May 4, 1963: Braves’ Bob Shaw sets NL/AL record with 5 balks

The National League’s ill-advised crackdown on balks had reached its zenith. On May 4, 1963, Milwaukee Braves starter Bob Shaw was charged with five balks in an abbreviated outing against the Chicago Cubs. The infractions were stunning considering Shaw had begun the season with just one balk in 970⅓ career innings in the big leagues. As of the end of the 2023 season, it was the only time a pitcher had been charged with more than four balks in an NL or AL game.

The controversy had begun nearly a year earlier when Cincinnati Reds pitcher Joey Jay attempted to neutralize the basestealing of Los Angeles Dodgers speedster Maury Wills.1 Jay alternated the length of his pause in the set position, hoping to throw off Wills’s timing. The Dodgers protested forcefully, arguing that Jay had violated rule 8.05 (m), which stipulated that a balk should be called whenever a hurler delivers a pitch from the set position without coming to a full one-second stop.2 Both of the balks charged against Jay in 1962 – the only two in his 13 seasons in the big leagues − were for a violation of rule 8.05 (m) with Wills on first base.3

Wills went on to steal 104 bases in 1962, breaking the NL/AL single-season record in the twentieth century.4 Los Angeles led the majors with 198 steals – exactly twice as many stolen bases as the number-two team, the Washington Senators. The Dodgers continued to lobby the league for a stricter enforcement of the one-second pause, and in the spring of 1963, NL president Warren Giles instructed his umpires to do just that.5

It did not take long for the balks to pile up. The NL smashed its single-season record of 76 balks before the end of April.6 By comparison, NL umpires had called only 48 balks in the entire 1962 season. “How long is this comic opera going to continue?” said Paul Richards, general manager of the Houston Colt .45s.7

Three balks were called in the opener of a three-game series between the Braves and Cubs on May 3, won by Chicago, 10-7. The victory was the Cubs’ fourth win in five games, and it evened their record at 11-11, the latest they had been at the .500 mark since 1959. Powered by exciting young players like Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Lou Brock, Dick Ellsworth, and Ken Hubbs – all 24 years old or younger – the fifth-place Cubs were only 3½ games behind the league-leading St. Louis Cardinals.8

Milwaukee was in fourth place with a 13-11 record, just 2½ games out of first. The Braves’ potent offense was led by Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews, along with a blossoming young catcher, Joe Torre.9 Warren Spahn, still dominant at 42 years old, remained Milwaukee’s ace starter.

Shaw was best known for helping the “Go-Go” Chicago White Sox to the 1959 pennant with a breakout 18-win season.10 He wasn’t able to sustain that success in Chicago, and after a brief stint with the Kansas City Athletics, he was traded to the Braves in December 1961.11 Shaw paid immediate dividends for Milwaukee, winning 15 games in 1962 and earning his only career All-Star selection. The 29-year-old right-hander came into his May 4 outing with a 0-1 record and a 2.88 ERA in his first four starts, which also included an uncharacteristic three balks.

Shaw was opposed by righty Glen Hobbie (1-2, 2.52 ERA), who was in his seventh season with the Cubs.

It wasn’t long before the game’s first balk was called. The third batter of the game, Williams, reached on a two-out single and advanced to second when Shaw committed a balk. After Santo drew a base on balls, Shaw settled down and got out of the inning by striking out first baseman Ernie Banks.

The teams exchanged single runs in the second on RBI groundouts by Cubs right fielder Brock and Shaw.12

Williams led off the third with a walk. He went to second and then third on Shaw’s back-to-back balks.13 Two outs later, shortstop André Rodgers walked, putting runners on the corners. Shaw capped the bizarre inning by committing his third balk of the frame and fourth of the contest, forcing in the go-ahead run. Remarkably, Williams had circled the bases on a walk and three balks.

Milwaukee tied the score, 2-2, in the fourth on an RBI single by left fielder Don Dillard.

The Cubs blew the game open in the fifth in what the Chicago Tribune called “one of the silliest innings in baseball history.”14 Williams got things started by tapping a slow roller to first baseman Norm Larker, who attempted to make the out unassisted. But first-base umpire Ed Vargo ruled that Larker missed the tag; the pugnacious Larker vehemently voiced his displeasure and was tossed from the game.

