by David Nemec
Some twenty-two years later, three seasons after the Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins had opened Marlins Park, which had a retractable roof, on April 6, Opening Day, the Marlins had an even more embarrassing weather-related experience. Although the weather forecast predicted a 20 percent chance of rain, Marlins president David Samson elected to gamble and keep the roof open. The season opener against the Atlanta Braves had reached only the second inning when spectators began to stampede for cover as a massive, dark storm cloud suddenly unleashed a steady rain onto the open park. Samson immediately commanded the roof to be closed and the field be covered by its tarp in the interim. Unfortunately, no one quite knew where the tarp was since it had never been used in this sort of situation. That was, until Samson remembered he had ordered it to be tucked to an out-of-way storage space far from the infield.
By the time it was found the cloudburst had ended and the retractable roof covered the entire park. Even though the field was soon playable again, the Braves nonetheless might have lodged a protest had they not led, 1–0, at the time. As it was, they won, 2–1, and most in the near- capacity crowd left the park in dry clothes after Martin Prado lined out to second for the last out of the game. To keep his job from his seat in the protected press box Samson apologized profusely over the phone during the storm to team owner Jeffrey Loria, who was seated in the driving rain near the Marlins dugout.
7.04 Protesting Games
Each league shall adopt rules governing procedure for protesting a game, when a manager claims that an umpire’s decision is in violation of these rules. No protest shall ever be permitted on judgment decisions by the umpire. In all protested games, the decision of the League President shall be final. Even if it is held that the protested decision violated the rules, no replay of the game will be ordered unless in the opinion of the League President the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning the game.
Until fairly late in the twentieth century successfully protested games were not infrequent. But now, because of the money and logistics involved in either replaying or resuming a protested game, Rule 7.04 has been written so that it is all but impossible for a protest to succeed. Remarkably, there has been only one upheld protest since the 1986 season. It occurred on August 19, 2014, at Chicago’s Wrigley Field in a game between the Cubs and the San Francisco Giants, when the skies opened after four and a half completed innings with the Cubs leading, 2–0. The Wrigley grounds crew was directed by the umpires to cover the field. However, the force of the rain was so powerful the tarp unveiling did not occur as rehearsed. The workers were unable to correctly lay the shroud over the entire infield and, as a result, much of the home plate area and left side of the infield were left to suffer the elements at their worst.
Once the fifteen-minute deluge ceased the tarp was removed, but most of the infield by then was underwater. After a four hour and thirty-four-minute effort by the grounds crew to restore the field to playable condition, plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, in front of an almost entirely empty house, accepted that the field was beyond repair and awarded the game to Chicago at 1:16 a.m. on August 20.
Later, on August 20, Giants manager Bruce Bochy protested the umpires’ ruling and deemed the cylinder that the tarp was wrapped around a mechanical device that fit the definition of a reason for his club to protest that the game should have been suspended rather than terminated as per then Rule 4.12.
7.04 (3)
Light failure or malfunction of a mechanical field device under control of the home club. (Mechanical field device shall include automatic tarpaulin or water removal equipment);
The Giants further contended that the game should have been forfeited to them as the visiting team based on the rule cited above from the 2014 rule book that if, after it has been suspended, the order of the umpire to groundskeepers respecting preparation of the field for resumption of play are not complied with.
Later that day, Major League Baseball announced, for the first time since June 16, 1986, in a game at Pittsburgh, that a protest was upheld. The game was ordered to be resumed as a suspended game, nullifying the Giants’ forfeit request. The league office issued the following explanation of the incident:
An examination of the circumstances of last night’s game has led to the determination that there was sufficient cause to believe that there was a “malfunction of a mechanical field device under control of the home club” within the meaning of Official Baseball Rule 4.12 (a) (3). Available video of the incident, and conversations with representatives of the Cubs, demonstrate that the Cubs’ inability to deploy the tarp appropriately was caused by the failure to properly wrap and spool the tarp after its last use. As a result, the groundskeeping crew was unable to properly deploy the tarp after the rain worsened. In accordance with Rule 4.12 (a) (3), the game should be considered a suspended game that must be completed at a future date.
In addition, Major League Baseball has spoken with last night’s crew chief, Hunter Wendelstedt, and has concluded that the grounds crew worked diligently in its attempt to comply with his direction and cover the field. Thus, there is no basis for the game to be forfeited by the Cubs pursuant to Rule 4.16.
The game was resumed on August 21 at 4:05 p.m. CDT, and ended with the Cubs victorious by the score of 2–1, despite being outhit 11–3. The regular scheduled game was played three hours after the suspended game ended and the Giants won, 8–3.
Pay special attention to the last sentence of current Rule 7.04. Even if it is held that the protested decision violated the rules, no replay of the game will be ordered unless in the opinion of the League President the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning the game.
Here is an earlier day example of a protested game that went completely awry and would almost certainly never have been successfully protested under today’s guidelines.
