August 3, 1987: Twins’ Joe Niekro ejected for allegedly scuffing ball

Fingernail care was part of the Niekro family business. Forty-two-year-old Joe was in his 21st season as a major-league pitcher, and 48-year-old brother Phil was in his 24th. They both owed their longevity to the knuckleball, an erratic pitch that requires less velocity and is less taxing on the arm. They had their father to thank, as he had taught them how to curl their fingers, press the tops of their fingertips against the ball, minimize spin, and make batters look silly.1 The brothers learned early that knuckleballs are all about grip, which is easier with short nails.

The night of August 3, 1987, began with familiar routines. Joe Niekro, traded to the Minnesota Twins earlier that summer, was at Anaheim Stadium with his usual nail-filing accessories: an emery board in one back pocket, sandpaper in the other. He toed the rubber, took his warmup throws, and began his quest to expand the first-place Twins’ 1½-game advantage over the third-place California Angels in the American League West Division.2

Though Niekro got out of a three-walk, bases-loaded first inning without a run, his second frame against the Angels was less kind. Two straight singles and a passed ball gave California a 1-0 edge. A two-out line single to center field by Devon White doubled the Twins’ deficit. Another single, another passed ball, and another walk followed. Only after a fly out by Bill Buckner did Niekro escape his second bases-loaded jam of the evening.3

The third inning allowed Minnesota a reset. After Sal Butera walked, Randy Bush reached first on a force out. A single by Kirby Puckett moved Bush into scoring position. Gary Gaetti’s hard line-drive single to left scored Bush and Puckett to tie the game, 2-2.

Niekro made the most of his newly clean slate. He kicked off the bottom of the third by getting George Hendrick to ground out to first. Mark McLemore popped out to left. And after Bob Boone grounded to the mound, Niekro tossed to Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek. His first one-two-three inning of the night was complete.

But suspicion was growing. Onlookers thought some of Niekro’s pitches had broken more sharply than usual, even for a knuckleballer. Home-plate umpire Tim Tschida began to think Niekro was doctoring balls.4 “Those balls were borderline mutilated,” Angels manager Gene Mauch said later. “Nobody ever suspected Joe Niekro [of scuffing up the ball]. Everybody always knew it.”5

The officiators began building their case against the pitcher. By the fourth inning they had snuck five balls thrown by Niekro into a clear plastic bag.6

With one out, after a called strike to Brian Downing slipped out of Twins catcher Butera’s glove, Tschida decided enough was enough. He requested the ball that had just been used. He rubbed it with his palms, feeling for scratches and other marks. He approached the mound and asked to see Niekro’s glove. Second-base umpire Steve Palermo closed in as well, telling the Twins starter to empty his pockets.7

The ensuing hijinks wound up on highlight shows across America. While turning his back pockets inside-out, Niekro grabbed his emery board and flicked it onto the grass, a move one newspaper writer likened to “a poor imitation of Blackstone the Magician.”8 He raised his newly empty hands toward the sky as if to disown the item he had just let go of, but the umpires spotted the board a few feet away.

Between the flick, the confiscated balls, and the sandpaper – which crew chief Dave Phillips said was “contoured to fit a finger” – the umpires concluded that the Minnesota hurler had used his nail-care products to scuff.9 “The guy was so blatant,” Palermo later said. “It was like Prohibition, if a guy had been walking down the street carrying a bottle of booze.”10

With that, Niekro’s night was over. Phillips ejected him. The umpires took the final ball Niekro had thrown and added it to their bag, which they handed to an Angels batboy for safekeeping. They planned to ship the damaged goods after the game to the American League president, Dr. Bobby Brown, as league rules subjected any scuffer to a 10-day suspension.11 The Monday crowd of almost 34,000 booed the visiting pitcher on his way out.

Without Niekro, the Twins held their own. Reliever Dan Schatzeder took over on the mound. Despite handing a walk and a single to his first two Angels batters, he got out of the fourth inning unharmed. Through the five innings that followed, the left-hander held California to three hits: a single by Buckner, a single by Boone, and a sixth-inning solo home run by Downing.

