Pitchers of the divisional era who played at least one game in the field before 1969:

• Steve Blass, one game as LF for PIT N on 1968-08-31.
• Tom Burgmeier, one game as LF for CAL A on 1968-09-03.
• Jim Hunter, one game as 1B for KC A on 1967-06-18.
• Ron Kline, one game as 3B for PIT N on 1955-07-08 (completion of game of 1955-05-29 (2)).
• Jim Maloney, one game as LF for CIN N on 1961-09-29.
• Al McBean, one game as LF for PIT N in 1965-08-18.
• Claude Osteen, one game as LF for CIN N on 1961-04-27.

On September 12, 1992, in the fifth inning of a game between the Dodgers and the Giants at Dodger Stadium, Michael Joseph Piazza hit his first major league home run and his road to the catcher career home-run record began.1

This first four-bagger was a hard shot to right center with men on second and third and Los Angeles leading 3–0. The count was 1–0 and San Francisco’s pitcher, Steve Reed, served up Piazza’s first dinger. He would subsequently serve up three more to Piazza in years to come. It was also the first of 51 three-run home runs that he would hit, but the only home run that he would hit in his initial major league season.

In his 16-year career, Piazza would hit 30 home runs (or more) in a season nine times, including eight consecutive years—1995 through 2002—and would have likely had 10 straight seasons were it not for the strike-shortened 1994 (24). In all, he had 427 career home runs with 396 of them as a catcher.2 Both are all-time catcher records.

In the course of his career, Piazza would pass all of the Hall-of-Fame catchers on the home-run list, including Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Carlton Fisk, and Gary Carter. Through the 2011 season, he ranked 43rd among all players in career home runs, ahead of some well-known non-catcher Hall-of-Fame sluggers such as Duke Snider, Al Kaline, Jim Rice, Tony Perez, Orlando Cepeda, and Joe DiMaggio.3

Table 1 shows career home-run tallies for Hall-of-Fame backstops, plus some notable non-HOF catchers, and the date Piazza passed each.

Table 1. Catcher Career Home Runs

Table 2. Career Homers While Catching

*HRc is a home run while catching.

Table 2 shows home runs while catching (as compared to playing any other position) by backstops and the dates that Piazza surpassed each.4

Piazza’s nine years of 30 or more home runs is more than double any other catcher. Johnny Bench, Roy Campanella, and Mickey Tettleton only managed it four times each. Where did Piazza get his swing and power? He was the second of five sons of Vince and Veronica Piazza. His father built a backyard batting cage at the family home in Valley Forge that was used all year long: Mike used to shovel snow out of the cage so that he could practice. One summer when Piazza was just 15 years old, Ted Williams was at a Pennsylvania card show and Vince invited him to look at his son batting.5 Williams watched Mike’s swing and remarked, “If this kid is swinging this well now and he’s only 15, I guarantee you that he will hit in the major leagues.”6 Williams told Mike that good mechanics were just 50 percent of hitting and advised him about blocking out distractions and concentrating only on hitting.7

Table 3. Piazza Homers Season by Season

Piazza’s 35 home-run season in 1993 made him an easy selection as the National League Rookie of the Year. In 1996 the fans selected him as a starter in the All-Star Game and he didn’t disappoint; he hit a home run in that summer classic and was named the Most Valuable Player. Piazza is tied for third all-time amongst catchers with Johnny Bench who had 10 selections (nine by fans and one by managers). Ivan Rodriguez leads all backstops with 12, followed by Yogi Berra with 11.

Piazza’s 40 homers in 1997 and 1999 are the fifth most by a catcher. Johnny Bench holds the record with 45 in 1970, followed by Javy Lopez’s 43 in 2003, Roy Campanella’s 41 in 1953, and Todd Hundley’s 41 in 1996. Furthermore, his 201 hits in 1997 were the second most by a catcher in major league history right behind Joe Torre’s 203 in 1970. His .362 average that year tied Bill Dickey (.362 for the 1936 Yankees) for second best all time (Jack Clements holds the record with .394 set in 1898); in 2009 Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins broke Dickey and Piazza’s second-place record with .365.

In January 2005, Piazza married Alicia Rickter, a Baywatch actress and Playboy’s Miss October 1995, in Miami in a candlelight church ceremony. In attendance among the more than a hundred guests were his best friend and fellow player, Eric Karros, plus Ivan Rodriguez, another probable Hall of Fame backstop.8 Later that year, he would pass Johnny Bench’s career home run total of 389.

His most productive month was June. However, he was equally proficient before and after the All-Star break, having whacked 233 before and 194 after the midseason pause.

Table 4. Piazza Homers by Month

Mike had 36 two-home-run games and one three-homer game on June 29, 1996 at Colorado’s Coors Field. He hit 219 solo home runs, 143 two-run shots, 51 three-run homers, and 14 grand slams, ranking him 15th (tied) in this category among all players and number one amongst catchers.9 The nearest catchers to Piazza in slams are Johnny Bench and Gary Carter with 11 each. Yogi Berra, Ted Simmons, and Jorge Posada each had nine. He is tied with Mark McGwire and ahead of such notable players as Joe DiMaggio (13) and Barry Bonds (11). In 1998 he led the majors with four grand slams, his fourth slam and first as a Met came against the Diamondbacks’ Andy Benes on August 22 at Shea Stadium.10

His first grand slam came on June 6, 1994, in the second inning against the Marlins, with Mark Gardner on the mound and Florida ahead 2–0. It was Piazza’s 48th home run and his 224th game of his major league career. He hit three slams against the Rockies in his career (two at Coors Field and one at Dodger Stadium). The 14 slams were scattered throughout the stands: four in left, four in left-center, two in center, two in right-center and two in right field. He clubbed six at home and eight on the road.

As a pinch-hitter he hit five homers and as a designated hitter, 18. He also had seven walk-off home runs, two in 1996, and one each in 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2004. Three of these end-of-game hits came against the San Diego Padres, and one each against the Astros, Expos, Giants, and Phillies.

He hit 195 of his 427 home runs at home and 232 away, with 105 coming at Shea Stadium and 92 at Dodger Stadium, seven of those as a visitor. His five favorite opponent parks were Olympic Stadium (19), Coors Field (17), Veteran’s Stadium (16), Three Rivers Stadium (15), and Turner Field (14). Piazza is also in a select group of just a few players to hit a major league home run at Tokyo Dome in Japan.11 In 2000 he tied the single-season major league record of putting the ball over the fence in 18 different parks.12

He was an equal-opportunity slugger, having hit a home run against all 30 major league teams (counting Montreal and Washington as one team). His top-seven list reads as follows: Philadelphia (44), Atlanta (38), Colorado (34), Montreal/Washington (28), and 27 each against Pittsburgh, San Diego, and San Francisco. He spread his homers across his teams with 177 for the Dodgers, 220 with the Mets, 22 with the Padres, and eight with the A’s. His five-game stint in 1998 with the Marlins generated no home runs.

His favorite victims (pitchers) were Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, and Jason Schmidt, against whom he slugged six each. In all he homered against 280 different pitchers. Two were victims of five home runs (Jeff Suppan and Tim Worrell), 10 hurlers were bit four times each, 22 saw the ball sail out three times off Piazza’s bat, 50 endured just two, and 193 were lucky enough to toss just one home-run ball to him.

Where did Piazza park his home runs? Left field accounted for 136 of the 427. Left center parked 75 of them, and dead center saw 78 of them land there. Right-center had 57 and right field had 81.

Of the six “milestone” home runs (1st, 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th and last) we’ve covered the first, so now on to the other five:

#100: Dodgers vs. the Reds at Riverfront Stadium on Tuesday, May 7, 1996, a ninth inning solo shot that tied the score at 1–1. Closer Jeff Brantley was on the mound and the count was 1–2. It was the 422nd game of his major league career. Although Piazza’s shot tied the game, Cincinnati would come back in the bottom of the 12th to win the game, 3–2.

#200: Mets vs. the Astros at the Astrodome on Wednesday, September 16, 1998, a ninth inning shot with two men on and New York losing 2–0. Billy Wagner was tossing for Houston and the count was 2–2 when Mike sent the ball to deep right-center field in his 832nd career game. The Mets would go on to win the game, 4–3.

#300: Mets vs. the Red Sox in an interleague game, Piazza’s 1,195th major league game, at Shea Stadium on Friday, July 13, 2001. Bottom of the ninth with Boston leading 3–0 with Derek Lowe on the mound. The count was 0–1 with the bases empty and Piazza parked the ball in left-center field. That was the only run that the Mets could muster and the Red Sox won the game, 3–1.

#400: Padres vs. the Diamondbacks at Petco Park on Wednesday, April 26, 2006. Bottom of the ninth with Arizona leading 3–1 and Jose Valverde on the mound. The count was even at 2–2 and Piazza sent one over the left-center wall for a solo home run. The Diamondbacks held onto their lead to win 3–2. This was Piazza’s 1,718th major league game.

#427: Athletics vs. the Red Sox at Fenway Park on September 26, 2007, fifth inning with Oakland trailing 5–4 and Jon Lester on the mound. On the fifth pitch of the at-bat, with the count 1–2, he hit a hard shot to left field that tied the score. Boston would ultimately win the game, 11–6. This was Piazza’s 1,909th game and the only hit that day in five at-bats. It was not his last game; he would go on to play three more against the Angels.

Table 5 details the breakdown of homers by Piazza’s slot in the batting order.14

Table 5. Piazza Homers by Batting Order

Piazza spread his homers across all innings with 133 of them in the top of the game (innings 1–3), the middle innings were his favorite with 167, and the late innings (7–9) saw 122. He also had five in extra innings.

He sent 91 first pitches into the stands, accounting for 21.3% of his career homer total. His worst pitch count was 3–0 where he hit only two. Table 6 shows how many homers he had in each of the 12 pitch-count situations.

Table 6. Piazza HR’s by Ball/Strike Count

The number of outs on the scoreboard didn’t seem to matter to Piazza as he had an almost even distribution of home runs from this perspective, 143 with no outs, 136 with one, and 148 with two. It also seems as though it didn’t matter whether his team was ahead, behind or tied. He hit 155 when his teams were ahead, 115 with the score tied, and 157 when behind. In late innings (seventh or later) with his team tied or down by three runs or fewer, Piazza hit 59 (14%) of his dingers. Table 7 shows the number of home runs in each inning and the score differential (0 = score tied and minus means number of runs behind).

Table 7. Piazza HR’s in Late Innings by Score

Piazza had a number of streaks in his 16-year career. He hit a home run on four consecutive days beginning June 25 through June 28, 1994. In one two-game stretch against the Phillies (August 26–27, 1995) he banged out two home runs in each game, tallying three RBIs the first day and seven the next. He had two long hitting streaks: 24 games from May 25, 1999 to June 22, 1999 with eight home runs in the mix, and 21 games from June 7, 2000 to July 3, 2000 with 10 home runs.

Mike was born September 4, 1968 in Norriston, Pennsylvania. What did he do to celebrate his birthday? In 1998 he hit a two-run shot against the Braves. In 2000 he hit a solo home run against the Reds, and in 2002 against the Marlins he hit one with a man on. Piazza hit 39 home runs in his home state, 18 in Philadelphia and 21 in Pittsburgh, not counting the one in the 1996 All Star Game at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

There is a myth that if one plays long enough, one is bound to break a home-run record of some type. A simple ratio dispels this myth: career plate appearances per home run (PA/HR). Piazza leads all catchers in this category as shown in Table 8.