After Santo hit into a force out and Banks singled, Shaw was called for his record-breaking fifth balk of the game. The embattled hurler walked the next two batters to force in a run and give him six free passes in the game. As manager Bobby Bragan came out to make a pitching change, Shaw gave home-plate umpire Al Barlick a piece of his mind and was ejected.15

The inning continued to unravel for the Braves with Ron Piché on the mound. Piché wild-pitched a run home before catcher Merritt Ranew’s broken-bat single scored two more. Ranew advanced to second on a passed ball by veteran backstop Del Crandall and scored on a two-out single by Brock, extending Chicago’s lead to 7-2.

Milwaukee got one of those runs back in the sixth on an RBI double by Dillard off reliever Paul Toth.16 In the seventh, Toth gave up two more runs on Williams’s dropped fly ball, two singles, and a balk. With the Cubs’ lead trimmed to 7-5, Toth was rescued from a two-out, bases-loaded jam when Lindy McDaniel came in and struck out the hot-hitting Dillard.17

In the eighth, Braves reliever Denny Lemaster was called for the seventh and final balk of the game. McDaniel was perfect the rest of the way and the Cubs hung on for a 7-5 win.

Not surprisingly, the balks were a hot topic after the game, especially with the Braves. “The umpires are ruining the game,” Shaw complained.18 NL umpires had called 93 balks in less than a month, forcing the Milwaukee Journal to conclude that the “balk contagion [has] spread to epidemic proportions.”19 Meanwhile, AL umpires had called only nine balks in the same period.

In addition to Shaw’s single-game record, he also set the single-season NL/AL mark with eight balks – in only five starts.20 (The previous record was six balks, which was set earlier in the season by Bob Friend of the Pittsburgh Pirates in his first two starts.21)

Although Bragan was unhappy with the umpires, he saved much of his wrath for the Braves pitching staff, which had committed 12 balks in 25 games. He immediately instituted a $25 fine for a balk and two days later – an offday – he had his hurlers report at noon for what he called a “refresher course on the rudiments of pitching.”22

The balk crackdown took its toll on the umpires as well. “We umps have to shoulder too much blame, yet all we do is enforce the rules,” said Barlick, a future Hall of Famer. “We don’t write the rules, just make certain none is violated.”23

Three days after Shaw’s five-balk outing, Commissioner Ford Frick met with Giles and AL President Joe Cronin and they agreed to remove the one-second pause from the balk rule. (A full stop was still required when coming to the set position.24) The change was irrelevant to the AL, since it hadn’t ordered the one-second rule to be enforced. When the rule change was announced, Cronin was seen smirking at the NL’s self-inflicted balk troubles.25

The Braves went on to win only nine games in May, putting an early end to their pennant hopes. They finished in sixth place with an 84-78-1 record. Chicago stayed in the hunt until the surging Dodgers pulled away from the pack by winning 17 of their first 20 games in July. The Cubs ended up in seventh place with an 82-80 record, giving them their first winning season since 1946.

To the surprise of few, the frequency of balk calls in NL games subsided soon after the one-second pause was removed from the rule book. It was more than two years before Shaw was called for another infraction.26 He finished his 11-year career in the big leagues with a 108-98 record, a 3.52 ERA, and 12 balks – eight of which were called during the NL’s contentious one-month clampdown on balks.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Madison McEntire and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org. The author also reviewed the SABR biographies of Bob Shaw, Warren Giles, and Al Barlick. Unless otherwise noted, all play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “7-5 Victory Puts Chicago in 4th Place,” on page 57 of the May 5, 1963, edition of the Chicago Tribune.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MLN/MLN196305040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1963/B05040MLN1963.htm

Photo credit

Photo of Bob Shaw courtesy the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Joe McGuff, “Pitchers Confused as Umpires Differ on Calls of Balks,” Kansas City Star, March 19, 1963: 13.

2 United Press International, “Hutchison Dislikes Balk Rule,” Hartford Courant, August 31, 1962: 46; Ernest Mehl, “Sporting Comment,” Kansas City Star, April 26, 1963: 4C.

3 A balk was called against Jay in his starts at Dodger Stadium on June 23 and August 29, 1962. United Press International, “Hutchison Dislikes Balk Rule.”

4 At the start of the 1962 season, the NL/AL stolen-base record was 111, set by John Montgomery Ward in 1887 and tied by Billy Hamilton in 1891. Hugh Nicol held the American Association record with 138 stolen bases, which was set in 1887. Wills broke Ty Cobb’s AL/NL record for the twentieth century. Cobb stole 96 bases in 1915. Lou Brock surpassed Wills’s mark when he stole 118 bases in 1974. As of the end of 2023, Rickey Henderson held the single-season record for the most stolen bases in the AL or NL since 1900. He stole 130 bases in 1982.