Schatzeder also had Minnesota’s bats on his side. After scoring two unearned runs with bases loaded in the sixth, the Twins began the seventh with a leadoff triple by Greg Gagne. A single by Tom Brunansky scored Gagne for a 5-3 lead and knocked California starter Mike Witt out of the game.12 A two-run single by Steve Lombardozzi and Angels reliever Jack Lazorko’s balk with Butera batting further widened the margin. An eighth-inning three-run homer by Gaetti – his third, fourth, and fifth RBIs of the night – sealed an 11-3 victory.

Schatzeder earned the win, Witt took the loss, and according to Angels batboy Jeff Parker, Twins utility infielder Al Newman tried taking the balls that Niekro was accused of defacing. The 17-year-old Parker said that on his way to return the ball bag to the umpires, the 27-year-old Newman attempted to snatch the balls from him. “He sort of leaned on me and forced me to the ground,” the batboy told a newspaper the next day. “I think he would have eventually gotten them from me if it wasn’t for another player who was down there.”13 Newman, meanwhile, denied pushing the teen.14

Niekro did plenty of his own denying in the days that followed. When asked how the balls had gotten scratched, he said knuckleballs often hit the ground after they’re thrown.15 He added that he wasn’t trying to be sneaky when flicking the emery board from his back pocket, instead blaming the California heat for making the emery sticky. “I tried to give it a little flip to get it off my fingers,” he wrote to his brother in a letter. “I was making no attempt to fake anybody out or try to get away with anything.”16

Former teammates defended him. Yankees pitcher Tommy John, who had played alongside both Niekros, said that most if not all knuckleballers he knew used emery boards or similar tools to file their nails.17 Houston Astros pitchers Dave Smith and Mike Scott, the latter of whom had faced similar allegations, suggested that if Niekro had altered the ball while on the mound in front of tens of thousands of people, he would have gotten caught earlier. Said Smith: “I mean, how do you hide a five-inch emery board?”18

Niekro initially appealed his 10-day suspension. This allowed him to remain in Minnesota’s rotation, pending a league hearing, and make his next start as scheduled in Minneapolis. In that August 7 game – a 9-4 win against the Oakland Athletics – he gave up four runs and only five hits, and he pitched into the ninth inning. And as he later admitted, he still carried sandpaper and an emery board in his back pockets. The only difference this time was that nobody checked him.19

But despite maintaining that he never scuffed balls, he ultimately took the punishment. His Twins were making a run for the AL West title, and he agreed to get the sentence over with so he could qualify for the team’s playoff roster. His suspension took effect August 8.

Yet he stayed busy. On August 14 he showed up on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman and poked fun at the controversy, coming on stage holding a power sander and wearing a tool belt stuffed with emery boards, nail trimmers, Vaseline, and two bottles of Kiwi Scuff Magic. Glued to the sole of a shoe was sandpaper, to show Letterman how he could scuff a ball if he wanted to – hypothetically, of course.20

“So you’re telling me you did not doctor the ball that night?” Letterman asked.

The guest pointed to his heart and zinged back. “Do I look like a doctor?”21

Niekro returned to work a few days later. He won only one of his seven remaining starts of 1987, totaling a 7-13 record for the season. But he ended the year a World Series champion, a milestone neither he nor his brother had reached until then.

By the end of April 1988, both Niekros had retired. With 539 major-league wins between them – 10 more than Gaylord and Jim Perry – Joe and Phil could stake their claim as baseball’s winningest sibling pitchers.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for the box score and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL198708030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1987/B08030CAL1987.htm

Photo credit: Joe Niekro, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Joe Niekro said in a 1987 interview that his father, Phil Niekro Sr., “was the best athlete in the family. He taught us the knuckler, but he didn’t throw it. He was big and strong. If they had radar guns in those days, they say he threw it 100 miles an hour. … Phil [Jr.] and I can’t bring it 100 combined.” Tony Kornheiser, “For Joe Niekro, It’s Certainly About Time,” Washington Post, October 19, 1987: C01.

2 The second-place Oakland Athletics were a game behind the Twins. Six of the seven AL West clubs – the Twins, A’s, Angels, Royals, Rangers, and Mariners – were within five games of one another when play began on August 3.

3 The 37-year-old Buckner was appearing in his sixth game with the Angels after getting released by the Boston Red Sox on July 23 and signing with California five days later.

