwood to start again against the Cardinals, seemingly on a misguided hunch that the rookie would still have it after a short workday. Instead, Greenwood was removed in the first inning after the Cards’ first four hitters all singled and later was saddled with a 5–1 loss.

  7.01 (a) (3)

  Refuses to continue play during a game unless the game has been suspended or terminated by the umpire-in-chief;

  In The Complete Book of Forfeited and Successfully Protested Major League Games, Nemec and Miklich offer a perfect example of this rule in action on July 3, 1887, in an American Association game in Louisville between the Colonels and the pennant-bound St. Louis Browns. “A swirling misty rain began falling in the second frame with Louisville ahead, 5–1. Umpire [Ben] Young stopped play for 10 minutes, but when it continued to rain ‘so lightly that the uncovered seats were not vacated by the people,’ he ordered the game to resume. St. Louis player-manager Charlie Comiskey did so grudgingly, but after the Colonels posted two more runs in their half of the second, he wanted the game postponed because it ‘began to sprinkle again.’ Young denied his request, contending that the skies were doing no more than gently dampening the field. Comiskey ‘refused to play, whereupon Young gave the game to Louisville.’” An excellent and innovative umpire according to most accounts, Young was drummed out of the AA almost immediately thereafter (the July 3 contest was his AA coda in fact), with Comiskey leading the movement to get rid of a man who would not buckle to his will, and never returned to the majors. He died in a railroad accident on September 1, 1890, while on his way to umpire a minor-league game. During transport from the accident site to the nearest morgue, Young’s body was robbed of all money and personal effects.

  7.01 (b)

  A game shall be forfeited to the opposing team when a team is unable or refuses to place nine players on the field.

  A major-league game has never been forfeited solely because a team was unable to put nine players on the field. Ever since the rules forbade a team playing shorthanded for any reason, clubs have always managed to scrape together a full crew, sometimes by dragging a player of local repute out of the stands. On June 15, 1889, in an American Association game at Baltimore, Louisville dredged up its entire outfield corps at the last minute in its 20th consecutive loss in what evolved into an all-time record 27 straight defeats. There have been many instances, however, when a team sustained a forfeit because it refused to put nine players on the field, or even any players, as happened to the Baltimore AL team in 1902 when it could not round up enough volunteers to fill out a lineup.

  One of the odder cases involved a season-closing series in 1886 between the Washington Senators and Kansas City Cowboys. The two teams were locked in a struggle to avoid the National League cellar. Arguably the greatest nineteenth-century umpire, John Gaffney, who had misguidedly taken time off from umpiring to manage the last-place Washington club, sent a telegram to Kansas player-manager Dave Rowe on September 26, asking, “Will you play three postponed games in the morning?” Rowe’s response, received on the 28th, stated, “Yes: go ahead. All O.K.” But Rowe later claimed he thought he was responding to Gaffney regarding the playing of a postponed game on the morning of September 27 and refused to play any morning games with Washington thereafter. The seventh-place Cowboys consequently failed to put in an appearance for the morning game of a scheduled doubleheader on October 7, which was the first of three scheduled doubleheaders on three consecutive days. Umpire Joe Quest, a former Chicago second baseman, forfeited the contest to last-place Washington when he and the team appeared at Washington’s Swampoodle Park for the appointed time of the morning game on October 7 and then stuck around to officiate the afternoon game, which the Nationals won on the field, 12–3. The same pattern persisted on October 8 and October 9, with Washington winning all three afternoon contests, giving them a season-high six-game winning streak. However, the streak was broken on October 11, the final day of the season, when Kansas City prevailed, 7–5, in its final game as a member of the National League and clinched seventh place, 1½ games ahead of Washington. The games were otherwise noteworthy in that Kansas City brought so few men to its season-ending serie
s in Washington that novice pitcher Silver King occupied right field for the Cowboys on days when he wasn’t pitching.

  7.01 (c)

  A game shall be forfeited to the visiting team if, after it has been suspended, the order of the umpire to groundskeepers respecting preparation of the field for resumption of play intentionally or willfully is not complied with.

  Official control of groundskeeping crews was first given to the umpire-in-chief in 1906 for the purpose of making a playing field fit to resume action after a rain delay, but though tarps had been introduced as early as the 1880s, groundskeeping crews at that time were small and often swiftly overwhelmed if a sudden rainstorm hit. The umpire consequently was unlikely to make an issue out of it if the crew was slow in protecting the field. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, most teams had a sizable staff of groundskeepers, and expectations had risen accordingly. On August 15, 1941, with the Washington Senators leading the Boston Red Sox, 6–3, in the eighth inning at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, a thunderstorm caused a 40-minute delay. By the time the squall abated, the field was too wet to resume play, so the umpires called the game and declared Washington the victor, 6–3. Boston manager Joe Cronin immediately lodged a protest, contending that the game could have continued if the Washington crew had not been laggard in covering the field. American League president Will Harridge agreed with Cronin and awarded the game to the Red Sox by forfeit. Harridge’s verdict cost the Senators’ Venezuelan righty, Alex Carrasquel, a likely win.

  Midway through the 1993 season, the New York Mets nearly became only the second team in history to collect a forfeited win because of a rain-delay snafu. On June 29, the day after Mets pitcher Anthony Young sustained his record-breaking 24th consecutive loss, the 40-member Florida Marlins’ grounds crew fumbled with a tarp for fifteen minutes at Joe Robbie Stadium before getting the infield covered after a storm had stopped play. The crew’s ineptness eventually had players on both teams laughing hysterically in their dugouts while the public-address system played the theme to Mission Impossible. The Mets ultimately won the game in 12 innings, 10–9, on Tim Bogar’s sacrifice fly (but nonetheless finished in the NL East cellar).

 

‹ Prev