I was surprised to find that the ball bore a long black ink inscription winding its way along the curving contour of the seams:

This ball was a home run knocked into the center field bleachers by Fred Merkle the N.Y. Giants 1st baseman, and was caught by Fred T. Brown. July 4th 1911 – 2nd Game Double Header. This was the day that both the Athletics and Phillies took the lead.

Suddenly, I knew this $40 sacrifice was worth it. While my girlfriend looked on with more than a little disbelief, I emptied my wallet for the prized ball, trying my best not to let the proprietor catch on that he was dealing in relics far more precious (to me) than he knew.

Frederick Charles Merkle, born December 20, 1888, in Watertown, Wisconsin, was one of early baseball’s most famous figures. He was not a great player, but rather a very good one who became baseball’s greatest laughingstock, the patron saint of life’s wrong turns, inopportune disasters, and public embarrassments. I surmised that the shop owner had little or no baseball in his religion, or at least that he had not bothered to educate himself about Merkle’s infamous failure to step on second base in a crucial game of the epic 1908 National League pennant race.

Inexpressibly excited about the piece of American history nestled in my coat pocket, I told tales of Merkle all the way home.

The ball was dark brown all over and shiny like a well-varnished antique. The “Official National League” label was worn almost beyond recognition, and the seams were not the familiar red zig-zags found on virtually every baseball since the 1930s. Instead, the stitches alternated red and blue, betraying the ball’s manufacture in the Merkle era. Mud-stained, tobacco-splattered, and scuffed, the ball clearly had been through more than an inning or two of diamond warfare. It brought to mind a passage in Lawrence Ritter’s classic The Glory of Their Times, in which Merkle’s teammate Fred Snodgrass recalled how hard it was to see the dark brown balls in the afternoon shadows:

We hardly ever saw a new baseball, a clean one. If the ball went into the stands and the ushers couldn’t get it back from the spectators, only then would the umpire throw out a new one. He’d throw the ball out to the pitcher, who would promptly sidestep it. It would go around the infield once or twice and come back to the pitcher as black as the ace of spades. All the infielders were chewing tobacco or licorice, and spitting into their gloves, and they’d give that ball a good going over before it ever got to the pitcher.

This is much more interesting than today’s “game-used” balls, which are hardly used at all, being banished as soon as they show so much as a nick or a smudge.

Against the brown patina of my new 1911 ball, the printed black letters of Fred T. Brown’s inscription betray a slow-paced clumsiness—though not quite childlike—which suggests a certain lack of practice. Given his eagerness to record the details of his quarry, it seems our scribe was not an indifferent older spectator, but a dedicated young fan.

All that night my curiosity about the 1911 game ball ran wild. Had Christy Mathewson pitched for the Giants that day?

The next morning I went straight to the university library to look up the box score in the archival microfilms of the Philadelphia Inquirer. There, amid the front page news of Independence Day aeroplane exhibitions and boat races, I found the jubilant headline reporting that both of Philadelphia’s teams, the Phillies and the Athletics, had taken over first place that Tuesday, just as the ball’s inscription had boasted.

The Phillies had swept a doubleheader from John McGraw’s Giants in front of 18,000 fans at National League Park (rechristened the Baker Bowl in 1913) on Huntingdon and Broad streets, and Jack Coombs of the A’s had won both games of a twin bill over the Highlanders up in New York:

The story continued in the sports pages. The account of the Phillies game described Merkle “lacing a wallop into the bleachers in the seventh” with two runners on base. That phrase alone, forever engraved in the annals of the sport, made it all worth my forty bucks! But now I wanted to learn everything else about Merkle’s homer and its circumstances. My eyes raced through the lengthy game summary and checked the box score. The first question? Who had thrown Merkle the gopher ball so long ago? Surely he was some forgotten nobody whose lowly stature had not merited a mention on Fred T. Brown’s souvenir ball.

As it turned out, the pitcher was a 24-year-old still only midway through his rookie year. Despite the punishing 96-degree heat, the freshman weathered Merkle’s late-inning blast to finish with a complete game 7–5 triumph over New York’s Doc Crandall, Rube Marquard, and Red Ames.

The victory improved his record to 16–4, and the writers were already calling him “the pitching wonder of the year.” Yes, the pitcher that July 4 was none other than Grover Cleveland Alexander.

The baseball gods truly were smiling down upon me, as the ball I had acquired the night before had been thrown by one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game, the storied hero of the 1926 World Series, and holder of National League records for lifetime victories and shutouts! Eager to possess some documentation that would authenticate the significance of my sacred relic, I photocopied the entire newspaper account, including the box score.

Although nothing carries more documentary weight in baseball than an official box score, I noticed that this one misspelled Chief Meyers’ name as “Myers” and contained some numerical discrepancies, the most obvious being Philadelphia’s fielding statistics. They gave catcher Red Dooin the identical totals as the shortstop Mickey Doolan, but the catcher must have had at least seven putouts on Alexander’s strikeouts, and he probably had no errors (only one was charged to the team) and somewhat fewer assists. In addition, this box score missed a catcher’s interference error charged to M(e)yers.

Other interesting notes from the game: while Philadelphia’s center fielder Dode Paskert, taking advantage of the rules of the day, bounced a ball into the left-field bleachers for a home run, first baseman Fred Luderus walloped a pair of homers onto Broad Street in right, becoming the first player to hit two balls out of Philadelphia’s home park on the fly in the same game. New York’s starting pitcher Doc Crandall slammed a liner high off the big Bull Durham tobacco sign in right center but later had to be carried off the field after being hit in the head by a line drive that, amazingly, left-fielder Josh Devore almost caught on the fly. Crandall, therefore, was almost credited with an assist while getting knocked unconscious.

Like the old box score, the newspaper report of the game was a marvelous find in its own right. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s writer covering the Phillies, Edgar F. Wolfe, signed his article with the pseudonym “Jim Nasium.” He was also a cartoonist of some talent, who (in the absence of game photos) illustrated his account with a caricature of a toothless New York Giants player being blasted from below by an exploding Phillies firecracker.

Wolfe had a distinct gift for slangy ballpark lingo. From his prolix typewriter flowed a tangled ribbon of old-fashioned diamondese, the likes of which one just doesn’t see any more. He renamed the Giants the “Joints” while the home team became “Dooin’s Drubbers” after their catcher-manager. An error was either a “bum chuck” or “foozle.” Hometown hitters with “venom in their bludgeons” connected for a “psychological pelting” of the New York pitchers that included a “timely two-base soak” and a “three-cushion shot.” The 18,000 fans felt “effervescent joy” whenever a Phillie “pasted one on the snoot” and more runners “pattered over the pan.” The colorful Mr. Nasium described Merkle’s home run like this:

Alexander was effective throughout the affray, save in the seventh, when, with two down, a freak break in the fortunes of war and a little perspiration in the eyes of Ump Rigler on a third strike or two on Murray allowed the Giants to chase in three runs. But ‘Alex’ wasn’t in danger even then … Snodgrass got a scratch hit by bounding one that Alexander checked just enough to turn it into a hit, and then Snodgrass stole second, as what Dooin thought was the third strike came over on Murray, Charlie not throwing because he thought the side was out. Rigler, however, called it a ball, and then Murray walked on another that looked mighty good. Merkle then caught one under the lug and lifted it into the bleachers, scoring Snodgrass and Murray ahead of him.

The New York Times described the same blast by Merkle more precisely as a “long drive” into the left field bleachers. Since Fred T. Brown recorded that he was sitting in center field when he caught or retrieved the home run—and what a thrill that must have been!—let’s split the difference and call it left-center.

Those bleachers, built in 1910, were 408 feet from home plate in center, and 379 to left-center, meaning that even though the homer was hardly Ruthian, it
certainly was a long drive for the time. Although home run totals shot up in 1911 (a record 316 were hit in the National League, as opposed to 214 in 1910 and 150 in 1909), their relative rarity in those days is shown by the fact that Giants hit only 16 four-baggers on the road that year, with Merkle’s July 4 rocket one of only four of the three-run variety.

Although Merkle, fearing for his safety and having lost 15 pounds from stress, wanted to quit baseball after his 1908 blunder, John McGraw gave him a $300 raise and had the foresight to stick with him as he developed into a right-handed power-and-speed standout.

He walloped a career-high 12 homers in 1911, ranking fifth in the league (Wildfire Schulte led with 21), one better than Home Run Baker’s high for the American League. Leading the Giants with 84 RBI, he put on two memorable power-hitting displays, doubling and tripling in one inning on June 5 then setting a record on May 13 (since broken) with six RBI in a single inning via a homer and a double. He also stole 49 bases in 1911.

Widely considered the fastest man in the league after Honus Wagner, Merkle swiped 272 bases during his sixteen-year career, including eleven thefts of home. No matter what else he did out on the diamond, however, the newspapers and fans knew him only as “Bonehead” Merkle. Finally, in 1950, after avoiding ballparks and reporters for decades, he agreed to attend an old-timers game at the Polo Grounds and was greeted with a touching and unforgettable standing ovation. He died on March 2, 1956.

Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander, born the February 26 1887, in Elba, Nebraska, likewise owed the majority of his fame to a single moment in baseball lore. Unlike poor Merkle, however, Pete emerged as the hero, saving the seventh game of the 1926 World Series for the Cardinals by striking out Yankee slugger Tony Lazzeri with the bases full in what his Hall of Fame plaque calls the “final crisis at Yankee Stadium.”

It was a truly dramatic moment, especially for a 39-year-old all-time great who had never won a championship, but it was only the seventh inning, and Alex had already provided plenty of heroics by winning both of his Series starts. The notoriety of this single confrontation (re-enacted by Ronald Reagan in the 1952 film The Winning Team) nearly overshadows the pitcher’s three 30-win seasons, his 28 wins as a rookie in 1911 (a post-1900 record), his record 16 shutouts in 1916, and his 373 lifetime victories.

As a rookie in 1911, Alexander allowed only five home runs in 367 innings. According to the SABR Home Run Encyclopedia, Alexander was Merkle’s favorite target, serving up five of the first baseman’s 61 career long balls. In those deadball days, neither man could have been unaware of such a concentration of gophers, so it is likely that Merkle and Alexander grew to feel a sense of rivalry.

The two men faced each other down six or seven times a year for seven seasons, and in 1915, Merkle broke up one of Alexander’s many unsuccessful no-hit bids. Although they became teammates on the Cubs in 1918, their final “encounter” was in the famous seventh game of the 1926 World Series. Merkle was on the bench as a Yankees coach, hired by skipper Miller Huggins on account of his baseball acumen.

He was eligible to play, and we might picture Merkle saying to himself, “C’mon, Hug, put me in there! I used to pound this guy!” A key hit would have been a nice way to redeem 1908, but he never got the chance.

Although my old brown baseball’s day of baptism, the Fourth of July in 1911, was exactly a century ago, the game of baseball was different in so many ways it seems like an eternity. Yet fans like Fred T. Brown were not unlike us: they shared our love of the national game, cheering for the home team in the Independence Day heat, and they too felt that wary thrill whenever a ball came spinning their way.

Unlike Mr. Brown, I have never caught a home run or even snagged a foul ball after it came to rest amid the peanut shells. But just as he took care to inscribe his baseball, I always mark my ticket stubs with some salient occurrence of the day’s game. Pulling out three faded tickets from 1990, I see that I made note of the record ten double plays (nine of them grounded into) produced by the Red Sox (6) and Twins (4) on July 18, one night after the Bostonians had grounded into a record two triple plays … of Boston’s tenth straight victory in a Sunday game against the Yankees on September 2 … and of the best time I ever had at the old ballgame, the “Jeff Stone Game” on September 28 (ask a diehard Red Sox fan).

The old Alexander-Merkle ball, now in a display case on the fireplace mantel in my home, is a silent souvenir of that roaring hot day of a century ago. Like all worthy pieces of archaeology, the ball offers those who contemplate its history a much clearer picture of long-ago events. By piquing our curiosity about the pastime of an earlier era, these pieces of history inform us about important aspects of our own traditions. Such an artifact also connects us with our historical heroes, who suddenly become living and breathing people with imperfect destinies, not just names with records attached.

Of course, all of this comes from our awareness of the ball’s original context. For this we must thank Mr. Fred T. Brown of Philadelphia for his foresight in documenting his trophy with the particular circumstances of its time and place. That is what makes the old baseball relic so precious: not the imagined monetary value added by its associations with Hall of Famers and legendary “losers,” but its ability to retell a story of our national pastime which otherwise might be forgotten.

ERIC MARSHALL WHITE, PH.D., is a rare book librarian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas whose research usually involves Gutenberg and the development of printing in 15th-century Europe.

SOURCES

Charles C. Alexander, John McGraw (New York: Viking, 1988).

Herbert Bursky, “The Day Fred Merkle Returned to the Polo Grounds,” Baseball Digest, December, 1970.

Jack Kavanagh, Ol’ Pete: The Grover Cleveland Alexander Story (South Bend: Diamond Communications, 1997).

Christy Mathewson, Pitching in a Pinch (New York: Putnam, 1912).

The New York Times, July 5, 1911.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 5, 1911.

Lawrence Ritter, The Glory of Their Times (New York: MacMillan, 1966).

Lawrence Ritter, Lost Ballparks (New York: Viking, 1993).

The SABR Home Run Encyclopedia. Edited by Bob McConnell and David Vincent (New York: MacMillan, 1996).

John C. Skipper, Wicked Curve: The Life and Troubled Times of Grover Cleveland Alexander (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006).

Craig R. Wright generously provided useful information about fans returning baseballs hit into the stands in the early days.

He was a downtown Brooklyn lawyer, and his place in baseball circles came through his decades-long contacts with local sports stars.

But Sid holds a distinction that he was reluctant to discuss. Back in the early 1930s, when barely out of his teens, he was—ever so briefly—a radio play-by-play man for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I got to know Sid in the mid-1970s, when I was the arts and sports editor at Courier-Life, a weekly Brooklyn newspaper chain. I had heard stories about Sid’s link to baseball broadcasting, and would pepper him with questions. Unsurprisingly, his responses were purposefully vague. Sid was a modest gentleman who seemed more comfortable organizing charitable events or hyping the recently-deceased Gil Hodges, his longtime friend, to whom he had been legal counsel. To savvy Brooklyn baseball fans, Hodges was a sacred figure, first as the Dodgers first sacker during the “Boys of Summer” years and, later, as the manager who guided the New York Mets to their first world championship.

Sid passed away in 2002 at age 92. Recently I decided to research his early career. In 1930, when he was 20 years old, Sid was a budding radio personality. During that summer, he regularly appeared on the radio in various guises. A schedule for WPCH, then a popular (albeit short-lived) New York station, was printed in the July 26 New York Times “Today on the Radio” program guide. Sid was one of the headliners on “Sid Loberfeld and Miriam Ray, Songs,” listed for the 2:15 P.M.–3:00 P.M. time slot. On August 9, also at 2:15 P.M., WPCH presented a program titled “Sports Talk—Sid Loberfeld.”

By the following year, Sid had moved to WMCA, which later broadcast New York Giants games. He is listed on the October 31, 1931 “Talk of the Radio” schedule as the host of “Baseball—Sid Loberfeld,” which commenced at 3:00 P.M. and ran fifteen minutes.

It was Sid’s modest popularity that positioned his destiny as a footnote in the history of New York-area radio play-by-play. On April 12, 1932, the Times printed the following announcement:

Both of today’s opening major league baseball games in the metropolitan district will be on the air. Ted Husing will give a play-by-play description of the Phillies-Giants game at the Polo Grounds over Station WABC of the Columbia Broadcasting network.

This game will also be broadcast by Graham McNamee over the National Broadcasting Company’s WEAF network. Both broadcasts will begin at 3 P.M.

The Robins-Boston Braves game at Ebbets Field will be broadcast over two stations. At 2:45 P.M. Ford Frick will start a description of the preliminary ceremonies over station WOR. Sid Loberfeld also will announce the game over WCGU, the United States Broadcasting station in Brooklyn.

So there was Sid, in the heady company of two radio broadcasting legends and one future baseball commissioner.

In his capacity as budding media personality, Sid mingled with the era’s baseball stars. One photo, found on the web site for Fraser’s Autographs, a British memorabilia dealer, features Babe Ruth in uniform shaking hands with a young man garbed in a double-breasted suit and pale fedora hat. The inscription reads: “To Sid Loberfeld(’s) Mother, the Mother of a swell boy—Sincerely Babe Ruth.”

A second still, on Artfact, an online auction database service, is not pictured, but is described as a “classic image of Babe Ruth holding his bat, taken on the field at Yankee Stadium. Ruth is posing in front of the stands with the friends to whom he has inscribed the photo: ‘To Sid Loberfeld and his beautiful wife—Sid my favorite radio baseball announcer—Sincerely Babe Ruth’.”