4 Tschida later said that “the balls were defaced in the same spot by something that couldn’t be done by hands.” Dennis Brackin, “Did Niekro Mean to Give Angels a Rough Time? League Officials Will Rule,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, August 5, 1987: 01A.

5 Brackin, “Did Niekro Mean to Give Angels a Rough Time? League Officials Will Rule.”

6 Mike Penner, “Angel Ballboy Saves Evidence Against Niekro,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1987: 1.

7 The author consulted a clip from a game telecast, as posted here: “MIN@CAL: Joe Niekro Ejected from Game,” YouTube video (MLB), 3:27, https://youtu.be/MzxrKO-yVV8?si=ozwqWDINqBDJ8GnK. Accessed September 2024.

8 Ira Berkow, “Looking for the Smoking Anything,” New York Times, August 9, 1987: A3.

9 Umpiring crew chief Dave Phillips told reporters the sandpaper he had confiscated from Niekro was about a half-inch long. He added: “I’m sure he had it stuck to a finger on his glove hand. When we examined the sandpaper, there was a fingerprint on the back side.” Dennis Brackin, “Niekro Given 10-Day Penalty,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, August 6, 1987: 01D.

10 Brackin, “Niekro Given 10-Day Penalty.”

11 The American League first banned emery balls in 1914, as noted in Gary Belleville, “September 12, 1914: Yankees Hurler Ray Keaton Caught Red-Handed; American League Bans Emery Ball,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-12-1914-yankees-hurler-ray-keating-caught-red-handed-american-league-bans-emery-ball/. Accessed October 2024. Rule 3.02 of baseball’s 1987 rulebook states that “no player shall intentionally discolor or damage a ball by rubbing it with soil, resin, paraffin, licorice, sandpaper, emery paper, or other foreign substance.” Regarding penalties: “The umpire shall demand the ball and remove the offender from the game. In case the umpire cannot locate the offender, and if the pitcher delivers such discolored or damaged ball to the batter, the pitcher shall be removed from the game at once and shall be suspended automatically for 10 days.” Official Baseball Rules (St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1987), 23.

12 Witt had represented the Angels three weeks earlier, in the 1987 All-Star Game in Oakland. His August 3 loss to the Twins dropped his record to 13-7.

13 The quote from Parker comes from Penner, “Angel Ballboy Saves Evidence Against Niekro.” The Los Angeles Herald Examiner identified the player who intervened as Twins outfielder Dan Gladden, as noted in Associated Press, “New Twist to Niekro Case,” Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1987: 5.

14 Newman told reporters, “I’m not denying that I saw [Parker]. But I am damn sure denying that I wrestled him to the ground. I just asked to see the balls and he said no.” Penner, “Angel Ballboy Saves Evidence Against Niekro.”

15 The author consulted a clip from Niekro’s August 14 appearance on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman, as posted here: “Joe Niekro Talks About Ball Scuffing,” YouTube video (Paul Lundgren), 7:06, https://youtu.be/cGEMk-YKWLA?si=MrycDftl4bhV3ASU. Accessed September 2024.

16 Joe Niekro’s letter to Phil is dated August 4, 1987. It was published as part of Phil and Joe Niekro with Ken Picking, The Niekro Files: The Uncensored Letters of Baseball’s Most Notorious Brothers (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988), 119.

17 Charlie McCarthy (United Press International), August 6, 1987, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/08/06/Minnesota-pitcher-Joe-Niekro-was-suspended-Wednesday-for-10/3550920087215/. Accessed September 2024.

18 Richard Justice, “Joe Niekro Suspended 10 Days; AL Acts on Scuffballs,” Washington Post, August 6, 1987: D01.

19 In a letter dated August 8, 1987, Niekro wrote this to brother Phil: “Knucks, do you have any idea what I had in my back pockets during that game? You guessed it: an emery board in one pocket and a piece of sandpaper in the other, just like every other start for the last 16 years. Nobody checked me, nobody even asked me about it. Not an umpire, not anybody.” The letter was published in The Niekro Files, 127.

20 “Joe Niekro Talks About Ball Scuffing.”

21 “Joe Niekro Talks About Ball Scuffing.”