Table 8. Catcher Career PA per HR

Table 9 lists a few select players of the 50 with over 400 home runs and shows the company that Piazza keeps in the PA/HR category. Through 2011 Pizza ranked 15th all-time.15

Table 9. Career Ranking (PA/HR) for Select Players

The 427 home runs during his 1,912 regular-season games were not the only ones. He had one in the Division Series, three in the League Championship Series, and two in World Series competition. On top of that he had two homers in All-Star Game action.16

The question is, “Are 427 career home runs enough to be elected into the Hall of Fame?” Piazza’s stats were so impressive 1993–2002 that many adherents of the game couldn’t comprehend how impressive he was. The decade from his debut to the start of his physical decline comprise 10 offensive years by a catcher never seen before. He had 10 consecutive years with an OPS over 900. Hall-of-Famer Mickey Cochrane only had six such years; Bill Dickey, Carlton Fisk, and Gabby Hartnett had five each.

A “300–400–500” season (with a batting average of .300+, an on-base percentage of .400+, and a slugging average of .500+) is a benchmark of outstanding offense. Bill Dickey had four such seasons, Gabby Hartnett, four. Mike Piazza is tied with Mickey Cochrane with three 300–400–500 seasons.

Using Bill James’ Win Shares (WS) as a measure and counting the number of seasons with 20 or more WS, Piazza had nine years tied with Gary Carter, Mickey Cochrane, and Bill Dickey. Only Yogi Berra (11) and Johnny Bench (10) had more 20+ WS seasons. Piazza holds the single-season WS record for catchers, with 39 in 1997. Berra’s high was 34 in 1954 (one of his three MVP years); Campanella had 33 twice (1951 and 1953, both MVP years).17

Piazza should have been MVP in 1997 with a .362/.431/.638 line while playing for the Dodgers in a stadium that depressed offense by seven percent. The winner that year was Larry Walker, playing for the Rockies in Coors Field, a park that inflated offense by 20 percent. This was the second time that Piazza finished second in the MVP voting (in 1996 he was runner-up to Ken Caminiti).

Although a batter really doesn’t have much control over RBIs, Piazza has the second longest streak with 15 consecutive games with at least one RBI (2000 Mets); the record is held by Ray Grimes (1922 Cubs) with 17 straight games.18

Whatever one could say about this 62nd-round pick (1,390th player taken overall) of the 1988 amateur draft with his 34.5-inch, 31.6-ounce bat, he is baseball’s greatest home run-hitting catcher.19 Not only did he launch warheads, but he brought something special to the game. His game-winning home run against the Braves in the first sporting event held in New York after 9/11 lifted the morale of the city, if not the country. His smile, mustache, and mullet will likely be immortalized in bronze in Cooperstown in 2013.20

CHUCK ROSCIAM, a retired Navy captain with 43 years of active service and an amateur catcher for more than forty years, is the creator of baseballcatchers.com, a source for many sportswriters. His baseball writing has previously appeared in the “Baseball Research Journal” and “The National Pastime”.

Author’s Note

Supplemental Material can be found online at http://sabr.org/node/25744.

Notes

1. All game details obtained from Retrosheet and the author’s own databases.

2. All “home run, only while catching”data provided by SABR member David Vincent.

3. Non-catcher home run data from Baseball-Reference.com and Sean Lahman’s downloadable database.

4. Position-related home run data provided by SABR member David Vincent.

5. Wayne Coffey, “Hometown Hero Mets’s Piazza Has Become Favorite Son of Phoenixville, PA,” New York Daily News, June 7, 1998.

6. Maryann Hudon, “Coming Into His Own: Mike Piazza Isn’t Really Lasorda’s Godson, but He Has Become a Real Big Leaguer,” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1993.

7. Jason Diamon,”Piazza Has Valentine Dreaming of October,” The New York Times, February 22, 1999.

8. “Piazza goes off market,” USA Today (AP), January 30, 2005.

9. Grand slam information provided by SABR member David Vincent

10. Retrosheet.org

11. David Vincent, Home Run’s Most Wanted (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2009).

12. Ibid.

13. Baseball-Reference.com

14. A table listing all 427 of Piazza’s home runs with pertinent fields is shown at the appendix to this article on SABR.org.

15. Data and ranking extracted from Baseball-Reference.com for all 50 players with career home runs over 400.

16. Postseason data obtained from MLB.com.

17. Bill James, Win Shares, (Northbrook, IL: Stats, Inc., 2002); Bill James, Bill James Handbook, 2002–2012 editions ((Northbrook, IL: Stats, Inc., 2002–2012).

18. Baseball-Reference.com

19. Amateur draft data obtained from MLB.com.

20. Thanks and gratitude to Cliff Blau for his fact-checking expertise and labors.

Edgar Renteria started the Marlins’ walkoff “tradition” with the game-winner off Roberto Hernandez in the first game of the 1997 NLDS. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

The Marlins won the World Series both times they qualified for the postseason in 1997 and 2003. This was not accomplished without a little drama: Five of the Marlins 22 postseason victories were walk-offs.1 Remarkably, they did not allow a walk-off in any of their 11 losses.2

National League Division Series

Edgar Renteria
September 30, 1997
Game One versus San Francisco off Roberto Hernandez3,4

Neither team did much offensively for the first six innings. Kevin Brown retired the first 14 hitters before allowing a Stan Javier two-out, infield single to short in the top of the fifth inning. Javier was caught stealing second to end the inning.

In the bottom of the first, the Marlins put together a two-out rally against Giants starter Kirk Rueter. Gary Sheffield walked and Bobby Bonilla’s line drive single to left moved Sheffield to third. However, Moises Alou flied out to center fielder Daryl Hamilton to end the inning.

In the top of the sixth, Rueter helped himself with a two-out single to left. “[Jeff] Conine made a diving stab of Daryl Hamilton’s ground ball down the line, saving a run and preserving a scoreless tie” wrote Steve Gietschier. Edgar Renteria hit a line drive single to center and Sheffield walked to lead off the bottom of the sixth. However, Bonilla lined out to Hamilton and Alou and Conine flied out to Javier to end the scoring threat. Both teams scored on leadoff seventh-inning home runs. Bill Mueller hit one to right off Brown and Charles Johnson to left-center off Rueter.

Sheffield lined a double to left and Bonilla was intentionally walked by relief pitcher Julian Tavarez with one out in the bottom of the eighth. Alou grounded into an around-the-horn double play to third baseman Mueller to end another Marlins opportunity.5

Tavarez started the bottom of ninth inning. Conine singled to left and Johnson was hit by the first pitch. Tavarez was replaced by Roberto Hernandez. Rookie Craig Counsell’s sacrifice bunt to Mueller moved Conine and Johnson up to third and second, respectively. Jim Eisenreich, pinch-hitting for Dennis Cook, was intentionally walked to load the bases. Devon White’s fielder’s choice, Jeff Kent to Brian Johnson, reloaded the bases with two outs for Renteria. The second-year shortstop got ahead of Hernandez 2–1 and singled to right to score Charles Johnson to end the game.6 It was Renteria’s first career postseason walk-off and the Marlins won its first postseason game in franchise history.

According to SFGATE’s Henry Schulman, “Hernandez came in with a fastball for strike one, then threw another sinking fastball on the outside corner. Renteria, a fine clutch hitter, slapped the other way into right field.” Schulman added, “Renteria hit a fastball from Roberto Hernandez, who is paid to blow pitches by hitters like Renteria. But Hernandez fell behind Renteria in the count, tilting the odds in the hitter’s favor. Hernandez knew he had to throw the ball over the plate with the bases full. ‘I’m not thinking about giving up a hit,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking about not giving up a walk. Normally a guy like that is somewhat aggressive and he tries to pull it. Then you get a ground ball to third. But he did the right thing and went with the pitch.’”

Charles Nobles wrote in The New York Times: “Ahead in the count, Edgar Renteria shut out the mushrooming delirium around him and decided to guess. With the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game, the Florida Marlins shortstop simply looked for a fastball on the outside part of the plate.” Renteria said to Nobles that “He got me out on sinkers the last time I faced him. But after he threw two of them for balls, I thought it was a good time to gamble.”

Moises Alou had the second walk-off hit in a row off reliever Roberto Hernandez, becoming the hero of NLDS Game Two in 1997. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Moises Alou
October 1, 1997
Game Two versus San Francisco off Roberto Hernandez7

Game Two was a slugfest compared to the first, with four lead changes. Marlins had led 2–1 after the first inning, but the Giants tied it in the second. Both teams scored in the third. They took a lead in the top of the fourth before the Marlins retook it in the bottom half on a Kurt Abbott ground-ball double play to shortstop Jose Vizcaino. The Marlins left the bases loaded at the end of the fourth. Sheffield extended the lead to 6–4 on a sixth inning, two-out solo home run to left off Tavarez. Barry Bonds’s one-out, seventh-inning double to right off starter Livan Hernandez scored Vizcaino and narrowed the margin to 6–5.

The Marlins’ ninth-inning defense deserted Florida closer Robb Nen. Hamilton reached on Conine’s fielding error as the latter was trying to flip a ground ball to Nen (and bobbled it) to start off the ninth. Javier’s infield single to Renteria moved Hamilton into scoring position. Nen recovered, striking out Javier looking and getting Bonds to force Javier at second. However, Counsell’s throwing error on the double play attempt allowed Hamilton to score and tie the game.

Giants manager Felipe Alou made numerous changes for the bottom of the ninth, starting the inning again with Roberto Hernandez on the mound. Rookie Dante Powell entered the game, playing center field. J.T. Snow also entered the game, playing first, and Kent moved from first to second, replacing Mark Lewis.8 Sheffield managed a leadoff single off Hernandez and stole second with Bonilla at the plate. Bonilla walked and Moises Alou was due up for the Marlins. On a 1–1 pitch, Alou lined a single to Powell.9 The center fielder’s throw hit off to the side of the pitcher’s mound and Sheffield scored.10 This was Alou’s first postseason walk-off.11 The Marlins led the best-of-five series, 2–0.12

Alou said to SFGATE’s Bruce Jenkins: “The guy throws so hard, you’ve got to think fastball. But he threw me a breaking ball that stayed over the plate.’ He added to SFGATE’s Nancy Gay that, “This was pretty big, but I think there should be a few more big hits coming in the postseason, hopefully. It just felt great to deliver at the right time.” Alou was quoted by The Times’s Nobles: “Those last at-bats didn’t mean anything. My thought was ‘I have everything to gain and nothing to lose.’”

Ivan Rodriguez
October 3, 2003
Game Three versus San Francisco off Tim Worrell13

The Marlins scored first on a one-out, two-run Ivan Rodriguez home run off starter Rueter.14 The Giants tied the score in the sixth. Bonds and Edgaro Alfonzo reached on consecutive singles to start the inning. Bonds scored on Jose Cruz Jr.’s fielder’s-choice groundout to third baseman Mike Lowell. Pinch-hitting for Rueter, Pedro Feliz singled to left, scoring Alfonzo to even the score. Giants also had opportunities to take the lead.15

The Giants took the lead in the eleventh off of Braden Looper. Rich Aurilia walked on five pitches start the inning. Bonds reached on Alex Gonzalez’s error on a force attempt. Alfonzo singled in Aurilia for the go ahead run. Neifi Perez was intentionally walked with one out to load the bases. Cruz Jr. forced Bonds at home and Snow grounded to second to end the inning.