Sid, of course, was not the first radio play-by-play man. That honor goes to Harold Arlin, a Westinghouse foreman who broadcast a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies over Pittsburgh’s KDKA on August 5, 1921. Nor was he the first to host a baseball chat show. On June 10, 1922, Dan Daniel broadcast baseball commentary on WEAF in New York. But Sid was, in his own modest way, a pioneer. In the early 1930s radio play-by-play still was new and not all ball clubs allowed their games to be broadcast.

As Red Barber recalled in The Broadcasters, “…usually one announcer comprised the entire broadcasting crew—working with one engineer.” He added, “… around 1930 Fred Hoey did the games in Boston, Ty Tyson in Detroit, Franz Laux in St. Louis, Harry Hartman in Cincinnati, Tom Manning in Cleveland … and in Chicago were Hal Totten, Johnny O’Hara, Pat Flanagan, Quin Ryan, and Bob Elson.” Barber was referring to Sid and his sort when he noted, “The other fellows who did games were on mostly spotty schedules—like ships that passed in the night, they came and went. There are no footprints in the air.”

In 1978, in a New York Times profile, Sid briefly recalled his time on the air. The paper reported that Sid “remembers ‘selling a bill of goods’ to the Dodgers and winning the right to broadcast play-by-play.” He explained, “In the old days, we’d announce the games from the back of the Dodger dugout, and the fans and players would slip us notes telling how the game was going.”

Sid offered baseball commentary on WMCA through 1934. In the March 6 “Today on the Radio” schedule, he is listed as the host of “Baseball Forecasts—Sid Loberfeld,” starting at 7:00 P.M. and running for fifteen minutes.

By then, Sid no longer had the opportunity to pursue a career as a play-by-play man and remain in New York. It was around this time that the three New York major league clubs agreed to prohibit radio broadcasts of their games for a five-year period. The ban, scheduled to expire at the end of the 1938 season, was instituted because the clubs feared that fans would choose to listen to games free rather than pay to sit in the stands.

Larry MacPhail, who became the Dodgers general manager in 1938, fervently believed that the opposite held true: radio broadcasts would promote the game, and increase attendance. MacPhail boldly announced that he was going to bring the ban to a close and promptly hired Red Barber (who previously had broadcast games for MacPhail in Cincinnati).

The Ole Redhead eventually became the Voice of the Dodgers, as recognizable a figure in Brooklyn as Oisk and The Duke of Flatbush, Hilda Chester, and Happy Felton. But before Red Barber, there was Sid Loberfeld.

By the time Barber came on the scene, Sid had opted for a law career. Had this been several decades in the future, he might have become a successful players’ agent. Sid remained a great fan of and spokesperson for the game, and frequently organized charitable baseball-related events. Occasionally, Sid even returned to his baseball roots. In August 1978, he and Mets broadcaster Bob Murphy did the play-by-play of a softball game at Brooklyn’s Gil Hodges Field between the Joe Torre All-Stars and Gil Hodges All-Stars (the teams consisted of Mets players’ wives) to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Starting in the early 1950s, Sid began escorting youngsters to major league baseball games. In his “Young Ideas” column, published in The Sporting News on May 21, 1977, Dick Young wrote, “It takes special unacclaimed people to make things work, men like Sid Loberfeld, a New York attorney, who enters his 26th year of chaperoning Little Leaguers to big league ballparks.”

Often, these forays were connected to Hodges. Young noted, in his May 19, 1973 column, “On June 9, some 1,500 boys from Gil Hodges’ Little League in Brooklyn will pass up their regular Saturday games to attend a Shea Stadium tribute to their benefactor. Gil’s lifetime friend, Sid Loberfeld, is coordinating the kids’ arrangement with Arthur Richman, promotions director for the Mets.”

Hodges had died suddenly the previous year in West Palm Beach, Florida, near the end of spring training. By mid-decade, Sid had become a prime mover in lobbying for his friend’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

On May 29, 1976, the “unofficial kickoff” of a campaign to get Hodges enshrined took place at Loberfeld’s Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, home. Present were then-New York Mets players Joe Torre, Jerry Koosman, Ed Kranepool, and Bud Harrelson, coach Joe Pignatano, and Gil Hodges, Jr. With the exception of Pignatano and Torre, all the Mets had played for Hodges, while Piggy played with and coached for him.

I wrote a report of the event that appeared in the June 7 issue of Flatbush Life. “The sooner Gil is in the Hall of Fame, the better it will be for the kids,” Sid told me. “He was a great humanitarian, and he stands for truthfulness and honor. After the Watergate scandal, kids certainly need as many heroes as possible to look up to.

“A couple of years before Gil died, a Met ballplayer was scheduled to appear at a temple here in Brooklyn for a fee,” Sid continued. “But at the last minute, he called up to cancel out. Hy Schwartz [a philanthropic leader in the Manhattan Beach community] went to Gil’s house on Bedford Avenue, told him of the situation, and that night Gil showed up with his wife, Joan. He refused to accept the fee, and insisted that the money go to charity. This was the kind of man Gil was.”

Sid even roped me into the Gil-for-Cooperstown campaign. It was through him that I ghostwrote an article, credited to Frances J. Mugavero, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, titled “One Vote for Gil Hodges: A Man of Integrity.” The piece ran in the New York Times on December 25, 1977.

By this time, Sid was regularly purchasing box seats at both of New York’s major league ball yards. Through his generosity, my paper sponsored a series of contests in which young readers were encouraged to pen essays on various baseball-related subjects. The first was on why Gil Hodges merited election to Cooperstown. The winners got to spend a Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium. They visited the home team’s dugout during batting practice, met ballplayers and got their autographs, and sat in Sid’s box during the game. I would savor these afternoons, because I chaperoned the youngsters.

On one of these trips, to Shea Stadium, Sid escorted me, the kids in my charge, and a number of other youngsters to a small room in the bowels of the ballpark. One by one, various Mets ballplayers entered and signed autographs. There must have been a dozen kids in the room; most were garbed in their Little League jerseys, and were carrying gloves.

Each Met who came in was instantly recognized by the group, which gave out a collective cheer. The final one may no longer have been an active player, but he was the most famous face of all—and received the loudest cheer. That was Willie Mays.

For an instant, Willie looked directly into my eyes, maybe because I was the lone adult in the room. He then smiled broadly, as if to say, “Isn’t this great. What a great day to be in a ballpark!”

Had destiny been different—had Sid Loberfeld not exchanged his microphone for a law book—he might have gone on to use these very words to describe, to his listeners, hundreds of sunny summer afternoons at Ebbets Field.

ROB EDELMAN is the author of “Great Baseball Films” and “Baseball on the Web” and is a frequent contributor to John Thorn’s “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game.” His film/television-related books include “Meet the Mertzes”—a double biography of “I Love Lucy’s” Vivian Vance and fabled baseball fan William Frawley—and “Matthau: A Life”, both co-authored with Audrey Kupferberg. He is a film commentator on WAMC (Northeast) Public Radio and a Contributing Editor of Leonard Maltin’s “Movie Guide”. His byline has appeared in “Baseball and American Culture”, “Total Baseball”, “Baseball in the Classroom”, and dozens of other books. He authored an essay on early baseball films for the DVD “Reel Baseball”, has been a juror at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s annual film festival, and is an interviewee on several extras on the director’s cut DVD of “The Natural”. He teaches film history courses at the University at Albany.

REFERENCES

• Barber, Red. The Broadcasters. New York: The Dial Press, 1970.
• Edelman, Rob. “Kick Off Gil Hodges Hall of Fame Campaign.” Flatbush Life. 7 June 1976.
• Mugavero, Francis J. “One Vote for Gil Hodges: A Man of Integrity.” New York Times. 25 December 1977.
• Tuite, James. “Sports World Specials.” New York Times. 7 August 1978.
• Young, Dick. “Young Ideas.” The Sporting News. 19 May 1973.
• Young, Dick. “Young Ideas.” The Sporting News. 21 May 1977.
• “Games at Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field To Be Described Today in Radio Broadcasts.” New York Times. 12 April 1932.
• “Today on the Radio.” New York Times. 26 July 1930.
• “Today on the Radio.” New York Times. 9 August 1930.
• “Today on the Radio.” New York Times. 13 October 1931.
• “Today on the Radio.” New York Times. 6 March 1934.

I decided to eliminate instances of players taking half-hearted, empty swings at intentional balls. For example, it has been written that pitcher Jack Coombs once deliberately struck out while the opposition was trying to walk him, because it was a hot day and he didn’t want to run the bases. In May 1976, Rod Carew took a couple of insincere swings at deliberate balls, hoping to encourage the pitcher to pitch to him with two strikes, but wound up walking anyway. A similar thing reportedly happened to Mel Ott on the last day of the 1929 season, as Phillies pitchers denied him the opportunity to catch their teammate, Chuck Klein, in the NL home run race.

To date, we have uncovered only eleven instances in which a batter, in the process of being intentionally walked, swung and actually put the ball in play:

• On August 8, 1907, Detroit’s Ty Cobb tripled against the Athletics’ Eddie Plank to cap a four-run third inning, leading the Tigers to a 5–3 win. Cobb came up with one out and runners on second and third when Plank tried to put him on, but the third pitch was close enough for Cobb to whale down the right field line, scoring both runners.

• On September 20, 1908, Philadelphia’s Eddie Plank (again!) lost to the White Sox, 1–0 (Chicago’s Frank Smith threw a no-hitter) on a freak ninth-inning run. With runners at first and third and one out, Plank was trying to walk Freddy Parent intentionally. Parent crossed things up by reaching out at the third pitch and swatting a grounder to second baseman Scotty Barr, who threw home too late to get Frank Isbell.

• On May 28, 1937, according to The Sporting News, “Instead of accepting an intentional pass to first base, Second Baseman Odell Hale of the Indians rifled the fourth ball to [White Sox’] Center Fielder Mike Kreevich in the ninth inning … With Hal Trosky on second and the score tied, Vernon Kennedy, Chicago right-hander, was trying to walk Hale to take a chance on a double play with Frankie Pytlak at the bat.” Cleveland wound up losing 3–2 in ten innings.

• On May 1, 1955 in the 16th inning, with the Giants’ Whitey Lockman on second base, one out, and a 3–0 count, Don Mueller singled off the Reds’ Bob Hooper. Lockman moved to third and scored moments later to give the Giants a 2–1 victory.

• On May 7, 1959, with runners on second and third and one out in the eighth inning, the Dodgers’ Stan Williams tried to walk the Giants’ Willie Mays intentionally. Mays, perhaps inspired by the memory of his former teammate, took a cut at the 3–0 pitch. But unlike Mueller, Mays fouled out to the catcher and the Giants lost, 2–1.

• Just 22 days later, on May 29, 1959, Milwaukee’s Joe Adcock came up in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game with one out and runners on second and third. The Phillies’ Gene Conley tried to put Adcock on, but Joe swung at the first pitch, grounding the ball up the middle. Second baseman Sparky Anderson, stationed far behind the bag in case of an errant pickoff attempt, fielded the ball but threw home too late to get Hank Aaron, who scored to give the Braves a 6–5 win.

• As Reds’ manager, Sparky probably enjoyed this one a lot more. In the first game of a May 16, 1972 twin bill, with one out in the eighth and Dave Concepcion on second, Pete Rose swung at a deliberate ball thrown by the Giants’ Ron Bryant. Third baseman Jim Ray Hart “was caught by surprise and fumbled [the] ball, allowing Concepcion to score,” according to The Sporting News. It proved to be the winning run for the Reds, making the score 4–2 en route to a 4–3 victory.
• On September 27, 1973, the Phillies’ Bob Boone came up against the Pirates’ Chris Zachary in the 13th inning with one out and Greg Luzinski on second. Zachary tried to put Boone on, but Bob slapped the first pitch for a single, moving Luzinski to third. The Bull promptly scored on a wild pitch to give the Phils a 3–2 win.
• On August 25, 1980, the Dodgers led the Phillies 6–4 in the ninth. Joe Ferguson came up with runners on second and third and one out. Ferguson swung at Tug McGraw’s second intentional pitch and got a two-run single out of it. McGraw drilled the next batter in retribution, starting a bench-clearing brawl. The Dodgers won, 8–4. Interestingly, that day’s Phillies lineup included the two most recent perpetrators of the surprise swing.
• On September 2, 1996, Colorado’s Andres Galarraga came up in the eighth inning with a runner on third, one out, and a 4–3 lead. Pittsburgh’s Matt Ruebel tried to pass Galarraga intentionally, but the Big Cat swung and reached on an error by second baseman Jeff King, bringing in a run. This ignited a four-run inning and an 8–3 win for the Rockies.
• On June 22, 2006, Miguel Cabrera was being walked intentionally by the Orioles’ Todd Williams when he took a surprise swing at the first pitch and came through with an RBI single, knocking in the go-ahead run and sparking the Marlins to an 8–5, ten-inning victory.

One thing I have noticed is that walks described as “intentional” yesteryear were often what we would today call “pitching around” a batter. For example, the Detroit Free Press account of Cobb’s hit said that team captain Harry “Davis instructed Plank to pass Cobb, so that any field grounder by the next batter would be good for a double play. Plank apparently intended to follow instructions, but did not keep them away far enough. The third ball that he tried to waste went just inside the plate [Italics mine]. Ordinarily a batter would take a ball on it, but it was just the right hight (sic) and Cobb smashed it.”

Click on the image below to view the original list in table form.

Interestingly, of the 11 documented instances, nine resulted in positive results: five in hits, two in errors by the caught-off-guard defense, and two in game-winning RBI. Of course, it could simply be that successful results are more likely to be reported.

Author’s note

This is presented as a work in progress rather than a definitive list. Should anyone know other instances which belong on this list, please contact the author at billdeane14@gmail.com.

BILL DEANE is in his 30th year as a SABR member, and has been a frequent contributor to its publications and Listserv.

Postscript

By Bill Deane
February 5, 2012

In the Spring 2011 Baseball Research Journal, I presented a list and description of “Surprise Swings at Intentional Balls” — 11 documented instances in which a batter was being intentionally walked, but swung at a pitch and put it into play.

Since then, as hoped, I have been contacted by others with details about, or leads on, other such examples. Possible ones involving Ed Delahanty, Cap Anson (July 15, 1896), Nap Lajoie (September 24, 1901), Mel Ott (October 5, 1929), Clay Dalrymple (c. 1964), Ralph Garr (c. 1975), and Bo Jackson (c. 1987) lack documentation or evidence. But, thanks to Frank Vaccaro, Barry Sparks, Bob Brelsford, and Mike Cameron, I have added four more instances to the list:

• In an NL game on July 11, 1892, Kid Nichols and Boston led Chicago, 3-2. According to THE SPORTING LIFE, “With two men on bases, in the ninth inning, and one hand out, [Chicago player-manager Cap] Anson refused to take a base on balls. Nichols lined the ball over the plate. Anson met it and shot it to [second baseman Joe] Quinn, who caught it, and, touching second base, completed a [game-ending] double play.”
• On June 10, 1912, the Cubs and Giants went into extra innings tied at seven. According to THE SPORTING LIFE, “Chicago won in the tenth, when, with [Joe] Tinker on third, [Giants’ relief pitcher Doc] Crandall was ordered to pass Zimmerman. Zimmerman reached out of the batter’s box and drove a wide pitch into the right-field wing of the grand stand for a home run.” New York scored one in the bottom of the frame but lost, 9-8.
• On April 17, 1918, the Senators and Yankees were tied at seven in the 12th inning. With runners on first and third, Nats’ relief pitcher Walter Johnson tried to walk long-time nemesis Frank “Home Run” Baker intentionally. Baker lashed at the third pitch, sending it to deep center field to score the winning run.
• On May 30, 1956 (second game), the Cubs’ Harry Chiti reached out to poke an intentional ball from Milwaukee’s Ray Crone, earning an RBI-triple. According to one baseball writer, “Chiti had a reputation for vastly overrating his abilities. In extreme contrast, Cubs fans had totally turned on him by ’56. His last name was pronounced ‘Cheety,’ but Cubs fans had taken to calling him ‘Shitty.’ Even in his moment of glory — getting a surprise hit on a deliberately wide pitch and chugging all the way to third — a Cubs’ fan stood and yelled: ‘That was a really stupid thing to do, Shitty.'” The Cubs lost anyway, 11-9.

Postscript to the Postscript

• On September 10, 2016, Gary Sanchez of the New York Yankees reached out and lined an “intentional ball” to the warning track for a sacrifice fly off Tampa Bay’s Enny Romero in the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium. Click here to watch the play at MLB.com. New list through 2016 is below:

  

Not everyone has the same love for baseball, or enjoys the pitch-by-pitch nuances of the sport. Ray Fitzgerald wrote in the 1970 Boston Globe that one critic once characterized baseball as “six minutes of action crammed into two-and-one-half hours.”