Often in bygone days a disputed play would develop so early in the contest that it seemed more feasible to start from scratch, especially when an inability to duplicate the circumstances surrounding the protested game would put one team at a disadvantage. A good example took place in the August 1, 1932, contest at Detroit between the Tigers and New York Yankees. The hilarity was first introduced when second baseman Tony Lazzeri came to bat in the second inning under the assumption that he was the fifth hitter in the Yankees batting order. Plate umpire Dick Nallin informed Lazzeri that he was listed in the sixth spot on the lineup card behind right fielder Ben Chapman. When Yankees manager Joe McCarthy pleaded that he’d made a mistake in filling out the card and Lazzeri always hit fifth ahead of Chapman, Nallin relented and allowed Lazzeri to bat.
Detroit manager Bucky Harris remained mum on the issue until Lazzeri singled. Then he immediately appealed to Nallin, saying that Lazzeri had batted out of order. When Nallin pointed out that Lazzeri had batted in the fifth slot with his permission, Harris changed his appeal to a protest that Nallin had no right to change the batting order after the game had started.
Dick Nallin, the umpire responsible for a Yankees-Tigers game to be played in full on three separate occasions before it counted.
After the Yankees won the game, 6–3, American League president Will Harridge upheld the protest and ordered the contest replayed in its entirety, since Lazzeri’s illegal hit had been made way back in the second inning and led to the Yankees’ first run. The two clubs met again a month later during the club’s next visit to Detroit, but ran into a further snag when the replay, the second game of a September 8 doubleheader, ended in a 7–7 tie that was called on account of darkness.
The game was played for a third time the following day, again as the second game of a doubleheader. Detroit triumphed, 4–1, finally putting an end to the mammoth amount of work that was required to unravel the tangle Nallin’s effort to be accommodating had created. At the close of the 1932 season, Nallin’s tenure as an American League umpire was terminated by Harridge after 18 seasons. Except for his 1932 snafu, Nallin was regar
ded as a solid umpire. His career highlights were working the plate in Charlie Robertson’s perfect game in 1922 and officiating in the infamous 1919 Black Sox World Series.
8.00: The Umpire
8.01 Umpire Qualifications and Authority
(a) The League President shall appoint one or more umpires to officiate at each league championship game. The umpires shall be responsible for the conduct of the game in accordance with these official rules and for maintaining discipline and order on the playing field during the game.
Mention the name John Lensor Boake to everyone presently connected with Major League Baseball and do not be surprised if you draw not even a single look of recognition. Who was he? Why, he umpired the first game between Cleveland and Fort Wayne in the first all-professional league, the National Association, on May 4, 1871! It was also the only National Association game he ever umpired. Boake was born in Philadelphia on September 4, 1841. How did he come to be in Fort Wayne at age twenty-nine on May 4, 1871? We have no clue, as he died in Kentucky in 1912 and is buried in Cincinnati. But we do know that he played left field for the Buckeye Base Ball Club of Cincinnati in 1866 and his brother William played center field, hence the likelihood the family moved from Philadelphia to Cincinnati at some point and Boake settled there permanently (since he is buried there). Why was he chosen to officiate that most historic game? Again, no clue. Such a degree of facelessness is the norm with a slew of the umpires in the National Association and even some in the early days of the National League. Among the very few men who made even a pretense of earning a living as a major league umpire prior to the mid-1880s was Billy McLean, who umpired a total of 435 games between 1872 and 1890, although only in the 1884 National League season did he work anything approaching a full slate of games (118).
Currently, there are 76 umpires in the major leagues, spread over 19 umpiring squads. Bruce Weber has written, “Major league jobs . . . open up about as often as vacancies on the US Supreme Court.” In recent years, the number of umpires has increased, but no new umpires were added in 2019. The previous increases were largely due to the process of video replay expansion. In addition, in 2018, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball appointed former MLB umpire, Justin Klemm, as director of instant replay.
In 1883, when umpires first became salaried representatives of their respective major leagues, both the National League and the American Association carried just four arbiters. Since both leagues were eight-team circuits, there were a maximum of four playing sites in each loop on a given day. One umpire was assigned to each site, and he was responsible for making his own travel arrangements, booking his own hotel accommodations, paying for cleaning his uniform, and so on. The four AA arbiters at the beginning of the 1883 season were John Kelly, William H. Becannon, Charlie Daniels, and Ben Sommer. Sommer and Becannon both had brothers who played major-league baseball, but Kelly was the prize of the four, a fight referee in the winter months. Sporting Life described him as “prompt, decided, energetic . . . possessed of excellent judgment,” and he was duly nicknamed “Honest John.” Daniels was the most experienced, having previously served in portions of five seasons in the National League. Yet Sporting Life’s terse assessment of him was: “He is not a professional.”
The AA paid its umpires $140 a month in 1883, plus $3 per diem for travel expenses. Meager as this salary might seem, it was more than the NL paid, and the AA accordingly had a better quality of officiating. Of the four umpires the NL hired in 1883, one was a college student who was fired a few weeks into the season, and by 1885 only Stewart Decker, a bank bookkeeper by trade, was still a member of the senior loop’s staff—though not for long. He left the NL a third of the way into the season and remained away from it except for a short stint in blue in 1888.