The Marlins also took advantage of the Giants’ defense in the bottom half. Conine reached on Cruz Jr.’s error on a fly ball to start the inning.16 Alex Gonzalez walked facing Tim Worrell. Cruz Jr. said to SFGATE’s Ray Ratto, “I should have caught it, and I didn’t.” Schulman wrote, “[Conine’s fly] ball hit the heel of Cruz’ glove as he closed it too soon.” Rookie Miguel Cabrera sacrificed to Worrell, moving the runners up one base, and Juan Pierre was intentionally walked to load the bases. Luis Castillo forced Conine at home, reloading the bases. Worrell got ahead of Rodriguez 1–2, but he lined a single to right, scoring Gonzalez and Pierre to win the game.17 This was Rodriguez’s first postseason walk-off.18 According SFGATE’s Henry Schulman, “Worrell got ahead 1–2 before I-Rod lined a fastball into right field. Gonzalez jogged in with the tying run. Cruz Jr. fielded the ball quickly, but any hope of a redemptive throw home was dashed by the sight of the mercury-quick Pierre rounding third with on his way home with the winning run.” The Times’s Angel Hermoso wrote: “Rodriguez batted next, aware of Worrell’s slider and control. Rodriguez said later that when he fell behind in the count, 1–2, he reminded himself to hang back and try to slap a single. He did, hitting a line drive single to right.” Hermoso added, “Cruz’s throw had a high arc and was off-line.”

World Series

Edgar Renteria
October 26, 1997
Game Seven versus Cleveland off Charles Nagy

The Marlins had an opportunity against Indians rookie starter Jaret Wright in the first inning.19 Renteria hit a ground-ball double to right and Sheffield walked with one out. However, Darren Daulton grounded to second baseman Tony Fernandez, and Sheffield was automatically called out for running out of the baseline, ending the scoring threat.

The Indians opened the scoring in the third off of Leiter. Jim Thome’s full-count walk and Marquis Grissom’s ground-ball single opened the inning. Wright’s sacrifice bunt to Daulton moved Thome to third and Grissom to second. Fernandez’s line drive single to center scored Thome and Grissom to give the Indians a 2–0 lead. Right fielder Manny Ramirez’s walk moved Fernandez into scoring position, but David Justice struck out swinging to end the inning.

The Indians had another opportunity in the fifth. Omar Vizquel reached on an infield single to Renteria with one out and stole second. Ramirez was intentionally walked and Vizquel stole third with two outs. Justice ended another Indians scoring chance looking at a called third strike.

Meanwhile, the Marlins went hitless off of Wright between the second and sixth innings. Daulton reached third on Ramirez’s error with two out in the sixth, but Alou flied out to Grissom to end the inning. The Marlins knocked out Wright in the seventh. Bonilla hit Wright’s first pitch of the inning to right-center to cut the lead in half, 2–1. Indians manager Mike Hargrove pulled Wright from the game after a one-out walk to Counsell.

The Indians opened up the ninth with Antonio Alfonseca walking Matt Williams. Catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. forced Williams at second. Marlins manager Jim Leyland brought in left-handed pitcher Felix Heredia to face the left-handed hitter Thome. Thome singled to right, advancing Alomar Jr. to third. Leyland replaced Heredia with Nen to face Grissom. Grissom hit a ground ball to Renteria, who threw Alomar Jr. out at home. Nen retired rookie pinch-hitter Brian Giles on a flyout to Alou end the ninth.

Hargrove went to Jose Mesa for his second straight save opportunity and a chance to clinch the Indians’ first World Championship since 1948. Alou led off the inning with a line-drive single to center and Johnson’s single to Ramirez advanced Alou to third with one out. Counsell’s sacrifice fly to Ramirez scored Alou to tie the game.

Renteria and Sheffield reached on consecutive singles with one out in the tenth. However, Mesa struck out pinch-hitter John Cangelosi looking and Charles Nagy induced Alou to fly out to Ramirez to end the tenth.20

In the eleventh, Williams led off the inning again with a walk, but Alomar Jr. bunted into a fielder’s choice to pitcher Jay Powell. Thome ended the inning with a double play ground ball to Counsell.

Bonilla singled up the middle to Grissom leading off the bottom of the eleventh. Gregg Zaun popped up a bunt to Nagy. Counsell reached on Fernandez’s fielding error with one out and advanced Bonilla to third. Replays showed that Bonilla was trying to avoid getting hit by Counsell’s ground ball and it may have shielded Fernandez. The Times’s Jack Curry wrote, “Fernandez declined to blame Bonilla for screening him and said that the ball did not take a bad hop. He just missed it.” Fernandez said about his eleventh-inning fielding error: “I didn’t want to make the error, but the Lord allowed it to happen” (Cleary 1997). Eisenreich was intentionally walked to load the bases. Center fielder Devon White’s ground ball to Fernandez forced Bonilla at home for the second out and reloaded the bases with Renteria due up for the Marlins.

After taking a called strike to start the at-bat, Renteria lined a single to center field past Nagy’s glove to score Counsell and dramatically end the World Series.21,22 It was Renteria’s second career postseason walk-off.23 Indians broadcaster Herb Score said: “Line drive, base hit, game over. And so that’s the season for 1997” (Terry Pluto).24 The Times’s Murray Chass quoted Hargrove: “I thought Charlie had good stuff tonight. He made a great pitch to Devon White to jam him and get a ground ball out at home plate. He made a great pitch to Renteria and he hit it where nobody was standing. Those are the breaks of the game.” Renteria said, “I have been in those situations before so I wasn’t nervous.” He added: “’I felt relaxed” (Perrotto 22). Renteria also said, “that Nagy made a tactical mistake in the fateful 11th: ‘He threw me a slider on the first pitch. I took it for a strike. I knew he was going to throw me another slider and I hit it. Too many breaking pitches’” (Carter and Sloan 198). “‘The [Edgar] Renteria line drive,’ [Nagy] said. ‘It tipped off my glove. I really wish I could have caught it’” (Pluto).

Alex Gonzalez
October 22, 2003
Game Four versus New York Yankees off Jeff Weaver25

The Marlins took the early lead in the first inning off starting pitcher Roger Clemens, scoring three runs on five hits.26 Cabrera hit a one-out, two-run home run, scoring Rodriguez. Derrek Lee’s two-out single to right scored Conine.

The Yankees responded in the top of the second with three straight singles off starter Carl Pavano. Aaron Boone’s two-out sacrifice fly to Pierre scored Bernie Williams. The Yankees got Jason Giambi into scoring position with two outs in the third and the Marlins got Lee to second in the fourth with two outs, but neither scored. Neither team had any scoring opportunities between the sixth and eighth innings.

Marlins manager Jack McKeon called on Ugueth Urbina for his second save opportunity of the series. Williams singled to Pierre and Hideki Matsui walked on six pitches with one out. Jorge Posada forced Matsui at second and moved Williams to third with two outs.

Yankees manager Joe Torre made a pair of moves. He had Ruben Sierra pinch-hit for Karim Garcia and David Dellucci pinch-run for Posada. Torre’s moves paid off for the Yankees. Sierra’s line-drive triple to right easily scored Williams from third and Dellucci from first base to tie the game at three. Pierre led off with a walk and moved to second on a Castillo sacrifice bunt to pitcher Jose Contreras in the bottom of the tenth. However, Contreras struck out Rodriguez and Cabrera swinging to end the threat.

The Yankees loaded the bases with one out in the top of the eleventh on a Williams double, Matsui walk, and an intentional pass to pinch-hitter Juan Rivera. Looper relieved Chad Fox, struck out Boone swinging, and induced catcher John Flaherty to pop up to Lee to end the inning.

Yankees pitcher Jeff Weaver was in his second inning of relief in the bottom of the twelfth and Gonzalez was leading off the inning, entering the at-bat 1-for-13 (.077) in the series with six strikeouts.27,28 Gonzalez worked a full count and lined Weaver’s eighth pitch of the at bat, curving into the left field corner for a home run.29,30 This was Gonzalez’s first postseason walk-off. Gonzalez was quoted by the Associated Press after the game: “I had a feeling” (Wilkins 2003). Gonzalez said in Jack Curry’s Game Four recap for The Times: “When I hit the ball, I said, ‘Get up ball, get up ball.’” The Times’s Dave Caldwell wrote that “Gonzalez worked a full count against Weaver, who then tried to throw a sinker, down and away. It caught too much of the plate, and Gonzalez sent it down the left-field line and over the fence.” Weaver said in Caldwell’s article: “He did what he was supposed to do, I guess. I feel like I was making good pitches. One just got away.” Weaver added: “I felt fine. After not throwing to a lot of hitters for a long time, it was nice to get in there.” Curry also wrote that Weaver, “was in the game because Manager Joe Torre wanted to use a long man for extra innings.” Caldwell also noted that “Torre had to use Jeff Weaver, the seldom-used right hander who had such a disastrous regular season that Torre had not used him in a month.” Caldwell added, “Weaver is—present tense—his long man, Torre said after the game.” Torre himself said afterward, “If he is not in the game there, he shouldn’t be on the roster.”31

STEVEN GLASSMAN has been a SABR member since 1994 and regularly makes presentations for the Connie Mack Chapter. 2016 will be his 11th SABR convention. “Walking it Off—Marlins Postseason Walk-Offs” will be his third SABR published article. “Philadelphia’s Other Hall of Famers” and “The Game That Was Not—Philadelphia Phillies at Chicago Cubs (August 8, 1988)” were published for the SABR43 and SABR45 online journals, respectively. The Temple University graduate in Sport and Recreation Management is currently the volunteer Director of Sports Information for Manor College. He has attended Phillies games since the 1970s. Steven serves as first base coach/scorekeeper for his summer league softball team. He currently resides in Warminster, Pennsylvania.

Sources

Books

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______, 1998. “Year in Review: Marlins Nip Indians In Seven.” In The Sporting News Baseball Guide: 1998 Edition, edited by Craig Carter and Dave Sloan, 158. St. Louis: The Sporting News.

“N.L. Division Series: Florida Vs. San Francisco.” In The Sporting News Baseball Guide: 1998 Edition, edited by Craig Carter and Dave Sloan, 174–77. St. Louis: The Sporting News.

Perrotto, John, 1997. “World Series.” In Baseball America’s 1998 Almanac, edited by Allan Simpson, 17–22. Durham: Baseball America, Inc.

______, 2004. “World Series.” In Baseball America Almanac 2004, edited by Allan Simpson, 25–30. Durham: Baseball America, Inc.

White, Paul, Bill Koenig, and Pete Williams, 1998. “‘Break up the Marlins!:’ Game 7: Florida’s Dramatic 11th.” In USA Today Baseball Weekly 1998 Almanac, edited by Paul White, 55­ –56. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

“World Series: Game 7.” In The Sporting News Baseball Guide: 1998 Edition, edited by Craig Carter and Dave Sloan, 197–99. St. Louis: The Sporting News.

Online Articles

Caldwell, Dave. 2003. “Baseball; Playing His Hand, Torre Wins Once But Loses Later.” The New York Times, October 23. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/sports/baseball-playing-his-hand-torre-wins-once-but-loses-later.html.

Chass, Murray. 1997. “’97 World Series; Marlins Win World Series.” The New York Times, October 27. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/27/sports/97-world-series-marlins-win-world-series.html.

Cleary, Dennis. 1997. “The Week in Quotes: October 20-November 2.” Baseball Prospectus, November 10. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ article.php?articleid=23.

Curry, Jack. 1997. “’97 World Series; A Bitter Ending Frustrates Fernandez.” The New York Times, October 27. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/27/ sports/97-world-series-a-bitter-ending-frustrates-fernandez.html.

______. 2003. “Baseball; Gonzalez Homers and Marlins Walk Off.” The New York Times, October 23. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/sports/ baseball-gonzalez-homers-and-marlins-walk-off.html.

Dickey, Glenn. 1997. “Glenn Dickey – Heartbreaker Likely Dooms The Giants.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/GLENN-DICKEY-Heartbreaker-Likely-Dooms-The-2803642.php.