I understand that baseball is not the quickest action sport. Should a person think that a major league game lasting two hours and 47 minutes—the current average—is a long time, then they might run screaming from the idea of an infinitely long plate appearance. Such an event is, of course, thoroughly unlikely, but it could happen.

A standard baseball plate appearance, with its strategic mix of balls, strikes, and foul balls can, mathematically, take an infinitely long time to complete … in fact, four times infinitely long to complete, which is just infinitely long.

For our purposes, we will define a plate appearance as PA = H + BB + K + HBP + SH + SF + DI + E+ DFO where:

• PA = Plate Appearance
• H = Hit (single, double, triple, or home run)
• BB = Walk (Four balls before three strikes)
• K = Strikeout (Three strikes before four balls)
• HBP = Hit by Pitch
• SH = Sacrifice Hit
• SF = Sacrifice Fly
• DI = Defensive Interference
• E = Batter reaches base due to a defensive fielding error
• DFO = Defensive Fielding Out – fly out, foul out, or ground out

An official plate appearance is completed when the batter reaches base via a hit, walk, strikeout, is hit with a pitch, sacrifices to attempt to advance a runner, reaches on Defensive Interference, reaches on a defensive fielding error, or is retired by a defensive fielding out.

The reason these calculations are monumental is because one cannot derive the probability of walks or strikeouts based on the pitches you have seen, because in one calculation equation there are multiple unknowns, giving an infinite number of solutions. My calculations allow a person to calculate the expected probability of a ball, a strike, and a foul, which in turn could yield the true probability of a resulting batting line of walks, strikeouts, and the pitch put in play results that a player actually achieved.

As you will see, 57 ways exist to walk and 84 ways to strike out; this also includes an infinite number of pitches thrown in some instances. This is easily proven by using an infinite geometric series.

INFINITE GEOMETRIC SERIES

An infinite geometric series is an infinite series whose successive terms have a common ratio. Such a series converges if (and only if) the absolute value of the common ratio is less than one (| r | < 1). Its value can then be computed from the finite sum formula

Since:

Then:

(Click images to enlarge.)

Any pitch put in play, or that does not end with a walk or strikeout, automatically ends the plate appearance. Non-hit balls that do not end a plate appearance (and are not inclusive of a walk or strikeout) are classified into four categories:

• B – Ball
• S – Swinging Strike, Called Strike, or Foul Ball
• F – Strike – Foul Ball
• K – Strike – Called Strike or Swinging Strike… where P(B), P(S), P(F), and P(K) are all between [0,1] and sum to 1 inclusive of those Put in Play (PIP), i.e. P(B)+P(S)+P(PIP)=1. P(S) = P(F)+P(K)

An infinitely long at bat, for example, is the 57th described way that a batter can walk.

• Batter Pitch 1 – S, Strike
• Batter Pitch 2 – S, Strike
• Batter Pitch 3 – F, Fouls a ball to infinity
• Batter Pitch 4 – B, Ball
• Batter Pitch 5 – F, Fouls a ball to infinity
• Batter Pitch 6 – B, Ball
• Batter Pitch 7 – F, Fouls a ball to infinity
• Batter Pitch 8 – B, Ball
• Batter Pitch 9 – F, Fouls a ball to infinity
• Batter Pitch 10 – B, Ball Four – Plate Appearance completed resulting in a BB.

All 57 combinations that result in a walk are detailed in this PDF file.

And all 84 combinations of events resulting in a strikeout are detailed in this PDF file.

Here is an example in which a batter will see pitches which result in a walk or strikeout but does not complete his at-bat with a pitch in play (PIP):

Results using the preceding combinations of events yield

• Prob (Walk) – 25.303%
• Prob (Strikeout) – 74.687%
• Prob (PIP Plate App) – 00.000%

A more realistic example is of a more typical MLB player. Said player walks 8.86% of the time, strikes out 18.87% of the time, and puts a ball in play 72.27%. Although we know how many walks and strikeouts a player experiences based on the amount of pitches seen, the actual pitches do not accurately translate into the real world results of the exact P(B), P(K), P(F), or P(PIP). This formula allows you to reverse-calculate how many balls, strikes, foul balls, and PIP balls that a batter SHOULD have seen throughout his season to recreate his final walk, strikeout, and PIP results.

Results using the preceding combinations of events yield

• Prob (Walk) – 8.859%
• Prob (Strikeout) – 18.866%
• Prob (PIP Plate App) – 72.274%

So although a game may seem to be slow, with each inning or plate appearance seeming to take forever, be thankful that it does not actually take forever … even though it could—four times over!

Play Ball!

BRIAN YONUSHONIS was born and raised in DuBois, Pennsylvania. He manages a large software testing team in the casino gaming industry and enjoys the pure mathematics of his work. He always encourages his staff to work hard and stay sharp by educating them- selves anytime they get the chance and keeps them moving forward in the face of tough economic times. As Satchel Paige said, “Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.”

Due, however, to a no-longer-extant rule regarding the rounding of innings pitched, McCatty was declared the official leader. Stewart’s 112 1⁄3 inning total was rounded down to 112, while McCatty’s 185 2⁄3 innings were rounded up to 186. McCatty got credit for an extra third of an inning without allowing a run, and Stewart lost a third of a scoreless inning. That made McCatty’s ERA 2.32 and Stewart’s 2.33. While the findings were appealed, the Rules Committee of the day upheld the result because it conformed to the established practice. The rule was changed the next year and fractions of innings were no longer rounded up or down.

Results were not applied retroactively (nor should they be), however, so nearly all sources continue to list McCatty as the AL’s ERA leader in 1981. There is one exception, though. Baseball-Reference.com has Dave Righetti of the Yankees as the 1981 leader. Righetti’s ERA was 2.05, significantly lower than McCatty’s or Stewart’s. But Righetti pitched just 105 1⁄3 innings, and his team played 107 games.

It takes at least a slight bending of the rules to recognize Righetti as the official leader, an interpretation that would never be contemplated in a normal season. But 1981 was different, which leaves us with legitimate arguments for three different pitchers as the American League’s ERA leader that year.

While six of the eight teams started spring training the week of March 29, and the Cedar Rapids Rabbits opened their practices the following week, Bloomington was forced to wait until April 13 to call their players into action because their playing grounds were undergoing a major renovation and work could not be completed before April 10. Even when the Bloomers reported April 13, the Bloomington Pantagraph noted that “players will work out at the Armory until the grounds are in shape to play,” indicating that renovations took longer than expected.

To add another wrinkle to an already inauspicious beginning, on Monday, April 12, before the team even held its first practice, the Pantagraph reported “Baseball Co. Needs Money.” Like many small-town teams of the time, the Bloomers were owned by local citizens interested in baseball. The 1909 season brought with it a new group of local investors. As a welcome gesture, the old association members donated $100. The coffers, however, were not as full as the new management had hoped. Expecting to find their share of league revenues approximately $400 in the treasury, the owners instead found a $150 league assessment fee. Coupled with pre-season expenses, the cost of renovations, and a limited influx of revenue, the organization was $1,475 in debt.

Fifty miles south in Decatur, Illinois, a very similar circumstance faced the Decatur Commodores, another Three-I club trying to secure its professional and organizational livelihood. After a disastrous 1908 season in which club owners ended with a net loss of $4,500, provisions were made to transfer a majority of the team’s stock in the Decatur Baseball Association to a local resident, Dr. C.F. Childs. The first order of business for Childs was to recruit a number of fellow Decatur baseball enthusiasts to act as board members and stir up interest in the community. Faced with the substantial financial deficit from the previous year, Childs made a number of moves, including selling $3,300 worth of players, which allowed him to pay off his debt.

Childs and his magnate pals in Decatur then found $4,000 to build a new ballpark and spent another $1,000 to replace players sold. In addition, the May 2 Decatur Daily Herald reported that the owners “dug liberally for the necessary expenses of training.” While the Commodores were able to begin practice earlier than the Bloomers, the weather was an impediment during the first two weeks of April for both teams, and hosting exhibition games was difficult.

The spring of 1909 was very wet, which made it difficult to play any spring training games. Several practice scrimmages were cancelled due to both the wet conditions and the difficulty and expense of holding such a game. Teams scrambled to find dry ground, and when a field was found, the games usually pitted Three-I clubs against local amateurs.

The Bloomington Bloomers were one club that took advantage of its immediate surroundings. Bloomington was home to Illinois Wesleyan University, a small liberal arts college with a baseball program. As soon as dry grounds could be produced, Illinois Wesleyan signed up, providing the opportunity to scrimmage without the cost of traveling or pressure of making box-office receipts to help offset traveling expenses. Friday, April 16, the Bloomers were playing their first exhibition game of the 1909 season against Illinois Wesleyan at the school’s Wilder Field. The minor leaguers bested the collegians 6–4. The Bloomers agreed to a rematch the next day at the newly renovated South Side Grounds. Not surprisingly, spring showers canceled the game.

The Bloomers’ first “official” exhibition game of the season was to be against the Burlington, Iowa team of the Central Association on Sunday, April 18. The 3:00 P.M. game was billed as “opening season—Grand Dedication Game.” The game was to mark the dedication of the renovated ballpark under its new management. Infield admission was twenty-five cents and grandstand seats lining the outfield were free.

Burlington, previously in Decatur for an exhibition game with the Commodores, boarded the 11:00 A.M. Interurban train to Bloomington, providing plenty of time to warm up. Unfortunately, the weather again did not cooperate and Burlington boarded the 4:00 P.M. train back to Decatur. Burlington manager Ned Egan was sorely disappointed in the cancellation, saying that this would be the last time he would play exhibition games with other Three-I clubs because of high costs. The dedication game’s postponement also hit the Bloomers hard; the club was relying on gate receipts to alleviate its financial crisis.

On Wednesday, April, 21 Bloomington was able to scrape enough money together to send a group of fourteen Bloomers, along with Manager William McNamara, to Kewanee, Illinois for four exhibition games with the town’s Central Association team. Manager McNamara had left the “regulars” home to practice. The manager of the Kewanee squad was Bloomington-Normal native William Connors, who had managed the Bloomers in 1908. Connors actually rode the train with the Bloomers, as he had recently returned home to take care of personal matters. As fate would have it, the first two games of the trip were canceled due to—yes—uncooperative weather.

On Sunday, April 25, Bloomington played what the local papers dubbed its inaugural exhibition game at newly renovated South Side Grounds, beating Three-I rival the Peoria Distillers, 8–3. On the same day another squad of Bloomers traveled to Decatur to play the Commodores. The game remained tied 1–1 until the last of the ninth when Decatur pushed across the winning run.

Lack of funds and the fear of further wet weather forced the Bloomers to cancel their next scheduled exhibition games in Quincy and Jacksonville. With twelve days left before opening day, the financially strapped Bloomers had only two more exhibition games scheduled (both at home). On Thursday, April 29, the Bloomers faced the collegians of IWU at South Side Grounds and won convincingly, 5–0. The last scheduled exhibition game of the season was with Decatur on Sunday, May 2, in Bloomington. Unfortunately, this game, too, had to be canceled because the grounds crew was unable to get the field in shape following a circus held there earlier in the week. Decatur was also unable to host as there was a scheduling conflict with their field. At the last minute, however, a game with the Springfield Senators was secured in Springfield. Bloomington lost to the Senators 9–6.

The Decatur Commodores’ two-week head start on spring training allowed the club to play a good amount of exhibition games, as they found enough dry grounds and willing opponents. Like Bloomington, the Decatur ball club also benefited from having a local liberal arts college in the city limits. On April 3 the Commodores faced off against Millikin University. It was not much of a game, as Decatur handled the college boys 20–6.

Decatur was also home to an independent ball team called the Decatur Blues. This happenstance afforded the Commodores the chance to schedule additional games at little to no cost. On April 4, a day after crushing Millikin, the Commodores welcomed the Blues to League Park and won a 6–5 squeaker. Over the next week the Commodores practiced when weather allowed and held intra-squad scrimmages dividing into “Jakes,” named after team member Albert “Beany”
Jacobson, and “Moores,” named after team manager Fred Moore.

By April 10, the Commodores saw their first real exhibition opponent when the Hannibal Cannibals from Missouri arrived at League Park. The Commodores escaped with a 3–1 victory and the Decatur Daily Herald ramped up its coverage of the team. Over the next several days Decatur hosted games with minor league teams from Appleton, Wisconsin; Buffalo, New York; Burlington, Iowa; and Jacksonville, Illinois. On April 20, Fred Moore loaded up his team for an extended road trip which included Jacksonville, Illinois; Hannibal, Missouri; Burlington, Iowa; and Pekin, Illinois. Even though rain and cold weather was a problem throughout April, the Commodores squeezed in at least 16 pre-season games. According to the Daily Herald, which published simple batting statistics for its nine main players, Otto Burns led the club with a .319 average. While the newspaper downplayed the successful averages it did go on to note:

Decatur has nothing to worry about in the makeup of its team. It has the fielders, the batters, and the pitching staff and it has the manager to get everything out of them. More than that it has a club back of him that has already shown its intention of strengthening any weak point that develops with the idea of giving Decatur fans the best ball team they ever had.

Although Decatur fared well in getting in their games, a lack of exhibition games was a problem throughout the league. The home newspaper of league champion Springfield Senators, the Illinois State Journal, noted on May 2, “This was the most disheartening training season in history, not a team in the circuit has been able to make feed money and have been hustling to secure money to meet expenses.”

Regardless of how little baseball was played, the respective newspapers of each city still stirred up controversy. On April 3, the Decatur Daily Review reported that the Commodores had been chosen over the Bloomington Bloomers to play the May 2 dedication game at Pekin Park. Bloomington thought it had a signed contract in hand from the Pekin manager, Doug Jeffries, and as a result were threatening to “set the law dogs on Jeffries.” Decatur probably thought the dedication game at Pekin was rightfully theirs, as Jeffries was a respected former outfielder with the Commodores.

Bloomington did, in fact, have the contract (as the Decatur newspaper admitted on April 10), but the unwanted attention pressured the Bloomers to promise to send their top players. Written barbs between Bloomington and Decatur papers appeared quite frequently not only before the season but as the season progressed. The rivalry between the cities was obvious and was no subdued matter. It was not uncommon for a sarcastic comment to appear in “Glints from the Diamond” or “Brevities of Sport” wishing luck to the losing team or telling fans to be thankful that they were not experiencing the misfortunes of the other club.

By April 29 the rivalry got a little more heated. The Decatur Daily Herald took exception to comments made by the Bloomington sports reporter about their beloved Commies in a series of articles that appeared in a Springfield, Illinois publication. The Bloomington reporter apparently referred to Decatur players as “untried and inexperienced and even unfit for [a] high school league.” The Daily Herald reporter, in turn, ended his rebuttal column with, “But what’s the use of enumerating. We might not expect anything more from a Bloomington man.”

Not lost in all the give-and-take between the newspapers was the fact that Bloomington canceled its commitment to the May 2 grand dedication game at Pekin. Decatur gladly stepped in to fill the spot. Encounters like these undeniably added to the rivalry between the cities and their respective clubs.

The Three-I League’s fans and players eagerly anticipated opening day. On Thursday, May 6, Bloomington’s baseball bugs were prepared. The Bloomers and their opponent, the Peoria Distillers, paraded through downtown Bloomington in automobiles supplied by the Automobile Club of Bloomington. Fred Ashton’s fifteen-piece band accompanied them on the parade route, which started at the Hills Hotel and proceeded through the downtown square and to the newly renovated South Side Grounds. Prior to the game, newly elected Mayor Richard Carlock made an impassioned speech about the importance of baseball to the community.

The rains held off, and opening day in Bloomington appeared to be a big success. (In fact, the weatherman cooperated in all Three-I cities and all scheduled games were played.) Bloomington’s opening-day attendance was reported as 1,491, slightly less than the previous year’s opening crowd (1,911) but significantly more than the 880 who had showed up in 1907. The Bloomers lost, 3–2 in 10 innings to Peoria. The next time the two clubs took the field, they also took 10 innings to decide matters, and again Bloomington lost, this time 4–2. Ed Clark went the distance for Bloomington in the second game.

Bloomington’s first two games were an indication of things to come—losing close games that took more than nine innings. The Bloomers started slowly, losing their first four games and nine of their first 14, and were soon in the cellar of the eight-team league.

The Decatur Commodores had the privilege of opening their season on the road against the defending league champion Springfield Senators. Opening day in the state’s capital city, like that in most other Three-I cities, featured a parade—this one beginning at the St. Nicholas Hotel an hour before the game. Led by the Watch Factory band and followed by 300 representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, both teams’ players paraded through the business district to League Park. A special carriage took Mayor Jon Schnepp to the ball field to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Fourteen hundred fans braved cold and windy conditions to fill the seats and were rewarded with an 8–6 win from Manager Dick Smith and his Senators, although the visiting Commodores perhaps made the game most memorable.