5 Cleon Walfoort, “Shaw Is Balkiest Pitcher of Them All,” Milwaukee Journal, May 5, 1963: 47.

6 The Associated Press reported that Don Schwall tied the record with the league’s 76th balk on April 28. But according to Stathead.com, Schwall’s balk was the NL’s 77th of the season, which would have broken the record. In any event, Roger Craig and Ed Roebuck each committed a balk on April 29. Associated Press, “Only Third Week, But Balks Already Tie All-Time Mark,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1963: 47.

7 Milton Richman (United Press International), “Umps Backed by NL Prexy,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, April 23, 1963: 19.

8 Billy Williams turned 25 on June 15. Hubbs died tragically in a plane crash in February 1964. In a deal that the Cubs would come to regret, Brock was traded away on June 15, 1964. He was sent to the Cardinals along with Jack Spring and Paul Toth in return for Ernie Broglio, Doug Clemens, and Bobby Shantz.

9 Torre had started 20 of the Braves’ first 24 games, so he did not appear in this game. Torre had a breakout season in 1963, hitting .293 with 14 homers and 71 RBIs.

10 Shaw went 18-6 with a 2.69 ERA in 1959, leading the AL with a .750 winning percentage. He earned the win by tossing 7⅓ innings of shutout baseball against the Dodgers in Game Five of the World Series. Los Angeles clinched in Game Six.

11 After mediocre results in 1960 and the first two months of the 1961 season, Shaw was traded to Kansas City in June. He went 9-10 with a 4.31 ERA with the Athletics for the remainder of 1961. On December 15, 1961, he was traded from Kansas City to Milwaukee along with Lou Klimchock in return for Joe Azcue, Ed Charles, and Manny Jiménez.

12 There was a 29-minute rain delay with two out in the bottom of the first and a 32-minute rain delay with two out in the top of the fourth. No pitching changes were made because of the rain delays.

13 Williams wasn’t a huge threat to steal. He was 9-for-18 in stolen-base attempts in 1962 and 0-for-2 so far in 1963.

14 Edward Prell, “7-5 Victory Puts Chicago in 4th Place,” Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1963: 57.

15 Bob Wolf, “Cubs Vault into Fourth,” Milwaukee Journal, May 5, 1963: 47.

16 Toth had entered the game with two outs and two runners on base in the fourth inning. Hobbie gave up two earned runs on six hits and three walks in 3⅔ innings.

17 Dillard had five hits in his previous 10 at-bats when he faced McDaniel.

18 Walfoort, “Shaw Is Balkiest Pitcher of Them All.”

19 Walfoort, “Shaw Is Balkiest Pitcher of Them All.”

20 As of the end of the 2023 season, the AL/NL record for balks in a season was 16 by Dave Stewart of the Oakland Athletics in 1988, which became known as the Year of the Balk. The balk rule was modified in 1988 to redefine “complete stop” as “a single complete and discernible stop, with both feet on the ground.” The change resulted in 366 balks in the NL and 558 in the AL – both records still stood as of the end of the 2023 season. The previous balk rule was reinstated for 1989. John Hickey, “Remember 1988’s Year of the Balk? The A’s Certainly Do,” Sports Illustrated, April 13, 2020, https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/remember-1988s-year-of-the-balk-the-as-certainly-do, accessed November 19, 2023.

21 Friend was called for two balks in his April 9 start against the Braves and four balks in his April 13 start against the Cincinnati Reds.

22 Cleon Walfoort, “Braves’ Pitchers Going Back to School as Bragan Declares War on Balking,” Milwaukee Journal, May 6, 1963: 32; Walfoort, “Shaw Is Balkiest Pitcher of Them All.”

23 David Vincent, “Al Barlick,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/al-barlick/, accessed November 19, 2023.

24 Associated Press, “National League Alters the Balk Rule, but Umps Can Still Call Them,” Corsicana (Texas) Daily Sun, May 8, 1963: 9.

25 Associated Press, “National League Alters the Balk Rule, but Umps Can Still Call Them.”

26 On December 3, 1963, the Braves traded Shaw, Del Crandall, and Bob Hendley to the Giants for Felipe Alou, Ed Bailey, Billy Hoeft, and a player to be named later, Ernie Bowman. Shaw’s next balk came when he was pitching for the Giants against the Braves on July 25, 1965.