Gay, Nancy. 1997. “Crushing Loss for Giants/Marlins win tight Game 1 in 9th inning.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/ Crushing-Loss-for-Giants-Marlins-win-tight-Game-2826961.php.

______. 1997. “Giants Confident They Can Bounce Back.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/GIANTS-NOTEBOOK-Giants-Confident-They-Can-2826381.php.

______. 1997. “Giants in Real Trouble/Marlins seize upper hand.” SFGATE, October 2. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Giants-in-Real-Trouble-Marlins-seize-upper-hand-2803766.php.

Hermoso, Rafael. 2003. “Conine and the Marlins Relive the Past.” The New York Times, October 4. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/sports/baseball-conine-and-the-marlins-relive-the-past.html.

______. 2003. “Baseball; Two Unlikely Heroes Save the Marlins.” The New York Times, October 23. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/sports/ baseball-two-unlikely-heroes-save-the-marlins.html.

______. 2003. “Baseball; Unsung Penny Lifts The Marlins.” The New York Times, October 24. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/sports/baseball-unsung-penny-lifts-the-marlins.html.

Jenkins, Bruce. 1997. “Unassuming Players Have a Banner Year.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/MARLINS-STARS-Unassuming-Players-Have-a-Banner-2803944.php.

______. 1997. “Marlins, Miami Giddy About 2-Game Lead Over Giants.” SFGATE, October 2. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/

Marlins-Miami-Giddy-About-2-Game-Lead-Over-Giants-2826174.php.

Keown, Tim. 1997. “Tim Keown – Postseason The Time to Second-Guess.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/TIM-KEOWN-Postseason-The-Time-to-2826842.php.

______. 1997. “Page One – Backs Against the Wall/An unlucky bounce – Giants face elimination.” SFGATE, October 2. http://www.sfgate.com/ sports/article/PAGE-ONE-Backs-Against-the-Wall-An-unlucky-2826225.php.

Knapp, Gwen. 1997. “Lemke clones add panache to postseason.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/knapp/article/Lemke-clones-add-panache-to-postseason-3329153.php.

______. 1997. “A bitter taste of their own medicine.” SFGATE, October 2. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/knapp/article/A-bitter-taste-of-their-own-medicine-3328894.php.

Manoloff, Dennis. 2009. “Ex-catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. reflects on joy, heartache of time as he enters team Hall of Fame.” cleveland.com, July 31. http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2009/07/excatcher_ sandy_alomar_jr_refl.html?FORM=ZZNR3.

New York Times. 1997. “’97 World Series; Wright Was a Well-Taken Risk, October 27. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/27/sports/97-world-series-wright-was-a-well-taken-ris.k.html.

Nevius, C.W. 1997. “C.W. Nevius – One That Slipped Away/Tough loss in the 9th – a must-win today.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/C-W-NEVIUS-One-That-Slipped-Away-Tough-

loss-3317864.php.

Nobles, Charles. 1997. “Division Series Playoffs; Renteria Outguesses The Giants in the 9th.” The New York Times, October 1. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/01/sports/division-series-playoffs-renteria-outguesses-the-giants-in-the-9th.html.

______. 1997. “Division Series Playoffs; Alou’s Bat Wakes Up Just in Time.” The New York Times, October 2. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/02/sports/division-series-playoffs-alou-s-bat-wakes-up-just-in-time.html.

Pluto, Terry. 2009. “Team to honor old friend and ‘neighbor’ Herb Score: Terry Pluto.” cleveland.com, April 10. http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/index.ssf/2009/04/team_to_honor_old_friend_and_n.html.

______. 2014. “Former Tribe pitcher Charles Nagy always felt at home in Cleveland.” cleveland.com, June 22. http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/index.ssf/2014/06/former_tribe_pitcher_charles_n.html.

Ratto, Ray. 1997. “The Plot Thickens.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/THE-PLOT-THICKENS-3098063.php.

______. 2003. “A defeat that was properly earned.” SFGATE, October 4. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/A-defeat-that-was-properly-earned-2584298.php.

Schulman, Henry. 1997. “Renteria’s heart at home plate, not home in the

9th inning.” SFGATE, October 1. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/ Renteria-s-heart-at-home-plate-not-home-in-the-3239768.php.

______. 1997. “Marlins have solved mystery of Hernandez.” SFGATE, October 2. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Marlins-have-solved-mystery-of-Hernandez-3098077.php.

______. 2003. “Giants drop the ball, face elimination/Cruz error,

blown chances doom them in 11 innings.” SFGATE, October 4. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Giants-drop-the-ball-face-elimination-Cruz-2584219.php.

______. 2003. “Giants Notebook/Nathan Unhappy with short appearance.” SFGATE, October 4. http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/GIANTS-NOTEBOOK-Nathan-unhappy-with-short-2554750.php.

Sheehan, Joe. 2003. “Prospectus Today: Give it Away.” Baseball Prospectus, October 4. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2375.

______. 2003. “Prospectus Today: Game Four.” Baseball Prospectus, October 23. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2437.

Verducci, Tom. 1997. “Happy Ending.” Sports Illustrated Vault, November 3. http://www.si.com/vault/1997/11/03/234198/happy-ending-the-marlins-stirring-11th-inning-come-from-behind-defeat-of-the-indians-in-game-7-redeemed-an-otherwise-lackluster-series.

Wilkins, Ryan. 2003. “The Week in Quotes: October 20-26.” Baseball Prospectus, October 27. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2436.

Online Box Scores

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO199709300.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO199710010.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO199710260.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200310030.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200310220.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1997/B09300FLO1997.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1997/B10010FLO1997.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1997/B10260FLO1997.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2003/B10030FLO2003.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2003/B10220FLO2003.htm

Online Videos

http://m.mlb.com/video/v25557593/nlds-gm1-marlins-win-first-playoff-game-on-walkoff/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/mia/video/v25550193/sffla-alous-walkoff-single-gives-marlins-20-lead/?c_id=mia

http://m.mlb.com/video/v37184415/ws1997-gm7-renteria-nails-alomar-at-home-in-9th/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/video/v3251279/bb-moments-97-ws-gm-7-marlins-take-title-in-11/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/54053166/v36896173/ws1997-gm7-fish-win-first-ws-on-renterias-walkoff/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/video/v13062983/97-ws-gm-7-renteria-wins-it-for-fish/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/video/v20852253/2003-nlds-gm3-pudge-lines-walkoff-single-in-extras/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/mia/video/topic/54053166/v20081227/2003-ws-gm4-gonzalez-wins-it-with-a-walkoff-homer/?c_id=mia

Notes

1. Most National League Postseason Walk-Offs (Five or more):

St. Louis Cardinals 7, Boston-Milwaukee-Atlanta Braves 6, Brooklyn-Los Angeles Dodgers 5, Cincinnati Reds 5, Marlins 5, Houston Colt .45s-Astros (National League) 5, and New York Mets 5. In the American League, the Yankees have 19 walk-offs and the Boston Red Sox have 11.

2. Most NL Postseason Walk-Offs Allowed (Five or more):

Brooklyn-Los Angeles Dodgers 11, Boston-Milwaukee-Atlanta Braves 9, St. Louis Cardinals 9, New York-San Francisco Giants 7, Philadelphia Phillies 6, and Houston Colt .45s-Astros (National League) 5. The Marlins and the Milwaukee Brewers are the only NL franchises who have not allowed a postseason walk-off. The Yankees have allowed 14 walk-offs and the Red Sox have allowed eight. The Brewers and the Toronto Blue Jays are the only AL teams who have not allowed a postseason walk-off.

3. The Giants’ first postseason appearance since 1989.

4. The Marlins’ first-ever postseason appearance.

5. Altogether, the Marlins had runners in scoring position in the first, sixth, and eighth innings.

6. The last time Renteria faced Hernandez, he walked and scored on a Sheffield home run on September 14, 1997. He never struck out in six regular season plate appearances against Hernandez.

7. The Marlins led the best-of-five series, 1–0.

8. Powell came in because Hamilton “hurt his left groin muscle running the bases and had to come out” (Schulman 1997).

9. Alou was hitless in eight at-bats in the series before the hit.

10. The Marlins came back from three one-run deficits (1–0, 3–2, and 4–3).

11. Hernandez became the first Giant since Jack Bentley (1924 versus the Washington Nationals) to allow multiple walk-offs in the same postseason. Hernandez also was the first to do it since Twins relief pitcher Ron Perranoski in the 1969 American League Championship Series versus the Orioles. Hernandez also joined Bentley, Dennis Eckersley (1988 WS and 1990 ALCS), Tug McGraw (1978 and 1980 NLCS), Tom Niedenfuer (1981 NLDS and 1985 NLCS), Alejandro Pena (1991 and 1995 WS), Perranoski, and Jeff Reardon (1981 NLDS and 1992 WS) with multiple postseason walk-offs allowed. This group was later joined by Steve Kline (2001 NLDS and 2002 NLCS), Dan Miceli (2004 NLDS and NLCS), and Rick Porcello (2013 ALDS and ALCS). Eckersley is the only one so far who was inducted in the Hall of Fame (2004).

12. Marlins won game three, 6–2, to sweep its first postseason series in franchise history.

13. Best-of-five series tied, 1–1.

14. The Marlins left runners in scoring position in the third and sixth innings. They also wasted a Castillo lead-off walk in the eighth and left the bases loaded in the tenth.

15. The Giants were unable to convert lead-off singles in the seventh

(Grissom) and the eighth (Benito Santiago).

16. Cruz Jr. won the 2003 Rawlings NL Gold Glove as an outfielder.

17. The Marlins led the best-of-five series, 2–1, and won Game Four, 7–6, to advance to the NLCS.

18. Rodriguez also contributed defensively in the series. He threw out Grissom trying to steal third with one out in the seventh inning and Alfonzo at the plate in a tie game. In game four, he tagged Snow out at home plate (on a Conine throw) to preserve a 7–6 win and end the series.

19. Nagy, the Game Three starter, was scheduled to start Game Seven, but Hargrove chose Game Four starter Wright instead, after game six. Wright was also working on three days’ rest. Nagy received a no decision in Game Three, allowing four walks, five runs (all earned), and six hits in six innings. He also had started five September games with a 5.18 ERA.

20. Nagy’s first relief appearance since September 1, 1990, versus the Blue Jays.

21. At the time, the second NL Game Seven World Series walk-off (Mazeroski in 1960) and the fourth Game Seven Series walk-off (first since Gene Larkin in 1991). Furthermore, it was also, at the time, the fifth Game Seven postseason walk-off (first since Larkin in 1991) and the first Series-ending walk-off since Joe Carter in 1993.

22. The Marlins won its first world championship in franchise history and became the first Major League expansion team since the 1992 Blue Jays to win its first World Series on its initial attempt. They were also the first overall, expansion, and NL team since the 1969 Mets to win the WS in its first postseason. The Marlins were the first Wild Card team to win a WS.

23. Renteria became the first NL batter with two walk-offs in the same postseason. At the time, he was second player with multiple walk-offs. Tigers’ Goose Goslin accomplished this feat (one in 1934 and another in the 1935 WS). Renteria and Goslin were later joined by Bernie Williams (one in 1996 and another in the 1999 ALCS), Alfonso Soriano (one each in the 2001 ALCS and WS), and David Ortiz (one in the ALDS and two more in the 2004 ALDS). Goslin is the only one so far who was inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame (1968).