In the bottom of the fifth inning with two outs and Springfield up 7–2, Decatur catcher Bert Fisher became upset with umpire Burke and in a fit of anger threw the ball against the backstop as a protest and muttered a few choice words. Umpire Burke immediately threw him out of the game.

Moments later, Blauser, Springfield’s shortstop, scored on a passed ball that looked suspicious to Decatur manager/second baseman Moore, who chargedin from his position at second to protest umpire Burke’s ruling. According to the Illinois State Journal, Moore rushed in, waved his arms wildly, and talked at random, finally falling to the ground in a failed attempt to be funny. An unamused Burke also threw him out of the game and then out of the park altogether, but Moore refused to leave, necessitating that a Springfield police officer escort him out.

Decatur’s opening game presaged their season as well, marked as it was by controversial calls, managerial protests, and the need for substitutions.

While extra inning games, controversial calls, and rain dotted Bloomers and Commodores baseball that summer, a particular extra-inning game between these two teams on May 31 particularly stands out.

Sunday, May 30, 1909, was Memorial Day. Like all other Three-I teams, the Bloomington Bloomers and the Decatur Commodores (often shortened to Commies) were set to play a holiday doubleheader. The league office had scheduled morning-afternoon twin bills to double the gate receipts. Bloomington, however, was given special dispensation to hold a traditional afternoon doubleheader. Bloomington had made the case to league President M.H. Sexton that the teams stood a better chance to attract a larger crowd with an afternoon doubleheader. This was a key matter because at the time, all gate receipts for Memorial Day ball games were pooled collectively and dispensed evenly among all the teams in the Three-I League. Memorial Day games drew far larger crowds than typical ball games, and splitting the money evenly was nearly essential, considering most teams’ financial struggles. President Sexton accepted the overture, claiming that “by playing two afternoon games the fans will get a double run for their money.” The first game of the afternoon doubleheader between the Bloomers and Commodores began at 2:00 P.M.

Neither team was in particularly good shape at the time. While Decatur was able to claim a 12–10 record, the Bloomers had just lost two in a row to Springfield and limped in at a less than respectable 7–14. Uglier than the records were the teams’ physical (and in one case emotional) well-being. Both teams’ pitching corps had been exhausted. The Commodores had just suspended one of their best twirlers, “Beany” Jacobson, for violating training rules on the western trip. The disciplinary move caused a rift between manager Fred Moore and team president Doc Childs. Moore soon resigned as manager, forfeiting his responsibilities to make player personnel decisions but as field captain would still make all on-field game related decisions. The good news for the Commodores was that first baseman Sam Foster was reinstated after serving his suspension for striking an umpire in Dubuque.

The Bloomers, on the other hand, had just replenished their pitching by picking up William Miller, on loan from Springfield, and William Steen, a free agent who chose to sign with the struggling Bloomers. Unfortunately, neither man would be available for Memorial Day duty. Catcher Nig Langdon, however, had just returned to Bloomington and would be with the team for the Memorial Day matchup.

For Game One, Bloomington manager McNamara gave the starting mound assignment to Ed Clark, who had struggled early on but also suffered from hard luck. He was just 1–4, but each of his first five games of the season had been decided by two runs or fewer.

Fred Moore was so desperate for pitching that he sent backup infielder/outfielder Otto Burns to the “pitcher’s box.” Burns had never pitched professionally and not taken the hill competitively since his youth in Ohio. It rained May 30 in Bloomington and the grounds were soggy. The sun did appear briefly just after noon, giving some hope of decent weather. At precisely 2:00 P.M., in front of 1,200 onlookers, Umpire Clarke called the game into action. The field was muddy from the morning showers, but these games had to be played for financial reasons. Scarcely had the first pitch been thrown when a light drizzle began.

In the home first, Decatur second baseman Moore dropped Frank Long’s grounder, allowing him to safely reach first base. The speedy Long immediately stole second. Joe Keenan and George Cutshaw were unable to advance Long any further, but the cleanup hitter, first baseman Frank Melchior, “smash[ed] a hit through John Barkwell” at third, allowing Long to score the first run of the game.

Decatur would tie the score in the third when Otto Burns led off with a single to right and advanced to second on Moore’s sacrifice. Barkwell doubled to left, plating Burns.

The gentle rain persisted until the fifth inning when the drops became larger, forcing players off the field and the fans to run for the cover of the grandstand. After 30 minutes play resumed, and both coaches decided to keep their starting pitchers in the game.

Neither team mustered much offense, although the Commies filled the bases in the seventh with one out but could not score.

The game—just the first in a doubleheader—progressed to the thirteenth inning. In the top of the frame, Decatur’s Jesse Ruby walked. Bloomington’s Clark, still on the hill, plunked Barkwell and walked Sam Foster. The Commodores now had the bases loaded with nobody out. Moore called for the squeeze play, but Jenkins bunted right to the pitcher, Clark, who forced Ruby at the plate. With the bases still packed, Cote hit a tailor-made double play ball that got the Bloomers out of the inning. With the threat averted the Bloomers and the Commies proceeded to play 12 more innings of no-run baseball.

More than four hours had passed and it was well beyond 6:00 P.M. The rain continued to fall soaking the players and making the field conditions questionable. Infielders and base runners were slowed by the mud caking on their cleats and the outfielders remained cautious of slippery footing.

But the rain did not keep the fans away, nor send home many of the ones already there. As the game progressed into innings 20 and beyond, word had spread through the community that something historic was taking place at South Side Grounds. Few fans had left and more were undoubtedly attracted to the possibility of history being made.

Adding to the excitement of the contest was whether or not the game would be allowed to officially end with a winner. Not only were the teams battling to a 1–1 tie, the continued rain made playing conditions border on dangerous and the dark weather coupled with late afternoon skies made it difficult to see. On top of the physical limitations, Decatur was pressed to catch the last train of the night which left within the next half hour.

Twenty-five innings had elapsed, and all eighteen players who started the game were still fighting, including both starting pitchers. Bloomers pitcher Clark still appeared strong, as Jenkins and Cote of Decatur opened the twenty-sixth by grounding to Roy Snyder at short. The next batter, Bert Fisher, took the first pitch for a strike then hit a high, but easy, pop foul down the first base line. What would appear to be a sure third out landed harmlessly between catcher Langdon and first baseman Melchior. With an 0–2 count and a second chance to swing the bat, Fisher stepped back in the batter’s box. On the next pitch, Clark threw one inside which hit Fisher in the ribs; this was Clark’s third hit batter of the game.

Decatur second baseman Mark Purtell dug in. On the first pitch he saw, he scorched a line drive over Melchior’s head at first which rolled all the way to the scoreboard. By the time Bloomington right fielder Jim Novacek retrieved the ball, Fisher had scored and Purtell was standing on third base.

Manager McNamara of the Bloomers came storming out of the dugout protesting that Purtell had “cut” second base. The umpire agreed with McNamara that Purtell had, in fact, missed second and proceeded to call him out, ending the inning. McNamara was still not satisfied. He argued that Fisher had not yet crossed home plate at the time that Purtell had approached second base, and therefore the run should not count. The umpire disagreed, awarding Decatur the run, claiming that Fisher had already crossed home. In the span of three pitches a foul ball had been misplayed, a batter hit in the ribs, and a pitch driven for a run-scoring “single”—all this activity after 26 innings of baseball, with the last 23 innings being scoreless. Someone had finally crossed the plate, albeit under protest. Decatur was in the lead 2–1.

The Bloomers bats fell silent in the bottom of the twenty-sixth, and with two outs, manager McNamara installed himself as a pinch-hitter. It was the first and only substitution of the game. The strategy did not pay off, as McNamara was easily retired to end the game. Although Bloomington would protest the game, the Commodores left South Side Grounds victorious. Not surprisingly the second game of the doubleheader was called off, due to darkness and the visitors’ need to catch the night’s last train home.

A rather large crowd, estimated at more than 1,000, had gathered outside the Decatur Daily Herald offices, where recaps of the action were posted. Once the final score was announced, the crowd erupted and moved to the Transfer House to welcome the team home. From start to finish the game had taken five hours: four hours, 30 minutes of actual baseball and 30 minutes of rain delay, with only the one substitution. Clark of Bloomington and Burns of Decatur pitched complete games.

Over 26 innings Ed Clark faced 98 Commodore batters, allowing two runs, eleven hits, and six walks, and hitting three batters. He was so dominant that he only ceded multiple hits in one inning (the third when Decatur pushed across their first score). His counterpart, Burns, pitching his first professional game, faced 88 Bloomers, allowing 13 hits and one walk and plunking one batter. Bloomington committed two errors and stranded 11 men, while Decatur committed three errors and left 16 runners on. (Oddly, the walk Burns issued wasn’t recognized until the June 2, 1909 Pantagraph. The Bloomington scorer was either caught up in the excitement of the game or overcome by its length and neglected to record a free pass given to Nig Langdon in the eighteenth inning, a tactical move which loaded the bases and allowed a force out.)

Defensively the game was well played with both the Decatur and Bloomington papers reporting a number of fine catches and throws. Decatur’s second baseman, Moore, first baseman Foster, and catcher Fisher each committed one error. On the Bloomers’ side, second baseman George Cutshaw and third baseman Joe Keenan were guilty of blunders. Both first basemen were kept busy, claiming 58 putouts between them.

Decatur pitcher Burns and right fielder Jenkins led the team with three hits each, while Bloomington’s catcher Langdon and right fielder Novacek also paced their club with three hits. Decatur’s scorekeeper credited the game’s hero, Purtell, with two hits, one being the game-winning triple, while Bloomington’s scorebook also credited Purtell with two hits but—correctly—credited him only with singles.

This marathon game was, at the time, the longest professional baseball game played in innings, surpassing the previous high count of 25 innings on July 18, 1891 in Devils Lake, North Dakota, when the Grand Forks Black Stockings and Fargo Red Stockings jousted to a scoreless tie.

The headlines in the Pantagraph the next day read “Bloomers Lose Longest Game.” The Decatur Daily Review posted the entire inning-by-inning score across the top of the page with the number one posted in the bottom of the first and the top of the third and 26th innings, with 49 zeros filling the rest. The Daily Herald headlined its story “Decatur Wins Longest Ball Game 2–1 in 26 Innings.” Both cities’ papers dedicated a great deal of space to the game, and rightfully so as this was a record-breaking event. While all newspapers had essentially the same stories, the demeanors were certainly different.

Decatur papers ran pictures of their heroes: “Little” Mark Purtell, Fred Moore, and, of course pitching ace Otto Burns. The paper provided extended detailed coverage of the game and lauded the perseverance of the ball club in holding strong and scrapping to victory. The paper also published photos of the crowds that had gathered the night before outside the paper’s offices to keep track of the game courtesy of the news wire. The excited crowd spilled over the curbs and into the street as fans followed the game. Of course, mention was also made of the “unsportsmanlike” protest Bloomington had made regarding the controversial run.

While the Bloomington Pantagraph also featured extended coverage of the game, the tone was more somber. The Bloomers fought until the end, it was written, but just didn’t have enough when it counted. Pictures of Ed Clark and manager William McNamara graced the pages of the sports section.

The next day, at the Sherman House in Chicago, where each Three-I team president had convened to discuss payroll and roster sizes, they read about the Bloomers’ and Commodores’ exploits like the rest of the country. From New York to California and every where in between, the “marathon
game” had been recounted and recognized as the longest official professional baseball match. As the day’s first order of business, President Sexton made sure to congratulate the representatives of both clubs and recognize the attention that this distinctive game had brought to their circuit. The fact that the longest baseball game played now belonged to the Three-I League was not lost on the representatives at the meeting. In a moment of levity, President Kinsella of the Springfield Senators publicly offered the Bloomington management a large sum if they would send their team to Springfield and pull off a similar stunt.

Later in the evening, Decatur president Doc Childs received a telegram asking for the price on pitcher Otto Burns for immediate delivery. The telegram was signed “Charles Comiskey, manager, Chicago White Sox.” Childs was said to have smiled as he read the message, knowing it was a practical joke. It was later revealed that the prankster was the president of the Bloomington club.

The nostalgic game made for a more relaxed meeting and might help to explain how the Three-I magnates so quickly agreed on new roster and salary limits. The news out of the Sherman House on June 2 was that league teams would be allowed to now carry 14 men, one more than previous, and that the salary limit had been increased to $1,750.

Even if they had wanted to, neither team could escape attention for long. On Tuesday morning, two days after the record-breaking game, the Bloomers boarded the train to start their next road trip. First stop, Decatur, Illinois, to play the Commies! The marathon game of the previous day undoubtedly raised interest, as attendance was estimated at 1,500 for the afternoon game. Among the attendees were 500 women who were each presented with a special carnation to commemorate the previous day’s game. Before the action could begin, Otto Burns was presented a bouquet of roses in recognition of his work on the slab. Bloomington won this game, 3–2, in nine innings with no late dramatics. Newspapers from both cities were quick to point out that both teams showed the effects from the previous day’s game, noting listless efforts and sleepy play.

When the Bloomers returned home from their road trip on June 6, arrangements had been made by the local community to recognize the club for its participation in the record-setting game. Baseball magnate E.E. Donnelly delivered a brief speech before the game and a group of appreciative and enthusiastic fans presented the team with a floral emblem containing what the local paper called the cabalistic number 26 in the center. Unfortunately, the Bloomers failed to play up to the expectations and lost to Rock Island. Coincidentally, on the same day Bloomington was recognized for their part in the historic game, Otto Burns—who had beaten them a week earlier—pitched his second professional game, winning 4–3 in ten innings.

Shortly after the historic game, Bloomington’s Clark was called home to Chicago to take care of his ailing mother, the Pantagraph reported. He did not return to the team until June 7, when he promptly returned to the pitcher’s box. In his first start after the marathon game, Clark lasted only four innings; the lowly Cedar Rapids Rabbits tagged him for six runs. While one could assume that he was ineffective due to his recent workload, it also must be noted that early in the game, he had been hit in the pitching arm by a batted ball. Oddly, the umpire for Ed Clark’s return game was Clarke, the same umpire from the extra-inning affair. And as fate would have it, the catcher for the Cedar Rapids team was called out after an apparent home run for—what else?—failing to touch second base.

Ed Clark did not pitch again for eight days. When he returned to the hill, it was once again for no ordinary game. On June 15, Clark pitched a complete-game win—this time 15 innings—over the Peoria Distillers. Clark faced 58 batters in the 15 innings and went 2-for-7 at the plate. The game lasted all of three hours and was, interestingly, umpired again by Clarke. In two of three starts, Ed Clark pitched a combined 41 innings and faced 156 batters. It’s no surprise that the Pantagraph labeled him “The Long Distance Hurler.”

Over the following weeks the two teams received more notoriety as other newspapers around the county picked up on the novelty of the 26-inning game and local citizens did what they could to keep the memory of the event alive. One citizen just outside of Bloomington, sign painter North Livingston, reproduced the entire box score of the game, including player names and positions, on the blackboard at the Metropole.

Much of the outside attention was acknowledged in various papers’ sports sections under headings like “Glints of the Game” or “Brevities of Sport.” On June 10, the Pantagraph noted, “Man returns from visit out east proclaiming 26-inning contest put Bloomington on the map.” Similarly, on June 18 a Los Angeles newspaper was cited as giving the 26-inning game “big space.” The acknowledgment that their game meant something outside their communities was important to both Decatur and Bloomington.

Nearly lost and forgotten in the publicity of the record-breaking game was the protest filed by the Bloomers. On June 16 the protest was finally resolved.

The following day’s papers reported that President Sexton announced the awarding of the 26-inning game to the Commodores. It is said that after careful consideration, Sexton came to the conclusion that the Commodores had won the game “fairly and squarely.” Of course reporters from both cities had a slightly different understanding of what “fairly and squarely” meant, but both cities and teams had accepted the outcome. On Monday, June 7, the Bloomers lost to last-place Cedar Rapids, 9–4. Following the game, William McNamara resigned as manager and left the team. According to news reports, McNamara had attempted to quit at the end of May but was dissuaded by the directors. At the time of his resignation Bloomington was 9–18.

Just two days later, the Cedar Rapids Rabbits were in town to play the Bloomers and had just lost their catcher to injury. McNamara accepted the invitation to play against his former team for the day and came through with a double. In another odd turn of events, McNamara replaced Bert Fisher in the Decatur lineup and finished the season with the Commies.

The Decatur Daily Herald was reporting by June 5 that Fred Moore would soon be released. The club finally parted ways with its second baseman on July 16. Third baseman Johnny Barkwell took charge. The Bloomers began to play better ball and finished the season in fourth place (among eight teams) at 70–67. The Commodores couldn’t keep pace and finished seventh with a 63–73 record. The Bloomers won 10 of 19 games between the two clubs.