In the 1880s, if an umpire took sick or was unable to work for other reasons, one of three things could occur: If an experienced umpire acceptable to both teams happened to be at the park that day, he would be pressed into service. If the visiting team had a substitute player that the home club was amenable to have officiate, the job was his for the day but without extra pay. In the event the two teams could not agree on either of these options, usually a knowledgeable spectator umped the game and it was deemed an exhibition contest.
As an example, the scheduled American Association game on May 3, 1883, between the Philadelphia Athletics and Pittsburgh Alleghenys became an exhibition match when umpire Charlie Daniels took ill and no satisfactory substitute was on hand. The crowd of around 1,200 was unaware of the change in the game’s status until they had bought tickets and were in their seats. They then saw something considerably less than they had paid for when a spectator named Blackmore was drafted to umpire as Frank McLaughlin, normally a shortstop, took the box for Pittsburgh and opposed Lon Knight, the A’s regular right fielder, with Pittsburgh winning, 15–2.
One question that surely leaps to mind here: Why would a home team agree to accept an opposition player as an umpire? The answer: So that the game would be a championship contest. For all games that counted in the standings (except those that took place on Sundays or holidays), the visiting club received an appearance fee—as little as $65 per game in the American Association until 1888—and the home team then got to keep all the money that was collected at the gate. If the game was declared an exhibition, the two teams split the take down the middle. Hence the home team, especially if a decent crowd was on hand, happily agreed to have a member of the visiting club officiate; usually a pitcher not slated to work that day.
Sometimes fans would sit through an entire game without learning until days later whether it was an exhibition or a regular contest. When rookie umpire John Valentine missed his train and failed to arrive for an American Association game between the Louisville Eclipse and New York Metropolitans on June 21, 1884, both teams stewed over whether or not to play an exhibition contest while the Louisville crowd howled that they’d paid good money to see a championship affair. Finally, Mets manager Jim Mutrie suggested a compromise. He agreed to play a game that would count in the standings but only if he chose the umpire. He then designated Mets pitcher Tim Keefe, since Keefe had the day off anyway because Jack Lynch was slated to hurl.
Louisville acceded to Mutrie’s offer, but after the Mets won the game, 4–2, in 11 innings, the Falls City club filed a protest, claiming Keefe was not a fit umpire for a championship contest. Mutrie eventually consented to have the game thrown out, even though it deprived his club of a victory, in return for half of the day’s gate receipts. Later in the season, AA officials reversed their position again and decided to count the game in the standings.
It should come as no surprise to learn that there were a multitude of protests in the 1880s questioning the fitness of a particular umpire. There were also many arbiters whose honesty was questioned. In 1882, the National League’s Dick Higham became the only umpire in MLB history ever to be officially banished for dishonesty, ostensibly for betting on games in which he officiated. The senior loop assigned Higham to work a string of games involving the Detroit Wolverines. When Wolves president W. G. Thompson, who also happened to be the mayor of Detroit, began complaining that too many of Higham’s close decisions were going against his club, he was ignored at first. But when the pattern persisted the league met in an executive session to hear Thompson’s grievance. His case was so persuasive that he was finally allowed to inspect Higham’s mail, much of which was in code and not particularly hard to decipher—or so Thompson contended. He claimed it was simple to deduce that Higham was in collusion with gamblers who were betting against Detroit on the umpire’s assurance that their money was safe. Nonetheless, the vagaries surrounding Higham’s expulsion, coupled with his own refusal ever to discuss it publicly or make any ostensible attempt to defend himself against the bribery charges, lent weight to those who feel that the full story did not emerge in 1882, and Higham may simply have grown too disgusted with the job to expend any energy trying to keep it.
Higham’s oust
er and the suspicion that embraced the work of several other umpires in that era induced the National League to adopt Rule 67, which stated:
Any League umpire who shall in the judgment of the President of the League be guilty of ungentlemanly conduct or of selling, or offering to sell, a game in which he is umpire, shall thereupon be removed from his official capacity and placed under the same disabilities inflicted upon expelled players by the Constitution of the League.
By the mid-1890s, umpires were better paid, helping to make their honesty no longer a constant issue, and Rule 67 was eliminated. There have been umpires given the boot for life since Higham in 1882, but none ostensibly for crooked work on the diamond.
Because major-league games until late in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had only one umpire, fielders could almost literally get away with murder. While an umpire’s eyes were watching a ball hit down the line to see if it would land fair, the first baseman was free to obstruct the batter as he approached the bag while the shortstop tripped the lead runner as he rounded second. Others, like first sacker Tommy Tucker, were skilled at pretending to dive for a wild pickoff throw and instead falling on top of a baserunner who otherwise would have had an unimpeded journey to the next base while baserunners, like Mike “King” Kelly, were legendary for skipping bases when an umpire’s back was to them.