24. It was Score’s final radio call for the Indians after 35 seasons.

25. The Yankees entered the game, leading best-of-seven series, 2–1.

26. This was Clemens’s final game prior to his announced retirement, however he returned to pitch for the Houston Astros in three additional seasons—2004, 2005, 2006—and then appeared in 18 games for the Yankees in 2007.

27. Weaver made two relief appearances (September 22 and 24 versus the White Sox), pitching one inning since September 14. Altogether, he made seven appearances (one start) since August 19).

28. Juan Encarnacion pinch-hit for him in game three. Gonzalez was 1-for-16 (.063) in the NLDS with one walk and three strikeouts. He was 3-for-24 (.125) in the NLCS with two doubles four RBIs, and six strikeouts. Altogether, Gonzalez was 5-for-53 (.094) in the postseason with two doubles, four RBI, one walk, and 15 strikeouts before this at-bat.

29. This was the first Yankees walk-off allowed since Bill Mazeroski’s Game Seven home run in 1960.

30. The best-of-seven series was tied, 2–2 and the Marlins won the next two games to win its second world championship in franchise history.

31. Weaver pitched in his first and only 2003 postseason game. It was also his last Yankees’ appearance. He was traded with pitcher Yhency Brazoban and minor league pitcher Brandon Weeden to the Dodgers for pitcher Kevin Brown on December 13, 2003.

Business Issues

The Louisville meeting did not involve a great deal of new league business. The biggest business story leading up to and carrying over into the meeting — racist statements attributed to Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott — reminded many observers of baseball’s racially segregated past. In November, former Reds marketing director Charles Levy, in a deposition in support of fired controller Tom Sabo’s suit against the Reds, said Schott referred to former Reds players Eric Davis and Dave Parker as “million dollar niggers.”2

On November 14, Schott issued a statement declaring simply, “I am not a racist.” Less than a week later, on the 20th, she released another statement saying her use of the word “nigger” and ownership of a Nazi armband (she called it “memorabilia”) were not meant to offend.3 The story kept gaining traction as the Winter Meeting approached. On November 29, the New York Times quoted Schott as saying that “Hitler was good in the beginning, but he went too far.” She also claimed that her reference to “niggers” was a joke term, but denied applying it to Davis and Parker. Former Negro League player Hank Aaron, widely beloved as the game’s all-time home-run leader at the time, called for Schott to be suspended from baseball.4

Because of the Schott controversy, civil-rights leader and former Democratic presidential candidate Reverend Jesse Jackson visited Louisville during the meetings and challenged baseball to regain a leadership role in fair hiring practices and to end its “institutional racism.”5 Jackson met with the small ownership group investigating Schott, but the session ended inconclusively. If baseball did not get its “house in order,” Jackson warned, he would call for boycotts of the game and would mount a challenge against its antitrust exemption.6 While Jackson was calling for structural changes in baseball, he was surrounded at the podium by former players, including Parker and ex-Reds star Frank Robinson, a Baltimore Orioles executive. The following January, Jackson made good on his threat by calling for a boycott of games played by teams that did not have affirmative-action plans in place by Opening Day.7

Somewhat unexpectedly, but timed after Jackson’s visit, Schott on Wednesday, December 9, issued a tepid apology for her remarks. Reportedly she literally stumbled over the word “apologize”:

“I am not a racist or bigot. I have always believed in equal opportunity for everyone and that individuals should be judged by their merit, not by their skin color, religion or gender. … I acknowledge that in the past I have, on occasion, made insensitive remarks which I now realize hurt others. On those few occasions, it was my mouth but not my heart speaking. For any such remarks which were insensitive, I am profoundly sorry and I apologize to anyone I hurt. I can only say that I did not mean them. I love baseball, and if anything I have said caused embarrassment to the game, the Reds, the wonderful fans and city of Cincinnati, I am sorry.”8

Before ending her statement, like Jackson, Schott pushed some of the blame on baseball itself: “I wish to add that while I am not without blame in this matter, I am also not the cause of the problem. Minority issues have been present in baseball long before I came to the game. They must be resolved. … I pledge to you that I will work with others to accomplish meaningful reform.”9 Throughout the controversy, reporters noted that Schott frequently pointed out that she too was a minority in baseball, a woman in a man’s world. However, this fact did not stop baseball from punishing her. On February 3, 1993, Schott was fined $25,000 and banned from day-to-day operations of the Cincinnati Reds during the 1993 season.10

The meeting did include some other new business. Owners considered a few fairly small initiatives that served as omens for future changes in baseball. For example, owners reviewed data compiled by market researchers to consider league realignment (which would occur in 1994) and interleague play (which would begin in 1997). Perhaps most importantly for baseball in the 1990s, owners voted 15 to 13 to reopen the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the players union. While some feared this decision was a precursor to a 1993 spring-training lockout of the players, owners also voted to amend their bylaws to require a three-fourths majority vote to authorize such a lockout. Traditionally, owners have more leverage over players in the spring and any lockout would have been intended to force players to accept a salary cap. While owners did not repeat the lockout strategy they had used in 1973, 1976, and 1990, the lack of a settlement about the Basic Agreement did contribute to a midseason 1994 players strike. Players have far more leverage in the middle of the season since owners have every incentive to finish the season and collect revenues from attendance and media contracts. The strike led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.

The owners meeting was adjourned early and postponed because of the unexpected death of Carl Barger, the Florida Marlins president and chief operating officer. Barger, a former corporate lawyer, suffered from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm on Wednesday during a joint ownership session in the ballroom of the Galt House East Hotel, and succumbed to the internal bleeding. The New York Times reported that he excused himself about 11 A.M. and collapsed just outside the meeting room: “Within seconds, Bobby Brown, the cardiologist who is president of the American League, was at his side administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and an ambulance arrived 10 minutes later to take him to the hospital.” His doctor at Humana Hospital, however, told the Times that Barger never regained consciousness and died before surgery could be performed.11 Barger had been associated with the Marlins since July 8, 1991, but his new team was yet to play its first game. The team had participated in the expansion draft a few weeks prior to the meeting in Louisville. Before joining the Florida expansion franchise, Barger was widely credited with saving the Pirates franchise in Pittsburgh. The owners adjourned their meeting after Barger’s collapse and rescheduled it for January.

Player Movement: Free-Agent Frenzy

Teams reportedly obligated $250 million in free-agent spending at the 1992 meetings. In one of the most prominent moves, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, right-hander Greg Maddux, departed the Chicago Cubs for the league champion Atlanta Braves for five years and $28 million.12 Contemporary news reports suggested that Maddux turned down a New York Yankees offer worth at least $6 million more. Braves general manager John Schuerholz later said that the Maddux signing “was the biggest acquisition I was ever involved with at the meetings.”13

While the Maddux transaction helped the Braves build a baseball dynasty, it was not the largest free-agent signing at the 1992 Winter Meetings.14 Peter Magowan’s new ownership group in San Francisco completed a nearly $44 million deal with former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder and reigning National League MVP Barry Bonds, who had also won the award in 1990. Reportedly, the six-year deal for $43.75 million would be guaranteed even if the proposed sale of the Giants fell through, though departing owner Bob Lurie was quite worried about this aspect of the transaction. Indeed, a hotel-room news conference abruptly ended when a major-league baseball official reportedly whispered Lurie’s concerns into the ear of Dennis Gilbert, Bonds’ agent. As recounted by then-San Francisco Examiner beat reporter Larry Stone, “All of a sudden, the whole group got up and hastily left the ballroom through the kitchen door — Gilbert and his staff of snappily dressed associates; Willie Mays; Bobby Bonds; and a flustered looking Barry — all of whom were seated on the podium, waiting for the triumphant announcement.”15 The highly anticipated news conference occurred three days later.

The Chicago Cubs also said goodbye that winter to outfielder Andre Dawson, a 38-year-old former MVP (1987) with 399 career home runs. The 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee signed with the Boston Red Sox for two years at $9.3 million.

Free-agent designated hitter and former infielder Paul Molitor left Milwaukee after 15 seasons and was an immediate success with his new team. After signing a $13 million, three-year contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, Molitor enjoyed two All-Star seasons with the team before slipping somewhat in the final year of his contract.

A number of teams re-signed their own free-agent stars to lucrative deals. For example, the Minnesota Twins re-signed 31-year-old free-agent center fielder Kirby Puckett to a five-year deal worth $30 million. Reportedly this cost the Twins $2.5 million more than a deal struck months before that was vetoed by Twins owner Carl Pohlad. At the time of the signing, Puckett was briefly the third highest paid player in baseball.

Similarly, 12-time All-Star shortstop Ozzie Smith, age 37, returned to his team, the St. Louis Cardinals for $3 million per year, renewable for each remaining year of his career so long as he remained healthy and achieved 400 plate appearances in the prior year. Smith also signed a six-year personal-services contract worth $1.2 million upon his retirement from baseball. The Detroit Tigers re-signed their five-time All-Star second baseman Lou Whitaker to a three-year contract worth $10 million. They also re-signed their free agent pitcher, righty Bill Gullickson, to a two-year contract for $4.6 million. And All-Star outfielder Joe Carter re-signed with the Toronto Blue Jays for three years and $19.5 million.

By comparison, numerous other signings at the 1992 Winter Meetings involved players who were never major stars of the game. Some impressive sums of cash nonetheless changed hands in these deals. For instance, left-handed pitcher Greg Swindell signed a four-year contract worth $17 million to play for the Houston Astros. On December 8, the Blue Jays signed former Oakland A’s right-handed pitcher Dave Stewart, a four-time 20-game winner, to a two-year contract worth $8.5 million. Former St. Louis Cardinals right-handed relief ace Todd Worrell signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers (three years, $9.5 million). In a similar transaction, 30-year-old left-handed reliever Randy Myers signed with the Chicago Cubs for three years and $11 million.

Somewhat less noteworthy, the expansion Florida Marlins signed their first free agents on December 8 — infielder Dave Magadan and 44-year-old knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough. Magadan played only a few months as the Marlins primary third baseman before being traded in late June of 1993 to the Seattle Mariners for right-handed pitcher Jeff Darwin and outfielder Henry Cotto. The right-handed Hough served as the Opening Day starter for the new franchise in both 1993 and 1994, finishing a combined 14-25 in his final two years as a player. After failing to land Greg Maddux and other big-name free agents, the New York Yankees acquired shortstop Spike Owen for a three-year, $7 million contract.

Trades

The 1992 Winter Meetings did not feature a significant number of important trades, but teams were able to agree on a few deals. The first trade of the meetings featured Minnesota trading left-handed pitcher David West, who posted a 6.99 ERA in a limited role during the 1992 season, to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for right-handed pitcher Mike Hartley, who had pitched 53 games in relief during the season with an ERA of 3.44. While Hartley performed slightly worse in 1993, West played a significant role in the bullpen of the 1993 National League champion Phillies, finishing with a 2.92 ERA in just over 86 relief innings.

The California Angels traded starting pitcher Jim Abbott, who had finished third in the 1991 Cy Young Award race, to the New York Yankees for a package of players, including first baseman J.T. Snow. The left-handed Abbott’s ERA increased significantly in New York as he became a slightly below average starter, though he did pitch a no-hitter in September. Pitcher Charlie Leibrandt, a 15-game winner in each of the prior two seasons, was traded from Atlanta to Texas for his final big-league season. The southpaw finished with a 4.55 ERA in 150 innings and a 9-10 won-loss record.