Otto Burns remained in the Decatur rotation for the rest of the season pitching soundly for his team. Ed Clark also remained in the starting rotation for the Bloomers until late August, when his struggles were too badly hurting the club. According to the Pantagraph, he was loaned to the Central Association’s Kewanee Boilermakers. Clark did rejoin the Bloomers late in the season and pitched in the season’s penultimate game. He hung around after the season to collect a few extra dollars by barnstorming around central Illinois with some other Bloomers.

Mark Purtell, hero of the marathon game, engraved his name in the Three-I record books at the end of the 1909 season, but not positively. The man who had the game-winning triple, or single, set an all-time low in batting average for regular players. His .135 season average still stood as the record of hitting futility at the end of the Three-I league’s existence nearly five decades later. Mark never reached the heights of his brother Billy, who spent five years in the major leagues—including 1909 with the Chicago White Sox.

George Cutshaw, Bloomington’s second sacker, experienced the most success of all the players in the historic game. Cutshaw broke into major league baseball in 1912 with Brooklyn and played there for six seasons. He also spent four seasons in Pittsburgh and finished his career with two seasons in Detroit. During his twelve-year career, he collected 1,487 hits, amassed a .265 batting average, and swiped 271 bases. For 57 years, the Bloomers and Commodores held the distinction of playing the longest completed professional ballgame in the United States (the Class C Mexican Center League featured a 27-inning game in 1960). Not until 1966, when Miami needed 29 innings to defeat St. Petersburg in a Florida State League matchup, did the Three-I League lose hold on the history books. In 1981, the Pawtucket PawSox and Rochester Redwings played a 33-inning game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The game actually started on April 18, 1981, when 32 innings were played, and finished with the deciding inning on June 23, 1981.

What was a great sense of pride for two Illinois cities has now been lost to history. The Three-I League has folded and all players, fans, umpires, and writers associated with the marathon game have long since passed on. Accounts of the game are posted in local newspapers only when on a noteworthy anniversary.

Even descriptions of the game are severely limited. We may find mention of the 26-inning contest in newspapers under the headings “Almanac,” “On This Date,” or “Yesteryears.” But for five decades, two small farming towns in Central Illinois held a record that brought their teams, cities, and league a great deal of notoriety. For fifty years those teams shared the spotlight, remembered their exploits together, and laid their claim to baseball fame.

SOURCES

This essay called on information mainly culled from three Illinois newspapers: the Bloomington Pantagraph, the Decatur Daily Herald, and the Springfield (Illinois) State Journal. These papers provided information in editions printed between April 3, 1909 and July 17, 1909. In addition, the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, edited by Pete Palmer and Gary Gillette and published in 2004 by Barnes & Noble, was used.

• Wayne Tyrone, who played for the Miami Amigos and led the IAL with eight homers, was a contestant on “The Price Is Right” in 1983. He ended up winning a car valued at approximately $6,500.
• Jim Tyrone, Wayne’s brother, who also played for Miami, led the league in batting.
• Mike Anderson, a pitcher, developed an unusual offering while playing for the Panama Banqueros: a one-finger knuckleball.
• Before joining the Maracaibo Petroleros, pitcher Luis Aponte had been retired for three years after spending four years in the Boston Red Sox farm system. While pitching in the IAL, he developed a great forkball. This impressed the Red Sox, who re-signed him. He pitched for Boston 1980–83 and for Cleveland in 1984.
• One player responded that his favorite thing about playing in the IAL was “Great steaks, shrimp, and beer.” This same player also indicated that his least favorite thing about playing in the IAL was “Luis Aparicio.” He also indicated that “Luis Aparicio” was the reason that he thought the IAL failed. Apparently this player was no fan of the Hall of Fame shortstop.
• Another player said that his most memorable IAL moment was “winning $500 in a casino in Panama.”
• One player indicated that his “scary” IAL moment involved his team not being able to leave the Dominican Republic for unknown reasons. Another player noted, “Getting out of Panama City just ahead of the Sandinistas.”
• The Santo Domingo Azucareros couldn’t catch a break during the first six weeks of the season. During that time, 12 of their games were cancelled because of rain.
• Panama also experienced “technical difficulties” during an afternoon game in mid-April 1979. The scoreboard was inoperable because the man who ran it worked only at night. A 30-minute rainstorm preceded the game, giving the grounds crew the opportunity to unfurl the stadium’s new tarpaulin. There was only one small problem, however; the crew, composed of mostly kids, didn’t know how to spread the cover over the field.
• During a night game in Venezuela, the lights went off and stayed off, necessitating that the game be called.
• Jose Alfaro, pitcher for Panama, had previously thrown a no-hitter for Dubuque Packers of the Class A Midwest League in 1975. Oddly, four other pitchers on Panama’s club had hurled no-hitters prior to the IAL.
• The Miami Amigos got beautiful new uniforms to start the season. Before the team played a game, however, someone stole the uniforms from Miami Stadium. The club temporarily had to wear uniforms reading “Miami Marlins.”
• At least one former IAL player met a tragic fate. Outfielder Danny Thomas of the Miami Amigos committed suicide in a Mobile, Alabama jail cell during July 1980. He was being held on a rape charge.

LEAGUE LEADERS

Batting

• Average: Jim Tyrone, Miami, .364
• Home runs: Wayne Tyrone, Miami, 8
• Runs batted in: Brock Pemberton, Miami, 51

Pitching

• Wins: Mike Wallace, Miami, 11
• ERA: Ron Martinez, Miami, 0.89
• Strikeouts: Al Williams, Panama-Caracas, 52

JOHN CRONIN, a longtime SABR member, currently serves on the Minor League Committee. He is a lifelong Yankees fan whose special interest is Yankees minor league farm teams over the years. A CPA and retired bank executive, Cronin has a B.A. in History from Wag- ner College and an M.B.A. in Accounting from St. John’s University.

All this had changed long before the 1970s. All minor-league teams by that time had an affiliation with the major-league teams. The one exception during that era was the Inter-American League, a true “indie” which began play in the 1979 season. The realities, however, of independent baseball—the need for purposeful marketing and business development, a developed fan base and low overhead costs—put the Inter-American League in jeopardy from the outset. The league was the dream of Roberto Maduro, a wealthy man born on June 27, 1916, in Cuba. He had been the owner of the Havana Sugar Canes, a team that played in the Triple-A International League in the 1950s. After Fidel Castro came to power, Maduro fled Cuba with his riches left behind, lived in exile, and began his life all over again. The franchise shifted to Jersey City in 1960. Commissioner William D. Eckert named Roberto Maduro Coordinator of Inter-American Baseball in 1966.

In this position, Maduro boldly asked the United States State Department to purchase baseball equipment that would be given to Latin American countries. Maduro stated that such a donation would generate good will for the United States in those countries. Notwithstanding the fact that by 1963, Cuba was now ruled by Castro, an ardent baseball fan, Maduro had stated, “Wherever baseball is played, people love the Americans.”1

Was this an overly sunny view? Many instances prior to 1966 show Roberto Maduro to be an eternal optimist who viewed the baseball world in Latin America with rose-colored glasses.

Related link: Interesting Inter-American League Items, by John Cronin

At the start of the 1955 season, Maduro stated that every effort would be made to raise the Sugar Canes’ attendance to 500,000 from the previous season’s total of 295,453. When the season was concluded, however, “only” 313,232 fans had attended Sugar Canes games.2

Two months after opening day, he toned down his prediction by pointing out that during the 1954 season, the team had drawn 200,000 fans during the first half of the season but only 95,000 during the second half.3

During that same 1955 season, Maduro stated, “I believe our chances of securing a major-league franchise in the next few years are good.”4

Toward the close of 1957 season, Maduro reaffirmed his intention of operating his Havana team in 1958. He said he believed that the Cuban political situation would be resolved by the start of the season.5 Baseball people in the United States, however, felt that the political unrest in Cuba made the Sugar Canes’ future uncertain. A hopeful Maduro stated that the Castro uprising was no factor at all.6

During the offseason between the 1958 and 1959 seasons, Maduro was quoted predicting that “I think there will be less political unrest”7 when questioned about Cuba’s political situation.

In January 1959, The Sporting News reported that in Maduro’s opinion, the culmination of the political upheaval in Cuba—with Castro successfully overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Batista—would have a beneficial effect on International League baseball. Maduro boldly stated, “For the first time in the five-year life of the club, it now appears we will be able to operate in an atmosphere of peace and security.”8

Several weeks later, Maduro was again reported to believe that Castro’s regime would benefit baseball on the island.9, 10

Within the next year and a half, however, Maduro and his family had to flee Cuba for fear of their lives and the Havana Sugar Canes were uprooted and replanted in Jersey City.

Maduro’s grasp of reality concerning baseball in Latin America may well have been severely blinded by his dreams. This frame of mind and reference are paramount to keep in mind as Maduro took further positions in baseball.

Maduro continued as Coordinator of Inter-American Baseball under the direction of Eckert’s successor, Bowie Kuhn.

Maduro resigned his position with the commissioner’s office on December 26, 1978, effective year-end. He left because he felt that it was an opportune time to make his dream a reality. During the late 1970s, the minor leagues were beginning to show signs of a revival. Columbus, Ohio had been without a professional baseball team for six years after a long history of fielding teams which competed in the Triple-A American Association and the International League. The local government spent over $5 million to refurbish its existing stadium. As a result, Columbus was able to secure a franchise in the IL for 1977. While the team finished in seventh place, they won the attendance prize that year in the minor leagues by drawing 457,251 fans.

Such success stories may have pushed Maduro to pursue his dream even more fervently. He assumed that the rivalry between the countries in Latin America would stir up fan interest.

His decision to form a new league did create a rivalry in Latin America, but one that Maduro neither anticipated nor wanted. The Inter-American League (IAL) was immediately decried by operators of clubs in the winter leagues in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. In fact, following Bowie Kuhn’s approval for the establishment of the IAL, officials of the Puerto Rican Winter League vowed to vote at the end of the 1979 baseball season to end the contract between the Caribbean Baseball Confederation and the major leagues.11

Even with these threats, the IAL began play as a six-team Triple-A league on April 11, 1979. The Miami Amigos represented the United States, the Caracas Metropolitanos and the Maracaibo Petroleros de Zulia played for Venezula, Panama boasted the Banqueros, the Puerto Rico Boricuas played in San Juan, and the Santo Domingo Azucareros took the field in the Dominican Republic.

The league was widely dispersed geographically, making travel expenses considerably higher than those in other Triple-A leagues. Distance between IAL cities made air travel for all teams a necessity. The problem of already prohibitively high air fares was further compounded by the grounding of the DC-10 airplane.12

And the teams in the other Triple-A leagues (the International, Pacific Coast, and Mexican Leagues and the American Association) had one important difference: the financial support of major league teams.

Another travel-related problem was visa problems on players entering and leaving the league’s various localities. Since Cuba and Nicaragua did not have good diplomatic relations with Venezuela, travelers were required to obtain permission from the Venezuelan government in order to enter the country. Because several players in the league hailed from these countries, teams often entered Venezuela shorthanded.13

By Maduro’s directive, each team posted $50,000 to defray costs relating to the commissioner’s office and umpires. Maduro, in retrospect, was overly optimistic when questioned if the league had the capability to finish its first season with a 130-game, five-month schedule. His response was, “We are not worried about finishing the season. We have enough money to operate three or four years.”14 But on June 30, 1979, the league suspended operations for the season and never played another game.

It appears that Maduro’s desire to promote Latin American summer professional baseball clouded his sense of sound business practice. He felt that the league’s stadium capacities, which ranged from Miami (the smallest, at 9,500) to Caracas (the largest, at 35,000), would ensure success. The stadium sizes and the average attendance per game for each team are listed below:

That the IAL’s games were played in nearly empty stadiums tells the story of the league’s financial position. Stadium size does not insure automatic success, contrary to the Field of Dreams catchphrase (“If you build it, they will come”). To be successful, a product must be good and must be marketed properly. Radio and television contracts were to be an important source of revenues for the teams and the league, but only Caracas, Maracaibo, and Santo Domingo had full-season radio broadcasts. Caracas had the league’s only television package and that for just a few early-season contests. Miami broadcast only one game on the radio and Panama had no media exposure whatsoever.15

After the league suspended operations, Maduro conceded that the league didn’t begin marketing until late January 1979; at which point it “was too late to interest TV or big advertisers.” In his rush to move forward with his decade-long dream, he instead created a financial nightmare.

He had held this dream for over ten years. Back in 1968 on a trip to Mexico, Maduro stated that he was working on plans to establish other summer leagues besides the Mexican League in Latin American.16 This is what is difficult to understand: Why, after waiting all those years, did Maduro feel that he had to rush his dream, the Inter-American League, onto the playing field in 1979 without proper marketing or cost analysis?

In retrospect, league officials should not have rushed their product. Instead of actually playing baseball, they should have spent 1979 planning baseball. Bernardo Benes, part owner of the Panama Banqueros, concurred and said, “The idea was good, but the planning should have taken another year.”17 Maduro should have required written business plans from each potential team owner. Such plans should have included a feasibility study, a financial plan with several contingency scenarios analyzed, facility viability, a marketing plan, demographic studies, and an analysis of all potential revenue sources.

It is quite possible that had these studies been conducted, the league might have never gotten off the ground. There is no proof that any high-placed officials did due diligence prior to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn giving his approval to the new league. In his autobiography, Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner, Kuhn makes it obvious he was a big fan of the minor leagues. He wrote the following:

One of the joys of travel for me was the minor-league ballparks and people. I always felt that the heart of baseball was in those nostalgia-laden bandboxes and hard-striving people. There was a rich-textured, profound feel of the game in the minors that I found nowhere else, something closer to the game I first knew as a lad in Griffith Stadium and Forbes Field. So I beat my way across the minors from the Carolinas to Oregon, from Connecticut to West Texas, and I ate their hot dogs, savored their hospitality, and told them how much I cherished them.18

Kuhn, however, makes no mention of either the Inter-American League or Roberto Maduro in his 440-page book. It is possible that Kuhn didn’t want to dwell on a negative of his administration. Had Commissioner Kuhn and/or his advisors done their homework, they might have offered some well-placed constructive criticism to urge IAL officials to delay the league’s inaugural season to 1980.

With better planning, the IAL might have been ruled an economically unfeasible enterprise. Proper business practices might have burst Maduro’s bubble before it had been blown. It is possible that Kuhn was thinking like a fan rather than the Commissioner of Baseball when he gave his approval for the IAL, and there may have been some sentiment toward letting Maduro have his own way.

Some baseball officials saw the foolishness in the league. The Sporting News ran the following quote from an unidentified major-league official shortly after the IAL’s demise:

It’s another example, in my opinion, of the head people in baseball not listening to knowledgeable baseball men. It was a big political deal. They were afraid of two guys who got it started in Washington. They announced the formation of the league in Washington at the headquarters of the Organization of American States. We all knew in our hearts this thing wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work. They were flying 15, 18, 20 people across the seas. You know what air fares are today. It was absurd.19

Further research has disclosed that this unidentified official was Dallas Green,20 who at the time was the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. This after-the-fact prediction of failure might have been the result of Green’s feelings toward Kuhn. Green, later a GM for the Cubs and manager of the Yankees and Mets, apparently resented lawyers (Kuhn was a lawyer) and also resented directions from the Commissioner. Kuhn felt that Green had “chafed” over his decisions in a number of cases.21

Was the league a success in any way? To decide, it may help to examine the league’s players. In an article “Summer Baseball Returns to Latin America” that appeared in TSN on May 5, 1979, Michael Janosky wrote:

Because it has no major-league affiliation, the IAL is not a Triple-A league in the classic sense. It’s more a clearing house for career minor leaguers, players who have run out of organizations offering them chances, former big leaguers making a last gasp attempt to get back and kids who have never played pro ball.22

Using Janosky’s above statement, we can separate the IAL players into three categories for further analysis. These categories will be simply called “Last Chance/Career Minor Leaguers,” “Former Major Leaguers,” and those who “Never Played Pro Ball Before the IAL.” All players will be classified in one of those three categories for analysis purposes. It is possible to argue that some of the players could be classified in multiple categories, but to simplify the process, players will be placed in only one category.

Several things can blur these categories. If a player spends most of his career in the minors but had one or more “cups of coffee” in the Show, how should he be classified? For this article, I place him with the career minor-leaguers. Also, if a player eventually appears in the majors after his participation in the IAL, he will also be classified as a career minor leaguer. A player who appears in the majors for an extended period of time after playing in the IAL will also be classified as a career minor leaguer. My reason for this is quite simple; in 1979, he was a minor leaguer.

One hundred seventy-three (173) men appeared in the short-lived IAL season. Of these, 102 were position players and 71 were pitchers. A majority of the IAL players—62.43%—are classified as Last Chance/Career Minor Leaguers.