At 1 A.M. after the busy Wednesday, San Diego Padres general manager Joe McIlvaine announced the final deal of the day, a trade sending right-handed pitcher Jose Melendez to Boston for promising young slugger Phil Plantier. Writer-analyst Bill James predicted that Plantier was the player most likely to slug more home runs in the decade of the 1990s than any other player.16

Conclusion

The 1992 meetings are mostly remembered for the large personalities who dominated the headlines — outspoken owner Marge Schott, Jesse Jackson, and Barry Bonds and his entourage. Columnist Hal Bodley later called the 1992 meetings a circus, though this was largely because of the great number of signings involving star players. Indeed, after the 1992 meetings, major-league owners voted 28 to 0 to forbid GMs from attending future Winter Meetings. Executive Council chair Bud Selig pushed for this largely because of frustration with the free-agent marketplace. Baseball management felt that agents and players were using the meetings to create bidding wars for players. Baseball would not reconvene in the same manner until it gathered in Nashville in December 1998.

While most publicity and news coverage about the Winter Meetings focuses on the activities and interactions of a relatively small group of major-league owners and general managers, it is important to keep in mind that the meetings are also a trade show and a job market.

Indeed, among those in attendance in 1992 was Dominic Latkovski, a graduate of local Bellarmine University, who had been working since 1990 as the Billy Bird mascot for the Triple-A Louisville Redbirds for a modest $35 per game. In hopes of emulating the famous (San Diego) Chicken and taking the act to audiences nationwide, Dominic and his brother Brennan created a video of their past performances, designed marketing materials, and manned a booth at the meetings hoping to at least break even on their investment by securing four $1,500 bookings for the 1993 season. The Latkovski brothers ended up performing 48 shows in their first year of independent operation and launched a successful business that as of 2017 continued to entertain thousands of people every summer at minor-league ballparks.17

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted:

Associated Press. “Baseball Meetings Open Today; Clemens, Brown Are Top Names in Marketplace,” December 11, 1998. amarillo.com/stories/1998/12/11/spo_166-7052.shtml#.VqvUuvkrL2Q.

Chass, Murray. “Puckett Stays Put With Twins; Swindell Goes Home to Houston,” New York Times, December 5, 1992. nytimes.com/1992/12/05/sports/baseball-puckett-stays-put-with-twins-swindell-goes-home-to-houston.html.

Chass, Murray. “Jays Re-Sign Carter and Swipe Molitor,” New York Times, December 8, 1992. nytimes.com/1992/12/08/sports/baseball-jays-re-sign-carter-and-swipe-molitor.html.

Hill, Benjamin. “Latkovski’s passion fuels traveling act,” MLB.com, May 3, 2013. milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130503&content_id=46451862&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb.

Newhan, Ross. “Baseball Winter Meetings: Marlins’ Boss Collapses, Dies,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1992. articles.latimes.com/1992-12-10/sports/sp-2461_1_baseball-winter-meetings.

Schmuck, Peter. “Free-Agent Thaw Floods Baseball Winter Meetings,” Baltimore Sun, December 11, 1992. articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-12-11/sports/1992346114_1_schott-reopen-executive-council.

Walker, Ben (Associated Press). “Tragedy Marks End of Winter Meetings,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), December 10, 1992. deseretnews.com/article/263618/TRAGEDY-MARKS-END-OF-WINTER-MEETINGS.html.

Notes

1 “The Baseball Barons’ Bread and Circuses” Time, December 21, 1992. content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977306,00.html.

2 John Erardi, “‘Bookkeeper’ Started It All,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 25, 1998. reds.enquirer.com/1998/10/102598sabo.html.

3 Schott’s Statement: ‘I Am Not a Racist,’” New York Times, December 10, 1992, nytimes.com/1992/12/10/sports/baseball-schott-s-statement-i-am-not-a-racist.html; Ira Berkow, “Marge Schott: Baseball’s Big Red Headache,” New York Times, November 29, 1992, nytimes.com/1992/11/29/sports/baseball-marge-schott-baseball-s-big-red-headache.html?pagewanted=all.

4 Berkow. The quotations attributed to Schott are also from this article.

5 Jerome Holtzman, “Jackson Makes Pitch for Minority Hiring,” Chicago Tribune, December 8, 1992. articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-12-08/sports/9204210874_1_minority-hiring-black-journalists-rev-jesse-jackson.

6 Maryann Hudson, “Jesse Jackson, Looking Beyond Schott, Reprimands Baseball,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1992. articles.latimes.com/1992-12-08/sports/sp-1797_1_jesse-jackson.

7 Danny Robbins, “Jesse Jackson Outlines Boycott: Schott Case Provides Him a Platform to Call for Improvement in Minority Hiring,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1993. articles.latimes.com/1993-01-13/sports/sp-1250_1_jesse-jackson.

8 “Schott’s Statement.”

9 Ibid.

10 Glen Macnow, “Reds Owner Is Suspended 1 Year, Fined/The Penalty: $25,000. Marge Schott Will Still Pay the Bills. But She Won’t Be Able to Run the Team,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 4, 1993. articles.philly.com/1993-02-04/sports/25955938_1_cincinnati-reds-owner-marge-schott-inappropriate-language.

11 Robert McG. Thomas, “Carl Barger, 62, Team President With Pirates and Florida Marlins,” New York Times, December 10, 1992. nytimes.com/1992/12/10/us/carl-barger-62-team-president-with-pirates-and-florida-marlins.html.

12 All signings and trades referenced here are documented at “1993 Major League Baseball Transactions,” www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1993-transactions.shtml. The player links reveal the terms of contracts.

13 Hal Bodley, “Winter Meetings are no honeymoon,” MLB News, December 5, 2008. mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081205&content_id=3703507&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb.

14 For a summary of how these free agents performed through their contracts see, Rodger A. Payne, “Evaluating Free Agent Signings at the 1992 Baseball Winter Meetings,” Rodger A. Payne’s Blog, May 16, 2016. rpayne.blogspot.com/2016/05/evaluating-free-agent-signings-at-1992.html.

15 Larry Stone, “Memories of Winter Meetings Past,” Seattle Times, December 7, 2009. seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thehotstoneleague/2010445446_memories_of_winter_meetings_pa.html?syndication=rss.

16 Chad Finn, “Top 50 Red Sox Prospects of Past 50 Years: 30-21,” Boston.com, April 2014. archive.boston.com/sports/touching_all_the_bases/2014/04/30-21.html. While Plantier hit 34 home runs for the 1993 Padres, he managed only 53 more over the remainder of his career, including 18 for the 1994 Padres. He never again achieved even 400 plate appearances and was out of major-league baseball by age 29.

17 Press Release, “The ZOOperstars to Perform at Bandits Game Friday,” Quad-Cities Online, July 21, 2009. qconline.com/archives/qco/print_display.php?id=449772.

Some History

Baseball is a superstitious sport. Players skip over foul lines on the way to the dugout, refuse to change their socks during a hitting streak, and avoid talking to a pitcher while he is hurling a no-hitter. Some superstitions have as their subject not only an individual player but an entire team. For instance, the Curse of the Bambino supposedly befell the Boston Red Sox after they sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, and resulted in their failing to win any of the next 83 World Series.1 (The Red Sox ended the Curse by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.) Another such superstition involves the Curse of the Billy Goat, which supposedly explains why the Chicago Cubs have not played in a World Series since 1945.2 The story goes that William Sianis, the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, bought two tickets to Game Four of the 1945 World Series, which pitted the Cubs against the Detroit Tigers. One of the tickets was for Sianis; the other was for his goat, whose name has been variously given in different references as either Murphy or Sonovia.3 The goat was refused admission to Wrigley Field and, to add insult to injury, Sianis was told that the reason the goat would not be allowed into the park was “the goat smells.” Sianis put a hex on the Cubs, stating that they would never again play in the World Series.

The Ex-Cub Factor Is Born

In 1981, Ron Berler, then a columnist for the Boston Herald American, invented and popularized another superstition that is also related to the Chicago Cubs: the Ex-Cub Factor (ECF). From his review of baseball statistics dating back to 1946 (the first season of baseball following the Cubs’ final World Series appearance and the pronunciation of the Billy Goat Curse), Berler determined that,

According to the Ex-Cub Factor, it is utterly impossible for a team with three or more ex-Cubs to win the [World] series.4

Berler explained that the ECF was the result of the “Cubness” inherent in ex-Cubs:

“Cubness” is a term one encounters again and again when speaking with ex-Cubs. It is synonymous with the rankest sort of abject failure, and is a condition chronic among all Cubs, past and present.5

The Factor Is Modified

Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago columnist Mike Royko also believed in the relationship between “Cubness” and the Ex-Cub Factor. He likened the ECF to a virus that infected a baseball team:

And when there are three [ex-Cubs], this horrible virus comes together and multiplies and becomes so powerful it makes the other players weak, nearsighted, addle-brained, slow-footed and lacking in hand-eye coordination.6

In 1986, Royko expanded the idea of the ECF into what he called his “Modified Cub Factor”: “A team with no ex-Cubs probably has the edge on a team that has even one.”7

Royko stated that, beginning in 1946, only one of twelve teams with three or more ex-Cubs on their World Series rosters had won (the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates). Other, more recent, authors have made similar claims about the consistency of the ECF, mentioning the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies and 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks as the only other teams to defy the ECF.8,9

Van Santen, a lifelong Chicagoan, grew up knowing of the ECF. During a visit to the Hall of Fame in 2013, he proposed to May that the two study and write about the Factor. May suggested that the study include both Berler’s and Royko’s takes on the ECF. Thus began our research into the dual Ex-Cub factors.

Studying the Ex-Cub Factors

May, a mathematician, suggested that the examination begin with precise definitions of the important terms.

Ex-Cub: An ex-Cub is a current or former player in Major League Baseball in whose career statistics the name Chicago Cubs (or some abbreviation of that name) appears at least once as a team on whose roster he was included.

Ex-Cub Total: This is the number of ex-Cubs on the roster of a given team.

Ex-Cub Factor: A team possesses—some would say, “is smitten with”—this if its roster contains at least three ex-Cubs.

We were then able to state the Berler and Royko conjectures precisely.

The Berler Conjecture: In the World Series, if only one of the two competing teams possesses the Ex-Cub Factor, that team will lose the Series.

The Royko Conjecture: In a World Series between two teams with different numbers of ex-Cubs on their rosters, the team with the larger Ex-Cub Total will lose the Series.10

The Ex-Cubs Are Outed

To make our analyses comparable to those of Berler and Royko, we used their time frame of 1946 through 2013. Our first task was to track down each man who had appeared on a World Series roster in some year during that 68-year period. We drew our data from a variety of sources. The two most helpful were the tome authored by David S. Neft and Richard M. Cohen: The World Series: Complete Play-By-Play of Every Game 1903–1989, and the 2011 edition of The Elias Book of Baseball Records, by Seymour Siwoff.11,12 These invaluable works include, among their many useful features, the complete roster—that is to say, the list of all 25 men who were eligible to play, not just those who actually set foot onto the playing field as batters, fielders, pitchers, or runners—of each team in every World Series from 1903 on. The 1979 Pirates provide a perfect example of the value of these books to our study. Box scores from other sources told us about 24 of the 25 men on the Pirates’ Series-winning roster; however, they excluded late pitcher Dave Roberts, who was indeed a Pirate but was the only member of the pitching staff, and the team, not to play in the Series.13 Roberts was a member of the Cubs 1977–78, signed with the San Francisco Giants as a free agent in February 1979, and was traded to the Pirates that June. Thus, his name should be added to those of Matt Alexander and Bill Madlock, giving the Pirates three ex-Cubs on their World Series roster and adding one to the number of World Series in which the Ex-Cub Factor figured and Berler’s Conjecture was in play. Roberts’s name appears in The World Series and The Elias Book. Every other source that we consulted mentioned only the Pirates whose names appeared in a box score, and thus omitted him.

To obtain the full rosters of the 2011–13 Series, we consulted the hometown newspapers of the participating teams. The most helpful online source that we used in our work was Baseball-Reference.com.14 Others were Baseball Almanac and Retrosheet.15,16

The players’ strike of 1994 and the resulting cancellation of that Series reduced from 68 to 67 the number of Series we needed to study (and the number of teams to 134). Each of those Series involved two 25-man rosters; so we needed to fill 67 x 2 x 25, or 3,350, roster slots. (Since, however, many players found themselves on more than one World Series roster, we ended up needing to comb fewer than 3,350 career records.) Because of the completeness of our combined sources, we were able to fill all the slots.

Next, we searched the 134 rosters for ex-Cubs. This involved looking up the career statistics of each of our World Series roster-occupants. As an example, Mark Grace was a playing member of the 25-man roster of the Arizona Diamondbacks team that won the 2001 World Series. Records (and our personal knowledge of baseball) indicated that Grace had played for the Cubs from 1988 through 2000. Thus, Grace was an ex-Cub. As our definition of ex-Cub implies, we considered a player to be an ex-Cub regardless of how briefly he had been under contract to the Cubs, so long as he had been with the Cubs before playing on the World Series team under consideration. The number of ex-Cubs on each of the 134 teams was recorded using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Excel was also used to determine the number of instances in which at least one team had at least three ex-Cubs on its roster (i.e., satisfied the Berler Conjecture) and the number of instances in which one team had more ex-Cubs than the other (i.e., met the Royko Conjecture).

The Factor’s Damage Is Assessed

A study of the table accompanying this article reveals that the Berler Conjecture has experienced remarkable success, albeit in a small sample. Twenty-two times since the pronouncement of the Curse of the Billy Goat, it has been “in play”—that is, has had its hypothesis, that exactly one of the two teams possesses the Ex-Cub Factor, satisfied.17 In 17 of those Series, the team smitten with the Ex-Cub Factor has lost. The Berler Conjecture thus has had a success rate of 17/22, or approximately 77 percent, from 1946 through 2013.

The record of the Royko Conjecture is less impressive but nevertheless positive. It has been in play for 56 of the 67 World Series held since 1945, and it has been correct in 32 of those 56. This is a rate of success of 57 percent. Although bettors were not so safe in using the Royko Conjecture from 1946 through 2013 as they were with the Berler, they still won more than half the time.18 There is one further observation worthy of note about the Royko Conjecture. In the 34 World Series in which it was in play and the Berler Conjecture was not, the Royko proved true 15 times. This is a success rate of 44%.

Is Either Conjecture of Use Going Forward?

So much for the past. What about the future? Is either conjecture a good predictor of the winners of World Series yet to come? Since the Royko Conjecture has a longer track record than the Berler, in the sense that it has been in play for a larger number of Series than the latter, let us look at it first. A standard technique of statistical inference allows us to say, with 95% confidence, that the Royko Conjecture will correctly predict the World Series winner between 44% and 70% of the time, whether or not the Berler Conjecture is in play.19 Although the success rate of 70% looks encouraging, the 44% figure is much less so. In light of these mixed results, we ran a hypothesis test to determine whether the success rate of the Royko Conjecture was greater than 50%.20 The test allowed us to infer that, at the .05 level of significance–as a matter of fact, at any level up to .14—the data from the World Series of 1946 through 2013 fail to provide evidence sufficient to conclude that the Royko Conjecture will correctly predict the winner of the Series more than 50% of the time.

When the Berler Conjecture fails to be in play and the prognosticator is forced to rely on the Royko, he or she can be 95% certain that it will correctly predict the Series winner between 27% and 61% of the time. A hypothesis test similar to the one described in the paragraph immediately above says that the 1946-through-2013 World Series data provide even less evidence that the Royko Conjecture will correctly predict the Series winner more than 50% of the time.

Let us infer about the long-term prospects of the Berler Conjecture. The size of our Berler sample required us to employ a technique different from the one we applied to the Royko sample. The method, Wilson’s Adjustment for estimating a proportion of success21, yields a 95%-confidence interval of approximately (0.560,0.901). In other words, according to the Wilson Adjustment, we can say, with 95% confidence, that the Berler Conjecture will be correct between 56% and 90% of the time. Although the Berler Conjecture has come into play less often than the Royko (²²⁄67, or 33% of the time, as opposed to ⁵⁶⁄67, or 84%, of the time for the Royko), it appears that when it is in play it is more likely to yield a correct prediction than the Royko.22 In addition, it is almost certainly a better predictor than a coin-flip.

What have we learned?

Our work shows that, when the Berler Conjecture is in play, it is a fairly reliable guide to predicting the World Series winner. When it is not in play and the Royko Conjecture is, should one use the latter as guide? Almost certainly not, for the World Series from 1946 through 2013 provide evidence glaringly insufficient to conclude that the Royko Conjecture works any better than a coin-flip in picking the winner when the Berler Conjecture fails to be in play. (We are unaware of any method that has experienced a success-rate of more than 77% in predicting World Series winners during that period of time. We would appreciate any information on the existence of such a method.)

Where do we go from here?

An answer often leads to more questions, and our work with the Ex-Cub Factor is no exception to this rule. A reasonable next task would be the replicating of our work for, say, an ex-Yankee, ex-Cardinal, or ex-White Sox factor. Doing so would provide a way to test whether the Ex-Cub Factor has any significance. If, for example, there turned out to be an ex-Yankee factor that was similar to the Ex-Cub Factor in the damage it wrought on a World Series team, the credibility and significance of the Ex-Cub Factor would pale, possibly into oblivion. If, however, no ex-non-Cub factor were discovered, evidence would mount that Ron Berler and Mike Royko have discovered and elucidated a significant tool for predicting the winner of the World Series. Finally, critics might argue that the amount of time spent as a member of the Cubs would play a significant role in whether or not a player has acquired enough “Cubness” to affect the play of his post-Cub teammates. As a result, it might also be helpful to assess the Ex-Cub Factor when the amount of time on the Cubs roster is taken into consideration.

World Series Teams, Ex-Cub Players, and Fulfillment of Berler or Royko Conjecture by Year

LEE MAY, Ph.D. (no relation, so far as he knows, to the former major-league slugger), is a professor of mathematics and computer science at Salisbury University in Maryland. He earned his bachelor’s degree at—and played some first base for—Wake Forest University, and he received his doctorate from Emory University. He is probably best known at Salisbury for his course “Statistics through Baseball,” which he designed and has taught since 2006. He has been a member of SABR since 2002.

FRANK VAN SANTEN, Ph.D., is a member of the faculty in the Speech, Language, and Learning Program in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He grew up in Chicagoland and has been a lifelong Cubs fan. His mother was a Mike Royko fan, and his grandfather was recruited as a pitcher for the White Sox (He turned them down because he would make more money working at the local steel plant).

Notes

1. “The Curse of the Bambino,” CNN/Sports Illustrated, 2001 (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/2000/03/22/the_curse_timeline).

2. John Snyder, Cubs Journal: Year by Year & Day by Day with the Chicago Cubs Since 1876 (Cincinnati, Ohio: Emmis Books, 2005), 343.

3. The Billy Goat Tavern’s own website names the goat Murphy [www.billygoattavern.com/legend/curse/] while the name Sonovia appears in John Snyder, Cubs Journal: Year by Year & Day by Day with the Chicago Cubs Since 1876 (Cincinnati, Ohio: Emmis Books, 2005) 343.

4. Ron Berler, “The Ex-Cub Factor: Theory will Decide World Series Winner,” Boston Herald American, October 15, 1981.

5. Ibid.

6. Mike Royko, “The Ex-Cub Factor Will Destroy A’s in the Series,” Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1990.

7. Ibid., “The Cubs World Series Legacy Has Traveled Well Beyond Wrigley Field,” Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1986.

8. Al Yellon, “Is the Ex-Cub Factor Dead?” Baseball Nation, October 19, 2011 (www.baseballnation.com/2011/10/19/2500278/2011-world-series-ex-cub-factor).

9. Dave Wischnowsky, “Wisch: Behold, The ‘Ex-Cubs Factor’ is Alive and Well,” October 19, 2011 (http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/10/19/wisch-behold-the-‘ex-cubs-factor’-is-alive-and-well/).

10. Royko dubbed this “the Modified Cub Factor” in the Chicago Tribune of October 17, 1986.

11. The World Series: Complete Play-By-Play of Every Game 1903–1989. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

12. The Elias Record Book, New York, NY: Elias Sports Bureau, Inc., 2011. We were pointed to this reference by one of the reviewers of our manuscript. We thank both reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

13. Jenifer Langosch, “Former Hurler Roberts Passes Away,” mlb.com, January 9, 2009. (http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd= 20090109&content_id=3738241&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb). Teammate and pitcher Kent Tekulve described Roberts as being integral to the Pirates’ World Series victory. Prior to pitching a scoreless ninth inning in game two against the Baltimore Orioles, Tekulve had eaten strawberry shortcake at a Baltimore restaurant. With the Pirates down three games to two and returning to Baltimore, Roberts encouraged Tekulve to go back to the same restaurant and have strawberry shortcake before he pitched again. Subsequently, Tekulve pitched four ²⁄3 innings of one-hit shutout baseball, securing the final two wins for Pittsburgh. Once again, superstition had manifested itself in baseball.

14. www.Baseball-Reference.com.

15. www.baseball-almanac.com.

16. www.retrosheet.org.

17. In the 2009 Series, between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies, each team had exactly three ex-Cubs on its roster. This violated the hypothesis of both the Berler and Royko conjectures.

18. A brief review of the numbers also suggests that there is some support for three ex-Cubs on a World Series team (as opposed to two or four or five ex-Cubs) being a “tipping point” or critical mass for activating the Ex-Cub Factor. Among the 67 World Series teams reviewed, the only one that had five ex-Cubs lost its only Series (0–1). Those with four ex-Cubs won 33 percent of the time (1–2), and those teams with three ex-Cubs won only 22 percent of the time (4–14). In contrast, teams with only two ex-Cubs won 63 percent of the time (17–10).

19. See, for example, James T. McClave and Terry Sincich, A First Course in Statistics, eleventh edition (New York: Pearson Education, 2013), 265.

20. Ibid., 365.

21. Ibid., 267.

22. We can say only that the Berler Conjecture “appears” to be a better predictor than the Royko because of the fact that the two confidence intervals, (0.44, 0.70) for the Royko and (0.56, 0.90) for the Berler, overlap.

Pitchers are a breed apart. On average, they are taller and heavier than most players; contrary to their fielding brethren, they do not play every day; even the most resilient of relievers have to sit out half of their team’s games or risk burning out their arms, and most starters will work only every fifth day. In most leagues, including in college and the minor leagues below AA, pitchers never come to bat. But the most striking distinction is that pitchers almost never play another position in the field. This article will look at the few exceptions when this rule was broken in major league games since the advent of the divisional era in 1969, in order to establish patterns and trends of what is an exceedingly rare event: a pitcher occupying a fielding position other than the mound.

It is important to note at the outset that I am looking at full-time pitchers playing the field, and not its mirror event, the “joke pitcher” or “mystery pitcher,” in which a regular fielder is used as a pitcher in a blow-out or other special circumstances. Nor am I looking at permanent conversions from fielding to pitching (something which is relatively common, especially in the minor leagues)—or vice versa (a much rarer occurrence, with Rick Ankiel being a recent case).