The next category, Former Major Leaguer, accounted for 23.12% of the players in the league. These two categories totaled 85.55% of the IAL’s participants. This would support the IAL classification as a Triple-A league, the highest rung in the minor league ladder. Rosters of teams in this classification usually are stocked with veteran minor leaguers and former major leaguers. The one anomaly in the chart is that this league had 25 true professional rookies—men who never played professional baseball prior to their appearance in the IAL. Obviously, few in baseball begin their careers at the Triple-A level. Why 14% of the leagues’ players were rookies can be explained by the its (very) international nature and its independence from major league affiliations.

In order to fully evaluate the overall success or failure of this league, it would help to receive some input from actual players in the league. Therefore, I sent a questionnaire to a sample of IAL players. Their answers provide valuable insight into the league’s short history.

Former players were asked questions such as, Did you enjoy playing in the IAL? Do you feel that playing in the IAL helped, hurt, or had no effect on your career? And why? What was your favorite thing about playing in the IAL? What was your least favorite thing about playing in the IAL? Please describe the quality of play in the IAL. Why do you think that the IAL failed? All but one of the responding players enjoyed playing in the league. The player with the negative response was injured while playing in the league, making his response understandable. Another interesting response was from a former major leaguer who felt that telling the story of the IAL was a big money-maker and he wanted to be compensated for answering my questionnaire. (Maduro apparently wasn’t the only dreamer connected with the league!)

The reason players enjoyed the IAL could be attributed to the fact that they realized they were in the twilight of their careers and weren’t wearing rose-colored glasses. They absolutely knew “the score” of their individual careers at that point. An overwhelming majority of the respondents indicated that playing in the league had no effect on their baseball career. The responses from players indicate that these guys had no grand illusion that the IAL was a career-saver or a rebirth. One player indicated “No Effect— Over the Hill.” Another said, “No Effect. I was going to retire as a player and go into coaching after the season, anyway.”

Regarding their favorite thing about playing in the IAL, their answers were a little more diverse. Positive factors included travel, great cities, good food, and great fans. The most interesting response was, “The Comrade [sic]—Playing baseball with some of organized baseball’s renegades.” These men knew that they were unique players in a unique league that ended too soon for them.

Some of the former players’ least favorite things about the IAL give clues as to why the league fell apart. The players cited travel, customs, first-time problems, low pay, and the disorganized franchises in the Latin American countries. Obviously, most of these things were caused by and/or caused financial burdens that the teams couldn’t bear.

The IAL was classified as Triple-A, but interestingly, a majority of the veteran minor leaguers and former major leaguers polled pegged the level of play as Double-A. (Could false advertising be another reason for the league’s quick demise? Fans paid for and naturally expected a certain product that they did not necessarily receive. Disappointment with the level of play may have led to poor attendance.)

In all, it is difficult to attribute the failure of the IAL to one cause. A more accurate statement might be that several factors worked together to cause its downfall.

First and foremost, Roberto Maduro must shoulder the blame. He felt that his dream could become a reality in 1979 and was anxious to get the IAL off the drawing board and onto the baseball fields of Latin America. As discussed earlier in this article, Maduro admitted that the league didn’t start marketing itself until January 1979. What success could the league have experienced if instead of playing baseball during that season, Maduro and other league leaders as well as individual team executives had spend that season putting the league on a sound financial footing?

The best team in the league drew 3,500 fans per game, with the next highest average gate only 1,350. Why were the IAL’s games so poorly attended? The poor marketing of the league played a big part, but other factors contributed. There didn’t appear to be any real rivalries between the teams, at least the kind that generate fan interest. Had play been delayed for a year, fan interest could have been cultivated as part of the league’s preparation work.

Another key factor was high costs. Every trip had to be made by air, a very expensive mode of travel back in 1979, and it doesn’t take an accountant to see the disaster of low revenues and high expenses.

When Maduro passed away on October 16, 1986 at the age of 70 from brain cancer, it was front page news of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish newspaper of Miami, Florida. Fausto Miranda, the dean of Cuban sportswriters, eulogized Maduro:

To remember the personality of Bobby Maduro as a distinguished Cuban sportsman does not do him justice. The death of Maduro is a loss for Latin America. The dreamer and enthusiast dedicated more than half a century of his 70 years to the enlargement of baseball ‘without borders and without prejudices,’ as he said himself. Maduro traveled all the paths of the great national sport.23

In fitting tribute to Maduro, Miami Stadium was renamed Bobby Maduro Stadium in 1987. This stadium was home to the Miami Amigos. It also hosted spring training games for the Orioles and Dodgers as well as those of another doomed indie, the Senior League. The park stood as tribute to the man until it was demolished in 2001 to make way for an affordable rental housing complex.

Roberto Maduro’s dream of bringing summer professional baseball to Latin America met reality in 1979, and reality won. In the thirty years since, no summer pro baseball teams have played in Latin America. Maduro’s dream has remained just that: a dream.

JOHN CRONIN, a longtime SABR member, currently serves on the Minor League Committee. He is a lifelong Yankees fan whose special interest is Yankees minor league farm teams over the years. A CPA and retired bank executive, Cronin has a B.A. in History from Wag- ner College and an M.B.A. in Accounting from St. John’s University.

Notes

1 The Sporting News, 23 February 1963, 21.

2 The Sporting News, 20 April 1955, 35.

3 The Sporting News, 22 June 1955, 24.

4 The Sporting News, 4 May 1955, 30.

5 The Sporting News, 18 September 1957, 44.

6 The Sporting News, 11 December 1957, 34.

7 The Sporting News, 26 November 1958, 35.

8 The Sporting News, 14 January 1959, 19.

9 The Sporting News, 4 February 1959, 26.

10 The Sporting News, 11 February 1959, 23

11 The Sporting News, 3 February 1979, 46.

12 The Sporting News, 4 August 1979, 47.

13 The Sporting News, 9 June 1979, 42.

14 The Sporting News, 5 May 1979, 41.

15 The Sporting News, 21 July 1979, 52.

16 The Sporting News, 4 May 1968, 36.

17 The Miami Herald, 3 July 2004, “Inter-American League Folded in Less Than a Year.”

18 Bowie Kuhn, Hardball—The Education of a Baseball Commissioner (New York, NY: Times Books, 1987), 44.

19 The Sporting News, 18 August 1979, 47.

20 Frank Dolson, Beating the Bushes (South Bend, Indiana: Icarus Press, 1982), 227.

21 Bowie Kuhn, Hardball—The Education of a Baseball Commissioner (New York, NY: Times Books, 1987), 372.

22 The Sporting News, 5 May 1979, 41.

23 El Nuevo Herald, 17 October 1986, 1.

By Tom Larwin

This article is a summary of observations from seven individuals who watched a ball game in an unusual way: We watched the umpires—the umpires only—and not the players. Our observations and resulting viewpoints were augmented the following day in an informal meeting with two of the umpires, who discussed certain aspects of the game with us.

The resulting article is a composition of these seven viewpoints. The writing styles are different and reflect the authors’ individual and differing views of the umpire team as the game transpired. During the game the focus—the entire focus—was on each of the four umpires and their individual behavior and actions while on the field. For each of us, the game and the final score were secondary for the first time ever while watching a major league baseball game.

There was no attempt to restrict the observations to key plays, or controversial decisions. In fact, other than the home plate umpire, most of the individual umpires’ actions were seemingly insignificant, and not involved in making a call. On any particular play most fans watching the game action would pay no attention to any of the umpires or what they might be doing … until it’s time to make a call.

Certainly much of what the umpires have to do during the game can be considered routine, and from that point of view we did not uncover many significant revelations.

Taken as a collective experience, however, over the course of an entire game, watching the umpires perform brought us a heightened appreciation for what they do on the field for two-and-half to three hours or more during every major league game.

INTRODUCTION

By Tom Larwin

Despite his role, the umpire is the most neglected, least appreciated, and most misunderstood participant in the National Pastime.1
— Larry Gerlach

The cardinal rule of umpiring is to follow the ball wherever it goes.#end2
— Shag Crawford, NL Umpire (1956–75)

On September 10, 2010, the San Diego Ted Williams SABR Chapter had a unique opportunity to benefit from unprecedented access to Major League Baseball (MLB) umpires. MLB Umpire Crew Chief Jerry Crawford gave his approval to a Chapter project that would involve an in-depth examination of his four-umpire crew during the conduct of a baseball game.

As an umpire you can’t really appreciate a ballgame. You have to concentrate so much on your job that you don’t enjoy the game. I said many times that when I got out of umpiring, I wouldn’t go near a ball park as long as I lived. But I have. Still, I look at the umpires, not the ballplayers. I can’t help it. I get a big kick out of watching the umpires, anticipating what they are going to do.3
— Joe Rue, AL Umpire (1938–47)

Left to right: Chris Guccione, Brian O’Nora, Phil Cuzzi, and Jerry Crawford

THE PROJECT

The intent of the project was to observe and document each of the four umpires throughout the playing of a baseball game, beginning with their pre-game meeting at home plate and continuing through their exit from the field following the final out.

Umpires are usually ignored by the casual fan. It’s often said that a well-umpired game is one in which you don’t even remember seeing the umpires. “Let ‘em play” is the common refrain.

Indeed, focusing on the umpires would not be an attractive option for most fans. Essentially, you cannot watch the game. You cannot track the ball, the pitcher, the batter, the fielders, or the runners when your full concentration is on the umpires.

Our objective was to better understand and appreciate the active and important role of each umpire. If umpires are the “most neglected, least appreciated, and most misunderstood” participants in the game, then we would choose to focus on the umpires continuously.

Unlike the players, the four umpires remain on the field between turns at bat—they are there, standing on the field continuously, for the entire game, including any extra innings. In the 2009 season the average game lasted just under three hours (2:55:23, to be exact).4 No rest breaks. What do they do all the time? We wanted to find out.

Working the plate is rough. I didn’t like it, but I had to do it to keep my job. It’s the hottest place in the park. You have to call about 250 decisions a day with the sun beating down on the back of your neck and nobody to hand you a sponge and no time in the dugout.5
—Beans Reardon, NL Umpire (1926–49)

Calling pitches is the toughest job in the game, but I loved it because you’re really in the game back of the plate. On the bases you start day-dreaming when there isn’t much action, and the next thing you know you’re in trouble.6
—Joe Paparella, AL Umpire (1946–65)

From a crouched position behind home plate, a plate umpire makes between 270 and 300 ball or strike calls per game. The pitches he watches move at 70 to 95 miles per hour. At such speeds, it’s impossible to watch the pitch’s entire movement, so the umpire tracks the pitch as best he can and makes his call on the basis of its after-image—that is, the momentary picture one has of an object after it has completed its trajectory. Like hitting, calling balls and strikes requires a high level of concentration; it also requires good eyesight and being in the best position to see the pitch.7

The 2009 Squats Leader: (Tim) McClelland compiled 11,417 squats in his 37 plate assignments, including the postseason. He averaged 308.6 squats per game.8

THE ASSIGNMENTS

A team of seven SABR members attended the game on Friday, September 10, 2010, when the San Francisco Giants were in San Diego to play the Padres at Petco Park (7:05 P.M. game start). The Crawford Crew, MLB Crew ‘J’, umpired the game.

Each of the seven SABR members was assigned one umpire to watch throughout the entire game. Thus, we ended with three teams of two members each and one solo assignment:

The charge for each member was to observe a designated umpire and to maintain an ongoing log—in their own way and style—describing on a continuous basis what the umpire was doing, including his positioning throughout the game and between innings.

On the day following the game, Saturday, September 11, 2010, each of the members was provided an opportunity to discuss with two members of the Crew (Cuzzi and Guccione) any of their observations or issues concerning actions taken by “their umpire” during the game.

Following this meeting each member was asked to prepare a written report of their observations and subsequent discussion with Crew members. The end product, this report, is essentially a compilation of the individual authored reports summarizing the actions of the umpiring crew throughout the game.

It is important to note that the assignment was NOT about evaluating the performance of the umpires.

I conditioned myself like a fighter, so I would never have to leave the field during a ball game. I didn’t drink too much liquid or eat much food before a ball game. If you overdo one or the other either you have to go to the bathroom or you get logy.9
— Ed Sudol, NL Umpire (1957–77)

We always try to help each other. If you see that a guy’s too slow, or you notice something he’s doing that he normally doesn’t do, you tell him so that he can correct it. One of my partners last night said he has been struggling at first base and didn’t know why. The play was just collapsing on him. It was bang, bang—and he was having a hard time reading it. I told him to move further away from the bag: ‘You have to get to where your eyes work best for you. It’s all in the angle and the eyes.’ He moved further away, made a little adjustment, and his problem cleared up. That’s the way it is—you depend upon your partners to help you with that fine tuning.10
—Durwood Merrill, AL Umpire (1976–99)

MLB UMPIRE CREW ‘J’

Crew J’s four umpires have worked an average of more than 2,250 MLB games, with Crawford leading the group with 4,267 games umpired over a 33-year span. By the end of the 2010 season, he stood at ninth on the all-time list of MLB games umpired.

Here are the four umpires in the Crawford Crew (statistics11 through 2009):

Jerry Crawford was born in August 1947 in Philadelphia and resides in Florida. His father, Henry “Shag” Crawford, was a National League umpire from 1956–75 and his brother, Joe, is a referee in the National Basketball Association. Crawford attended umpire school in 1967 and worked his way up through the minor leagues until joining the Major League staff in 1977. At 33 years he has the longest tenure of any present umpire and is four years shy of the record of 37 years set by Bruce Froemming and Bill Klem. He has umpired 108 postseason games, second only to Froemming. Over the course of his career he has averaged 1.85 ejections per 100 games.

Brian O’Nora was born in February 1963 in Youngstown and still lives in Ohio. He is a graduate of the Joe Brinkman Umpire School in 1985. His ejection rate has been 1.40.

Phil Cuzzi was born in August 1955 in New Jersey, where he still resides. He umpired his first major league game in 1991, and joined the MLB staff full-time in 1999. Cuzzi was the home plate umpire for Bud Smith’s no-hitter on September 3, 2001. His ejection rate has been 3.91.

Chris Guccione, who resides in Colorado, was born in June 1974 in Salida, Colorado. He has 14 years of professional baseball umpiring experience. His ejection rate has been 3.17.

My theory for the general lack of curiosity about umpires is that fans tend to find all the anomalies distancing rather than appealing. They make umpiring too peculiar, too enigmatic, too difficult to analyze. It’s not that umpires are hidden exactly, or even inconsequential. Rather, it’s as if, both on the field and off, they inhabit a parallel world to that of the rest of baseball. If you watch a game the way you normally do, focusing on the ball and the players throwing it, hitting it, or chasing it, the umpires will seem to be absent—it’s a little weird, actually; you just don’t see them, even though they’re often right in the middle of the action. The next time a catcher goes back to the screen for a foul pop, for example, take a moment to look for the plate umpire. You’ll find him surprisingly nearby, just a few feet from the catcher, peering intently at the ball as it descends, to make sure it doesn’t graze the screen before it hits the catcher’s glove.12

NOTES ON OFFICIAL BASEBALL RULES

By Bob Hicks

On the evening of Friday, September 10, 2010, the San Francisco Giants defeated the San Diego Padres at Petco Park 1–0 in front of more than 30,000 fans. The two teams combined for just ten hits. Each team collected only one extra-base hit each—a double. Neither extra-base hit factored in the scoring. As in virtually every Major League Baseball game, this contest was officiated by a team of four umpires responsible for ensuring the game is played under the Official Baseball Rules of Major League Baseball.13

All in all, the lack of offense may lead the casual observer to conclude that the ball game was fairly easy to officiate. “Not so,” stated two of the umpires who were asked that question the following day over breakfast. The game pitted the two top teams in the National League Western Division, magnifying the importance of each play. The fact that the game was so close meant that every call was critical.

The game included several close calls, including a few line drives down the third-base line, a couple of “bang-bang” plays at third, a critical caught stealing at second, a few close plays at first base (the sole run scored on a 5–4 fielder’s choice which just missed being a 5–4–3 inning-ending double play), and, finally, an unusual ninth-inning call at home plate which killed a bases-loaded rally—a call that neither umpire interviewed had ever invoked during their combined 30+ years of professional umpiring. Yet that rule had to be recalled and confidently conveyed to the players and the crowd in a matter of a second or two. Not an easy day at the office.

Even the most casual baseball fan is aware of an umpire’s responsibility to understand and immediately apply the Official Baseball Rules to the games they work. The Official Baseball Rules, a 129-page document published by the Office of the Commissioner, is divided into 10 sections. Nine of those sections—87 pages—describe rules directly relating to the umpire and the conduct of the game, the equipment, and the field on which the game is played.

Contained within those sections are the obvious and the obscure. Every application of those rules must be accurately and confidently recalled within a second or two in the heat of the action under the watchful eyes of the 50 or so uniformed combatants, the press and broadcast personnel, 30,000+ fans in the stands, the MLB umpire evaluation staff, thousands watching live on TV or the web, and thousands more who will acquire an account of the game via newspaper, newscast, MLB.com, or various other means available to the millions of baseball fans throughout the United States and abroad.

The Official Baseball Rules have undergone more than 45 revisions from the time they were revised and codified in 1949. The two leagues have slightly different rules, most of the differences surrounding the designated hitter. Each ballpark has different ground rules, grounds crews, official scorekeepers, ball boys and girls, public address announcers, and audio/video staff with whom the umpires may interact.

Although the average baseball fan is aware of the Official Baseball Rules (which are available to the public at MLB.com), the umpires must fully comprehend and execute another book: the MLB Umpire Manual,Major League Baseball, MLB Umpire Manual (New York: Major League Baseball, 2010). published by the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and not available to the public. Over 150 pages it details desired “Conduct & Responsibilities,” “Procedures and Interpretation,” and “Mechanics for the Four-Umpire System,” covering virtually every potential game situation and the “Umpire Evaluation and Training” system.

In my view, the most interesting section of the MLB Umpire Manual is the “Mechanics” section. Within those 40-plus pages are dozens of combinations of umpire movement and responsibilities depending upon what runners are on which base and the number of outs. Perhaps most impressively, MLB outlines the responsibilities of each umpire (unless field conditions require temporary alterations), but the positioning executed to meet those responsibilities varies somewhat depending upon the desires of the crew chief and his arbiters. Positioning and other such issues are negotiated and decided upon before a crew works together for the first time. To me this is another example of the high level of knowledge and teamwork MLB requires of its umpiring crews.

Consider that a crew is occasionally altered by a substitute umpire filling in due to illness or vacation. Even more challenging is a last-minute illness or game injury which may leave the four-man crew short one member. When taking these situations into account, these positioning variations—which may uniquely distinguish each crew—add another degree of difficulty to umpiring. Many of us never considered this interesting subtlety of the game before undertaking this project.

UMPIRE OBSERVATIONS AT HOME PLATE

By Dan Boyle with Andy McCue

Prior to the September 10 game, Dan practiced watching umpires for an inning or two and found it to be much harder than he had guessed; after many years of watching baseball, the first instinct is to follow the ball after the crack of the bat. These preliminary observations revealed certain patterns that each umpire has, and these patterns or rhythms are virtually identical with every pitch.

For this evening, the two of us watched home plate umpire Chris Guccione. He has been a full-time major league umpire since the start of the 2009 season and umpired his first MLB game in 2000. One of us watched the umpire closely for the top half of an inning, while the other described where each batted ball was going so that the watcher would have a sense of what the umpire was reacting to. Every half inning, we switched roles. We also kept track of the number of decisions made by the home plate umpire throughout the course of the game. (Swinging strikes, foul balls, balls in play, and intentional walks did not count.) Our guess prior to the game was that Guccione would have to make 200 decisions during the course of the day. The final total is at the end of this section.

We recorded our observations by inning and noted our questions, since we knew that Chris would be at breakfast the next day.

• First Inning. Prior to the game we thought of (and promptly forgot) two great questions: how did Chris develop his style of calling strikes and how does he time a visit to the mound? We noted that he hustled three-quarters of the way down the first-base line on a popup that could be fair or foul, since the first-base umpire has to make the fair-foul call and also call any play at first base.

• Second Inning. We had become acclimated to Chris’s rhythm by this point. He stands well behind the catcher then moves up and crouches as the pitcher is in his windup. He sets up to look over the inside corner with his outside hand resting on the catcher. This movement was consistent throughout the game. In this inning, he threw a new ball to the pitcher after a foul; in later innings, he handed the new ball to the catcher. We noticed him nod toward the San Diego dugout during this inning for no obvious reason. After the third out, he threw a new ball to the mound prior to the next inning. Between innings, he took new balls from the ball boy and stood halfway down the first-base line watching the pitcher throw his warm-ups.
• Third Inning. Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez made a between-the-legs catch on a bounced throw from third base after the ball had been called foul. Guccione came out to the mound and said something to pitcher Clayton Richard. Afterwards, we realized that he was taking the ball, which had bounced in the dirt, out of play. Upon closer inspection, we found a slight variation in Chris’s stance: for left-handed batters, his feet are even, but for right-handed batters, his left foot is slightly closer to the catcher than his right. Before the last warm-up pitch between innings, he signals with his right hand to the batter, waiting on deck, to move up to the plate.
• Fourth Inning. Another thought we had but forgot to ask him about: how many balls are in his ball bag at any one time? The between-inning routine was different this inning. Chris had a long conversation with someone in the Padres dugout. We assumed it must be a coach, but the conversation partner turned out to be Yorvit Torrealba. We also noticed that he disallowed Jonathan Sanchez’ first pitch on an intentional walk, making it a rare five-pitch IW.
• Fifth Inning. Chris called time and took a ball out of play after it had bounced in the dirt. This was when we realized the answer to the question back in the third inning about the visit to the mound. With a man on first base, Chris goes all the way down the line to the first-base bag on a fly ball to right field. In the same situation, he goes halfway down the third-base line on a fly ball to left-center. Chris holds his ball-strike indicator in his left hand, but only looks at it between at-bats or with a full count. Our guess is that he is re-setting it.
• Sixth Inning. Chris motioned to the press box when a pinch-hitter entered the game. He picked up a bat down the first-base line for the batboy. He went out to the mound to check the ball after a throw to first had bounced in the dirt. Somewhere around this time, we realized that we had no idea of what was going on in the game. Giants pitcher Sanchez came out after issuing seven walks; this was news to us. Is Buster Posey in the lineup tonight? Who’s coming up next inning? What inning is it, precisely? We had no clue. The one watching closely often had to ask what happened on a particular play; every now and then, we’d look up briefly and find men on base when we didn’t expect to. Of course, this only meant that we were doing our job, but it was still disconcerting.
• Seventh Inning. What proved to be the only run of the game scored on an attempted double play. Chris kicked the bat out of the way and stood just behind the plate when it was obvious that there would be no play at home. With a man on first, he came down the line only a little bit on a blooper to right field. We surmised that if the ball had taken a funny hop, there could have been a play at home.
• Eighth Inning. Chris gave some extra time to Padres catcher Nick Hundley, who had been hit by a foul ball. Chris walked out in front of home and kicked dirt off the plate. One of us asks the other, “Has he dusted off the plate yet tonight?” We remember seeing him kick dirt off the plate just as he had here, but neither of us recalled seeing him use the brush. Maybe he forgot it tonight? Chris had a discussion with the San Diego dugout before the visitor eighth, apparently regarding a new Padres pitcher. With a man on first, he trotted down the third-base line on a single to left. He chatted with Aubrey Huff at the plate while Hundley visited the mound (this happens twice during the at-bat). It’s the only time we observed him talking to a hitter or catcher, although the mask made it difficult to tell. He chatted with the ball boy between innings.
• Ninth Inning. With one out and the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, Giants pitcher Brian Wilson hit a comebacker to the mound. Ryan Webb threw to the plate to force Jose Uribe, but catcher Hundley did not throw to first. After a second, Guccione signaled that Uribe had interfered with Hundley and ruled it a double play. Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy came storming out of the dugout but retreated after about five seconds of conversation. Replays clearly showed that as Uribe slid into home, he reached out and grabbed Hundley’s ankle. Chris was positioned slightly to the third-base side of home plate.

HOW MANY DECISIONS?
(Measuring pitches that the umpire needed to “rule” on, meaning swinging strikes and fouls were not included)

• Inning 1: 22 (16 balls, 6 called strikes)
• Inning 2: 26 (15 balls, 11 called strikes)
• Inning 3: 12 (9 balls, 3 called strikes)
• Inning 4: 11 (6 balls, 5 called strikes, intentional walk not counted as a decision)
• Inning 5: 20 (17 balls, 2 called strikes, one fair/foul on a foul ball off the batter’s foot)
• Inning 6: 13 (10 balls, 3 called strikes)
• Inning 7: 17 (12 balls, 4 called strikes, one checked swing)
• Inning 8: 10 (7 balls, 3 called strikes)
• Inning 9: 19 (12 balls, 5 called strikes, one checked swing, one interference call)

Total: 150 decisions (in our inexperience, we may have missed some pitches)

UMPIRE OBSERVATIONS AT FIRST BASE

By Fred O. Rodgers

Ozzie Guillen, the current manager of the Chicago White Sox, once stated that nobody comes to the park just to watch an umpire work. That is no longer true. I watched one umpire for the entire game.

The game lasted 3:03 with the only run scoring on a fielder’s choice. There were 289 pitches thrown and 72 batters made plate appearances.

I covered Jerry Crawford, the first-base umpire, who is also the crew chief. This is Jerry’s 34th year as a major league umpire and would be his last (he retired following the 2010 postseason). Interestingly, both Jerry and his father, Shag Crawford, spent over ten years of their careers working on the same crew as recently inducted Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey.

During the course of the nine innings that Jerry covered first base,

• 39 batters (54%) came up with no one on base;
• 18 batters came up (25%) with a runner on first;
• 4 batters (6%) hit with a runner on second;
• 9 batters (13%) appeared with runners on first and second;
• One batter came up (1.4%) with runners on first and third; and
• One batter appeared (1.4%) when the bases were loaded.

So what did Jerry Crawford do with nobody on base?

Jerry began each pitch standing approximately 15–20 feet behind the first-base bag and just outside the foul line. This was meant to increase the chances that if he was hit with a batted ball, it would be foul. Jerry would start moving in about four or five paces as the pitcher started his windup. As the pitcher planted his foot Jerry would freeze and either keep his hands on his knees or be at the ready with his hands by his side. He would do this on virtually every pitch.

You could see how focused and how intently Jerry would watch each pitch; he knew he might have to help the home plate umpire on checked swings, balls in the dirt, foul balls hit off the batter, and foul tips on third strikes. There is no relaxing during a pitch.

In two instances, Jerry had to call a ball down the right-field line “fair” or “foul.” He also ran into the outfield on three occasions on fly balls hit to right field and right-center.

With runners on first base, Jerry would situate himself about ten feet from the bag with a perfect angle to watch the pitcher for a balk or a pickoff throw to first. During the game a pitcher threw over to first seven times. Only once did Jerry have to make a tough call on a pickoff attempt.

The closer the call, the more need to “sell” the call so that the crowd understands you are in charge and that you saw it correctly. A little bit of confidence and showmanship is needed to make sure that everyone in the park understands a delicate call.

Jerry would move approximately ten feet toward second base and about five feet behind the first baseman once a ball was hit to the infield. This is considered the best position to be in to see the first-base bag and to listen for the ball in the mitt to make a decisive call. Jerry had to “sell” two tough plays. The only run in the game scored when Jerry called the batter safe running to first on the backside of an attempted double play. There was no argument.

Because the teams combined for only two extra-base hits, umpire rotation was at a minimum. Only twice did Jerry have to run toward second base in case he would need to make a call. Neither time was a play made.

Between innings Jerry seldom moved from the area directly behind first base where the grass and the dirt meet. Never once did he excuse himself from the field. In the sixth inning, Jerry ambled over to the first-base seats just past the dugout and shook hands with ex-Padres ballplayer Kurt Bevacqua, who introduced Jerry to his wife and two kids. Then Jerry actually signed a ball for Kurt, which I’m sure is not a normal occurrence during a game.

Most of the time between innings, Jerry showed amusement at what the Padres showed on the scoreboard, be it the Kiss-Cam or baseball bloopers. I could also tell that Jerry was entertained when the grounds crew (one of whom put on a dance routine) raked the infield between innings.

I found it amazing that a 1–0 game could go over three hours. The very next night, another 1–0 game lasted only 2:07.

My observation of Jerry Crawford working first base for the whole game made me more aware of all the work umpires do just to prepare to make a call that may not even come their way. The stress from pitch to pitch is huge. Working the bases can be just as demanding as working home plate.

I think I would rather sit up in the stands and watch the players—and I guess now, the umpires—entertain me.

UMPIRE OBSERVATIONS AT SECOND BASE

By Li-An Leonard and Andy Strasberg

Regardless of the number of baseball games you have seen, you are probably missing a vital aspect of the game that has eluded fans, broadcasters and the baseball media since the first pitch was called by an umpire some 150 years ago.

Realistically, few, if any, attend a baseball game for the express purpose of following one umpire for an entire game. No one charts an umpire’s every move on every pitch and batted ball. And certainly no one makes notes of what an umpire does between innings. But if you did, you would see a baseball game from the inside-out and upside-down guaranteed.

We followed and detailed every move of the second-base umpire, Phil Cuzzi, during this game. We were provided unprecedented access to the umpire after the game and were able to find out the reason for each movement or gesture. We were also informed of casual conversations or argumentative conversations by the umpire himself. It was a revelation; the explanations were interesting, intriguing, and revealing.

Our observations took place in a three-hour, three-minute game during which the second-base umpire was constantly on his feet in a “get ready” position every time a pitch was thrown, hustling into position, then hustling back. He didn’t take a bathroom break nor did he get anything to drink while working the game.

Other observations (some involving all umpires):

• Each umpire taps the chest protector of the plate umpire after the conclusion of the pregame meeting between the two teams where clubs exchange lineup cards.
• On double plays beginning at second base and involving a relay throw, the second-base umpire sees only the play at second base. He does not watch a throw after it leaves the middle infielder’s hand.
• When a runner is on base, the second-base umpire watches the pitcher for the possibility of a balk.
• On balls hit to the outfield, the second-base umpire does not run toward the ball butrather slightly away from it for the express
  purpose of getting a better angle to see whether a catch is made.
• When a pitcher throws to first base, the second-base umpire appears to relax and back up on his heels. In reality he is expanding his vision, anticipating the possibility of a play at second base.
• After the third out of each inning, the second-base umpire removes a stop watch from his pants pocket and begins monitoring the two minutes and five seconds needed for the commercial break to ensure that the game does not resume before the TV/radio audience returns.
• The second-base umpire looks for every player to touch second base when traveling the bases.
• Every umpire must wear the gear necessary for the weather conditions and the position he works.
• A demonstrative up-and-down hand-clap before the next batter signifies to the other umpires the possibility of the infield fly rule taking effect. (The signal for the infield fly rule may vary from umpire to umpire or from crew to crew.)
• The rotation to cover the bases by the umpires is not an exact science, but rather the closest thing one may ever see to teamwork.
• Anticipating the possibilities is an ongoing process for every umpire for every play imaginable.
• An umpire’s physical condition could impact how a crew works a game. There is always the possibility that one of the four umpires might not be able to complete the game, and as a result, the umpires must be prepared to adjust their approach to the game.
• Discussing the play with a player or manager is part of the game, but generally only happens in case of a disagreement. Many times this takes place with elevated emotions and voices.
• Looking for the best angle is the quest of every umpire on every play. Positioning is the key to a good angle.
• Every move and possible play is not only anticipated but must also be instantaneously applied to the official rules of the game.
• Most media members covering a game have little knowledge of the rules of the game and often base their opinions and criticisms of umpires on misinformation or lack of knowledge of a rule.

THE CHALLENGES

• Loneliness. An umpiring crew consists of four men. The
  support team of an umpire crew is limited to only the
  other three men.
• Travel. After spending a series of games in one city, the crew must travel to another city to work the games of two new teams. It is MLB policy that the umpire crew not continue to work the same two clubs.
• Stressful conditions. Instant recall of applicable knowledge of the rules in front of thousands or millions of people must occur within seconds of a play. When an umpire is working, situations that happen infrequently require umpires to recall the applicable rule immediately and perfectly.

At the end of the day, who appreciates the work of an umpire? There is no home team. They have no fan club, and the MLB office doesn’t appreciate the intricacies of their work, essentially because the MLB office has never experienced it. As the adage says, “The only time an umpire is noticed is when something goes wrong”—or, in most cases, “appears” to go wrong. Yet umpires are dedicated and proud of the work they do. MLB umpires are the best baseball fans the game has. They don’t root for a team or a player, but they love the game as much if not more than any die-hard fan.

UMPIRE OBSERVATIONS AT THIRD BASE

By David Kinney and Bob Hicks

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

Prior to a pitch, third base umpire Brian O’Nora takes a preliminary position at the point where the infield dirt meets the outfield grass. As the pitcher looks in for the sign from the catcher, O’Nora moves a couple of steps toward third base, straddling the third-base/left-field chalk line with one foot in fair territory and one in foul. Like the infielders, as the pitch is thrown he takes a set position. Usually this set is a modified scissors position with left leg forward. He repeats this motion with every pitch. Brian does not vary his starting point based on right- or left-handed batter, power hitter, or potential bunting situation. He is achingly consistent with this pattern.

With a left-handed batter, he would not follow the pitch to the plate but instead would focus on the batter to be prepared for a check swing. With a runner on base, the umpire would observe the pitcher until he was past the possible balk point and without following the pitch immediately turn his glance to the batter to observe a possible check swing. Also, when a runner occupied second base, immediately after the set O’Nora would cast a quick glance at the runner, much like a third basemen would, presumably to gauge the runner’s lead and possible intent to steal. When an action was unlikely to produce a play at third base (either a ground ball or fly ball to an area of the diamond other than near third base, and with no runners on base) the umpire would basically remain in position but turn and follow the play.

With runners on base, his focus was always on any possible action at third base. For example, with a runner on base and an infield ground ball, O’Nora would not watch the resulting play at first base but would be in position to observe the runner touching third.

With fly balls to left field, the umpire had the responsibility to observe the catch, determine fair or foul, and observe any action at third base. Sometimes he was required to do all three on one play. On a foul pop-up toward the far end of the third-base dugout, O’Nora appeared to gauge where he thought the ball and defender would end up. He ensured that he didn’t interfere with the defender’s path to the ball, but immediately after that danger was averted, sprinted to a position where he could see the open glove as the fielder caught the ball. This cone of vision, in which every umpire tries to center each play, provides the best angle for a catch, tag, drop, or trap. It appeared that O’Nora attempted to be at a standstill before the catch was made.

Between the top and bottom of the third inning O’Nora drank from a water bottle offered by the Padres’ ball girl.

Between some innings, the grounds crew quickly drags the infield, rakes around the base areas, replaces the bases, etc. Often the Padres send out a dancer dressed as a member of the grounds crew to perform for the crowd in shallow center field just beyond second base. His routine usually generates a good response from the crowd and, on the rarest occasion, a simple acknowledgement from the third-base umpire as the dancer exits the field. O’Nora’s body language seemed to communicate to the dancer that no acknowledgement would be forthcoming. “No harm, no foul,” but no high-five either.

O’Nora never sat down and never left the field until the game was over. At the conclusion of the game the umpires gathered together between home and third base and left the field as one.

He often watched the promotions on the video screen between innings, albeit never in their entirety. It appeared that recent baseball highlights held none of O’Nora’s interest. He did, however, glance at the screen for a blooper segment or two.

Between innings, early in the game, O’Nora talked briefly with Padres third-base coach Glenn Hoffman and with Giants third-base coach Tim Flannery.

He spoke, very briefly, with Giants left fielder Pat Burrell before the bottom of the first as the latter was walking to his position from the Giants dugout on the third-base side.

SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS

On a number of plays, the umpire had to move in various directions on the field:

• Easily played fly ball to outfield. Umpire moved five or six feet toward the shortstop position.
• High foul fly toward right field. Umpire moved ten feet on infield grass near shortstop position.
• Deep drive to center. As the second-base umpire went out to observe the catch, the third-base umpire moved toward second anticipating a play.
• Ground ball down the third base line. Umpire moved several feet into foul territory to observe whether the ball was fair or foul.
• Deep drive to right field with runners on first and third. Umpire moved closer to third to observe the touch of the two baserunners. He did not observe the flight of the ball or the catch.
• Long foul ball to left field. Umpire went out to observe the catch.
• Pop up to pitcher. Umpire moved toward the pitcher’s mound to observe the catch.
• Fly ball to left field. Umpire went out to observe the catch and raced back to third anticipating a play.
• Ground ball to short with runners on first and second. Umpire moved to a position near third in foul territory.
• Foul pop-up near third base stands. Umpire waited for the fielder to take his route, moved in toward the infield several feet, and raced toward the stands to observe the catch. (See comments above.)
• Fly ball to left field runners on first and second. Umpire went out to observe catch.

BREAKFAST MEETING THE DAY AFTER

By Dan Boyle

On our reaction. At breakfast the next day, Phil Cuzzi first asked us if this project had affected our views of umpires. We said, “Yes, absolutely.” Even in a low-scoring game, without much action on the bases, much happened that we would have never otherwise observed.

General comments on positioning. Chris described the flight of the ball and the path of the runner as forming a V on plays at the plate, and the umpire wants to be at the intersection of the two lines. Home plate umpires typically are slightly up the first-base line in foul ground because throws to the plate are usually caught in front of the plate. The idea is to have a clear line of sight between the runner and the catcher (the runner’s side of the V) to determine whether the tag is made. The diagram shown earlier for the interference play at the plate indicated that Guccione was slightly to the left of and behind home plate, which seems to contradict the idea of being at the intersection of the V. On that play, however, the bases were loaded and the home plate umpire was looking at a force, not a tag play. Chris was in the best position to see whether the runner beat the throw.

On our observation that this seemed to be an easy game to call. A tight game like this is never easy, especially in a pennant race. Any one call could change the game, unlike in an 8–0 game.

The stopwatch. As the second base umpire, Phil had the stopwatch to monitor the time between innings. In response to a question, he said that everything ran smoothly.

On whether he needs to unwind after a game, particularly when working the plate. Chris said he always falls asleep quickly once he’s back in the hotel.

Why his left foot is closer to the catcher than his right foot for right-handed batters. Chris said that he does move in a little closer for righties. It seems that he could not move closer for lefties because of the possibility of interfering with the catcher’s throw. Phil was surprised by the answer; he never noticed Chris doing this.

The conversation with Torrealba. Chris knows Torrealba from when they were both in the California League (as umpire and player). In the game the night before, after a controversial call at first base, the television cameras picked up some back-and-forth between Adrian Gonzalez and Guccione. Torrealba was telling Chris that Adrian had asked him if Guccione always goes back at you, and Torrealba responded, “Nah, only if you piss him off.”

The five-pitch intentional walk. Someone called time before the first pitch for reasons unknown.

Brushing off home. Guccione had the brush (he said, while patting his shirt pocket) but had no reason to use it in a 1–0 game.

The interference call. Chris noted that he did not call interference immediately. During the delay of perhaps a second, his brain ran through everything he was seeing, and he decided that it clearly was interference. Especially interesting is that this was the first time in his career that Guccione had called interference on a
play at the plate. Bochy assumed that the interference call was because the runner was out of the baseline (the typical interference call on the bases) and wanted to show the path of Uribe’s slide to Guccione, but Chris quickly told the manager that he called interference because Uribe hooked the catcher’s ankle with his hand. Once Bochy heard that, the argument ended.

In response to a question, Chris said that whether Hundley had a play on the man at first had no bearing on the interference call. It was not the home plate umpire’s job to determine whether the runner might have been out at first without the interference, primarily because there was no way to make that determination. Jerry Crawford, the first-base umpire, told Guccione after the game that the batter was running far inside (i.e., on the fair side) of the baseline. A throw might have hit the runner in fair territory.

CONCLUSION

By Andy Strasberg

“People only know to hate us. We are a misunderstood group. People don’t really know us, but to know us is to love us.”
— Phil Cuzzi

Our Saturday morning get-together with Cuzzi and Chris Guccione provided the perfect opportunity to ask questions about the game they had umpired the previous evening at PETCO Park. Our questions ranged from what was said during the game to players in between innings, to the umpires’ hand signals for a potential infield fly rule possibility, and a catcher’s interference call. The umpires appeared candid and forthright with their responses.

It became evident as they responded that the umpires love their job, take an enormous amount of pride in their profession, and are extremely knowledgeable of baseball in general, not only the rules.

They were generous in sharing insights about what goes on during a game for those men standing on a baseball diamond who are not players, coaches, or managers. Our conversation was speckled with humor and revelations.

As a result of the questions we asked and the answers we received, our conclusion was that an umpire’s approach to the game is a combination (in no particular order) of sociability, knowledge of the rules, ability to make split-second decisions, and at times—when it is needed—to control the game so that is played fairly for both teams.

While the fans watch the pitcher and batter get ready for a pitch, each umpire is preparing for the play and constantly aware of his (so far, his) field conditions and player positioning, ready to anticipate any number of rule possibilities depending on game situations. For instance, we discussed a play from the previous night’s game in which Giants closer Brian Wilson hit a comebacker to the mound and runner Juan Uribe interfered with catcher Nick Hundley. This was not a play that could have easily been anticipated, but yet was called in less time that it took to write this sentence. We asked Chris how many times he had called that play and were surprised to hear him respond, “That was the first time I ever made that call.”

That play, and that call, indicate how an umpire must be decisive, have an instant and accurate recall of rules, and remain continuously observant. The umps may appear to be enjoying the game in a casual manner, but they are working the entire time the game is being played.

As we departed our meeting with Guccione and Cuzzi, we realized that we had a better understanding of what it was to be an MLB umpire. We learned about their challenges and found them to be personable and—clichés be hanged—even likeable.

Notes

1 Gerlach, Larry R., The Men in Blue, Conversations with Umpires (New York: The Viking Press, 1980), viii

2 Gerlach, 201.

3 Gerlach, 73.

4 Major League Baseball, The 2010 Umpire Media Guide (New York: Major League Baseball, 2010), 77.

5 Gerlach, 20.

6 Gerlach, 136.

7 Gmelch, George and J.J. Weiner, In the Ballpark, The Working Lives of Baseball People (Washington, DC and London: The Smithsonian Institution, 1998), 141.

8 Major League Baseball, The 2010 Umpire Media Guide, 93

9 Gerlach, 229

10 Gerlach and Weiner, 144.

11 Major League Baseball, The 2010 Umpire Media Guide. http://www.retrosheet.org.

12 Weber, Bruce, As They See ‘em, A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires (New York: Scribner, 2009), 30.

13 Major League Baseball, Official Rules of Major League Baseball (New York: Major League Baseball, 2010).

So, having firmly established an accurate, official game-by-game runs-scored database, I am able to reliably ascertain the longest Consecutive Games Run Scored (CGRUNS) streak achieved by each Detroit Tigers player in each season during the period from 1920 through 1944. Some of the results of my CGRUNS streak research are described in this article.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The major league record for the longest CGRUNS streak is 24 games by Billy Hamilton of the 1894 Philadelphia club. The American League record is 18 straight games, shared by Red Rolfe of the 1939 New York Yankees and Kenny Lofton of the 2000 Cleveland Indians. The post-1900 mark in the senior circuit is 17 games, by Rogers Hornsby of the 1921 St. Louis Cardinals and Ted Kluszewski of the 1954 Cincinnati Redlegs.2

The record for the longest CGRUNS streak by a player on the Detroit Tigers has apparently not yet been reported. In a previous article, I described my findings on the determination of the longest CGRUNS streak by a Tigers player during the period 1945-2008.3 For that 64-year period, Johnny Groth of the 1950 Tigers assembled the longest CGRUNS streak, a 13-gamer.4

RESEARCH PROCEDURES

The official DBD records (with the officially-authorized runs-scored corrections applied) for Detroit Tigers players were examined to ascertain the longest CGRUNS streak for each player for each season during the period from 1920 through 1944.5

Major League Baseball’s official rules do not specifically cover CGRUNS streaks.6 Therefore, I used the following guidelines to define the extension or termination of a CGRUNS streak:

• If a player scores at least one run in a game, that game extends the CGRUNS streak.
• If a player completes at least one plate appearance in a game but does not score at least one run, that game terminates the CGRUNS streak.7
• If a player is used only as a pinch runner in a game and does not score at least one run, that game terminates the CGRUNS streak.
• If a player is used only as a defensive player in a game (and thus does not have a completed plate appearance), that game does not terminate the CGRUNS streak.
• If a player is announced as a pinch hitter and is then replaced by another pinch hitter (and thus does not have a completed plate appearance), that game does not terminate his CGRUNS streak. Similarly, if a player enters the game as a pinch hitter, but the inning ends via a caught-stealing or a pickoff before he can complete his plate appearance, that game does not terminate the CGRUNS streak.
• If a player had at least one opportunity to score a run in a game, he must have scored at least one run in that game in order to extend his CGRUNS streak; if he had at least one opportunity to score a run in a game and did not score his CGRUNS streak is terminated.8

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1 lists the player(s) who compiled the longest CGRUNS streak for the Tigers in each season during the 1920–44 period.

An * indicates that the player led the team in runs scored that season. It is interesting to note that the Tigers player who fashioned the longest CGRUNS streak led the team in runs scored only six times during the 25 seasons covered in Phase Two.

Inspection of Table 1 shows that Doc Cramer assembled the longest CGRUNS streak from 1920–44, scoring at least one run in 16 straight games from August 30 through September 17, 1944 (first game). Cramer’s 16-gamer is the longest streak for a Detroit Tigers player from 1920 through 2010.9 Moreover, Cramer’s 16 CGRUNS streak falls just two games shy of the American League record.2

The Tigers player who led his team the most times in longest CGRUNS streaks from 1920 through 1944 is Charlie Gehringer; “The Mechanical Man” led the team four times.

Considering the 91-year period from 1920 through 2010, Table 2 presents a list of all Tigers players with single-season CGRUNS streaks of at least 10 games.

Inspection of Table 2 reveals that Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg each had three CGRUNS streaks of at least ten games, while Harry Heilmann and Doc Cramer had two CGRUNS streaks of ten or more. The last Detroit player to have accomplished a double-digit CGRUNS streak was Dean Palmer in 1999.

CONCLUSION

In my research program to ascertain the player with the longest CGRUNS streak for the Detroit Tigers since 1901, I have completed Phase One (1945 to the present) and Phase Two (from 1920 through 1944).10, 11

Employing the relevant official DBD records, including the officially-sanctioned corrections of the runs-scored errors I discovered, I have determined that Doc Cramer’s 16-game CGRUNS string in 1944 is the longest for the Detroit Tigers since 1920. In Phase Three, I will address the 1901–19 period and complete the project.

HERM KRABBENHOFT, a SABR member since 1981, has documented—via official scorecards or game-action newspaper photos—the uniform number(s) of every Detroit Tigers player, manager, and coach for each season from 1931 forward except Frank Doljack (1932), Luke Hamlin (1933), and Roxie Lawson (1933). He is seeking a photocopy of an official Detroit Tigers scorecard from May 1, 1945 or May 2, 1945 (against the White Sox) in order to learn the uniform number of Dutch Meyer, a “phantom” Tiger that season.

Notes

1 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Authorized Correction of Errors in Runs Scored in the Official Records (1920–44) for Detroit Tigers Players,” The Baseball Research Journal, submitted for publication, 31 August 2010.

2 Seymour Siwoff, The Elias Book of Baseball Records, (New York: Elias Sports Bureau, 2010), 383.

3 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Longest Streaks of Consecutive Games in Which a Detroit Tiger Has Scored a Run (1945–2008),” The Baseball Research Journal, 37 (2008):123.

4 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Longest Streaks of Consecutive Games in Which a Detroit Tiger Has Scored a Run (1945–2008),” The Baseball Research Journal, 37 (2008):123.

5 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Authorized Correction of Errors in Runs Scored in the Official Records (1920–44) for Detroit Tigers Players,” The Baseball Research Journal, submitted for publication, 31 August 2010.

6 The Official Baseball Rules (copyright 2010 by the Commissioner of Baseball) are available online at mlb.com. “Rule 10.23 Guide- lines for Cumulative Performance Record” deals with consecutive streaks: consecutive hitting streaks, consecutive-game hitting streaks, and consecutive-game playing streaks.

7 There can be situations in which a player completes at least one plate appearance in a game without scoring a run and yet that game does not terminate the CGRUNS streak. For example, consider the following scenario: The player is used as a pinch hitter and gets on base by being hit by a pitched ball on the first pitch delivered to him; the player is then immediately replaced by a pinch runner. Because the player did not have an opportunity to score a run (the ball is dead upon hitting the batter), that game does not terminate his CGRUNS streak.

8 There can be situations in which a player completes at least one plate appearance in a game without scoring a run and yet that game does not terminate the CGRUNS streak. For example, consider the following scenario: The player is used as a pinch hitter and gets on base by being hit by a pitched ball on the first pitch delivered to him; the player is then immediately replaced by a pinch runner. Because the player did not have an opportunity to score a run (the ball is dead upon hitting the batter), that game does not terminate his CGRUNS streak.

9 According to the player daily records provided on the Retrosheet website, the Tigers players with the longest CGRUNS streaks in the 2009 and 2010 seasons are Magglio Ordonez (8) and Austin Jackson (7), respectively.

10 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Longest Streaks of Consecutive Games in Which a Detroit Tiger Has Scored a Run (1945–2008),” The Baseball Research Journal, 37 (2008):123.

11 Herm Krabbenhoft, “The Longest Consecutive Games RUN Scored (CGRUNS) Streaks by Detroit Tigers Players (1920–44),” Baseball Records Committee Annual Meeting, Society for American Baseball Research National Convention, Atlanta, GA, 7 August 2010.