Supplemental material: View a complete list of MLB pitchers from 1969 to 2010 who have made an appearance at another position in the field

There is also the one exceptional two-way player during the period, Brooks Kieschnick,[fn]Kieschnick was a two-way player at the University of Texas who became a full-time outfielder after being drafted in 1993. He played intermittently in the majors 1996–2001. With his career foundering in 2002, he began to pitch part-time in the minor leagues, and made the Milwaukee Brewers’ roster as a pitcher/pinch hitter in 2003, playing very well in both roles, logging 42 games on the mound, 3 in the outfield and 4 at DH. He also played for the Brewers in 2004, exclusively as a pitcher or pinch-hitter, before washing out of organized baseball.[/fn] who is outside the scope of this study. Also ignored are instances where a pitcher is listed in the starting line-up at a random position, but is replaced before taking the field on defense.[fn]Pitcher Gene Garber was listed in the starting line-up on July 4, 1978 as the Atlanta Braves’ center fielder, but was replaced by pinch-hitter Rowland Office in the top of the first inning.[/fn] This paper will focus exclusively on pitchers who, for some reason, found themselves one day playing the outfield or the infield in a major league game.

A SEPARATION OF ROLES

In modern Major League Baseball, the separation of roles between the pitcher and other fielders is quite strict. They are two different breeds of athletes. They train differently, are paid on different scales, and never the twain shall meet. Yet in Little League, high school, and college ball, the separation is not so strict: the best athletes are normally used as pitchers, and these are also the top sluggers. They will sometimes play the more demanding positions, such as shortstop or center field, when not on the mound. However, because pitchers are often very tall, or left-handed, it may limit their ability to play certain positions, so they will gravitate towards the role of first baseman or designated hitter when not pitching.

It is not rare for college players to excel in both roles, including in top Division I schools in the NCAA. Every year in the first year player draft, a player is selected in the first round for whom there is a question whether he will play professionally as a hitter or a pitcher; never is there a possibility of him doing both, except at the lowest levels of the minor leagues. Among such recent two-way athletes coming out of college were John Olerud,[fn]Olerud was so good in both roles while in college that the NCAA recently named an award for two-way players in his honor.[/fn] Marquis Grissom, John Van Benschoten,[fn]Van Benschoten led all Division I players in home runs his senior year at Kent State University in 2001 while being an indifferent pitcher. Yet for some reason the Pittsburgh Pirates, who drafted him in the first round that year, decided to make him strictly a pitcher. His career has been a complete bust.[/fn] Micah Owings, and many others. Yet, as soon as they hit the professional ranks, the segregation begins. Bill James explained that this is a result of the extremely high caliber of today’s game: only the very best can cut it in the major leagues, and players can maintain only one set of skills at such an elite level. Because pitching and hitting are such different practices, it is almost impossible for ballplayers to excel at both, and they must specialize. When the quality of play in the major leagues was lower, such extreme segregation did not exist: in the 19th century, many pitchers were capable hitters as well. Almost every regular pitcher logged some games at one or more other positions, and it was common for a fielder to take a turn pitching from time to time.[fn]Bill James: “The Time Line,” in Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?, (New York: Fireside Books, Simon and Schuster, 1995), 230–242.[/fn] This continued into the late 1940s, although crossovers became increasingly rare with each decade. By 1960, the situation that prevails today was solidly entrenched.

So, how impenetrable is the barrier between the mound and the rest of the playing field? Let’s put it this way. As a spectator at a random major league game, you are almost twice as likely to see a no-hitter than to see a pitcher take the field: there were 96 sanctioned no-hitters during the period, but only 54 instances of a pitcher taking the field. Witnessing a triple play or a batter hitting for the cycle is a much more likely event—there were 35 triple plays turned between 2000 and 2009 alone! And fielders taking the mound are nowhere near as rare as the obverse—there were over 179 occurrences during the same period. It has thus become one of the rarest events that can happen in a Major League Baseball game. So when this albino raven is sighted, what causes it?

THREE TYPES OF CIRCUMSTANCES

There are three usual circumstances in which a manager will decide to use a pitcher in a position normally reserved for a fielder: running out of fielders, as a special strategy to bring a pitcher back into a game, or to indulge a player. The few cases that fall outside of this pattern will be discussed later.

a) Running out of players. From Opening Day to September 1, major league teams are limited to a roster of 25 players.[fn]For limited periods in the late 1970s and 1980s, the roster limit was 24 and not 25; it was also 26 or 27 for other brief periods when spring training was shortened by labor strife.[/fn] This would seem to make plenty of substitutes available, given that only 9 or 10 players are in the game at the same time, depending on whether the designated hitter rule is in effect. But there are times when 15 or 16 substitutes are not enough. First, the typical roster includes anywhere from 10 to 13 pitchers, limiting the number of players available to act as defensive substitutes or pinch hitters. Second, not everyone is available to play every day, because of nagging injuries or temporary absences. Managers will make sure that they always have some options left on their bench, but sometimes circumstances can make their plans go awry. The most common of these are injuries—especially injuries to a substitute—or ejections. When these occur in an extra-inning game, after a number of substitutes have already been used, a manager can find himself in a situation in which the only option left is using one of his pitchers as a substitute. These are often highly memorable games, and we will mention a few cases below.

b) The Pitcher in the Outfield Strategy. In contrast to the first circumstance, these cases are the result of a deliberate strategy. In order to gain a platoon advantage, a manager will remove his pitcher to bring a reliever throwing with the other hand. So far, nothing unusual. But if the manager thinks that he will want to use the removed pitcher at a later point of the game, he can do so by inserting him in a fielding position, for example, left field. When the second pitcher has faced the batter or batters against whom he had the platoon advantage, the manager brings back the first pitcher from left field and has him return to the mound. It sounds simple enough, but in effect, it is an enormously complicated strategy to execute, with little upside and a lot of potential downside. First there must be a string of batters who bat from different sides—no switch-hitters—and who are unlikely to be pinch hit for. Second, the first pitcher must be able to field a
position passably. Given that most pitchers routinely shag flies during batting practice, they can be counted on to catch most routine fly balls, but can they be counted on to back up the fielder next to them, play a line drive off the wall, or throw to the right cut-off man? And let’s not even talk about complex positions such as the middle infield or catcher, which require very specific skills learned only through repetitive practice.[fn]In fact, no player in our study was used either at shortstop or catcher.[/fn] There is clearly a defensive cost to playing someone out of position. Next, if two pitchers are in the line-up at the same time, one of the regular fielders must come out of the game for good—is that more costly than the temporary gain in platoon advantage? And finally, how long can a pitcher stay at a position away from the mound before getting cold—he will not be allowed any warm-up tosses if he comes back to pitch during the inning.

Thus, in practice, it is a very difficult strategy to execute, and in the days of the seven- or eight-man bullpen that may include two or three left-handers, is it really worth the rigmarole? Apparently, it still is once in a while: in the 9th inning of a nationally-televised Sunday night game on July 12, 2009, Cubs manager Lou Piniella decided to send lefty Sean Marshall to left field, have righty Aaron Heilman retire one Cardinal batter in a tight spot, then return Marshall to the mound to finish the inning. The strategy worked, and Piniella’s opposite, Tony LaRussa, was quick to praise his opponent for a genius move. The strategy was actually marginally more common in the days of 10-man pitching staffs, and a few managers would have a pitcher they trusted to send to the field for a batter or two, most notably Frank Lucchesi with Dick Selma and Whitey Herzog with Todd Worrell,[fn]Herzog even used the strategy in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, on October 13, 1987.[/fn] but even then it was a Rube Goldberg machine of a strategy: sometimes effective, but too complex for its own good.

c) Indulging a Favorite Son. It is perhaps surprising that in the rather conservative and cold-hearted world of Major League Baseball, managers will sometimes do silly things to indulge a favorite player’s wishes. There have been cases of managers letting a pitcher bat for himself and declining the use of the designated hitter for the day,[fn]For example, Ferguson Jenkins pitched and batted ninth for the Texas Rangers on October 2, 1974.[/fn] allowing a pitcher to pitch ambidextrously for an inning,[fn]Greg Harris, on September 28, 1995.[/fn] or letting a player play nine positions in one game.[fn]For example, Scott Sheldon and Shane Halter, both at the tail end of the 2000 season.[/fn] It has happened a number of times with pitchers getting a chance to play a fielding position. The common thread here is that this always takes place in the dying days of the season, in a game whose outcome has no bearing on the pennant race, and even then in circumstances that do not affect the game’s outcome. If you have once wondered why Randy Johnson—standing 6-foot-10 and rather awkward even while doing nothing—is credited with a game in the outfield, be it known that on October 3, 1993, Lou Piniella had him replace Brian Turang for an inning in left field. Rick Langford was the beneficiary of a similar largesse. A less frivolous instance was on September 30, 1984, when Chuck Tanner gave a start in left field to Don Robinson in the second game of a doubleheader. Robinson, who was a solid hitter, had been troubled by a series of arm injuries in the early part of his career and there was some thought of converting him into a full-time outfielder. In the end, he pitched in the majors until 1992, although he continued to be used occasionally as a pinch-hitter.

SOME MEMORABLE GAMES

We have looked at some of the “run-of-the-mill” instances of a pitcher playing in the field, if there is such a thing. Let’s now look at the more bizarre ones.[fn]See the supplemental table on the SABR website to this article for full details.[/fn]

a) Is that an infielder which stands before me? On July 6, 1970, Cleveland Indians manager Alvin Dark pulled off the pitcher-to-the-outfield strategy with a twist. He sent huge left-hander Sam McDowell to second base while Dean Chance took the mound for a third of an inning. It must have made sense at the time, but the thought of McDowell playing the middle infield is puzzling. On September 2, Dark had McDowell play a more conventional first base while Chance relieved him temporarily, and on September 25, he had right-handed rookie Jim Rittwage go to third base for a spot while Rick Austin took the mound in the fourth inning. These are 3 of only 10 cases of a pitcher playing a position other than the outfield during the period.

b) Sometimes they do field. In the entire history of the Montreal Expos, from 1969 to 2004, only once did a pitcher take the field for either team. It happened on September 22, 1972, when shortstop Tim Foli was ejected from the game in the 10th inning. Steve Renko, who had been converted to pitching in the minor leagues, took over at first base as manager Gene Mauch re-jiggered his defense. Renko recorded five put-outs until the Expos lost the game in the 12th. This is the most fielding chances in one game by an out-of-position player during the period.

c) Bob and the Fat Man. On August 18, 1982, the Dodgers were in a marathon game at Wrigley Field; it had actually started the previous day, before being interrupted by darkness. In the 20th inning, disaster struck for the Dodgers when third baseman Ron Cey was ejected. With the team out of position players, right fielder Pedro Guerrero moved to third, while Fernando Valenzuela occupied right field. No one’s idea of a gazelle, Fernando then switched positions with left fielder Dusty Baker after two batters. In the 21st inning, someone (Tommy Lasorda had been ejected with Cey) decided that perhaps the pudgy Valenzuela was not the ideal outfielder, and more athletic pitcher replaced him: Bob Welch. Welch switched positions with Baker twice to minimize the risk of a ball being hit in his direction. Surprisingly, it would not be Valenzuela’s sole attempt at mastering another position. On June 3, 1989, a 22-inning marathon necessitated the Mexican’s presence, this time at first base, as infielder Jeff Hamilton gamely took the mound and first baseman Eddie Murray impersonated a third baseman. The Dodgers lost the game in the 22nd inning, when the Houston’s Rafael Ramirez hit a ball just past Fernando’s outstretched glove to drive in the game-winner.

d) The Pine Tar Game. The so-called “Pine Tar Game” between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals on July 24, 1983, is one of the most famous regular-season games in baseball history. When it resumed on August 18, with George Brett’s ninth-inning home run allowed to stand and four outs left to play, Yankees manager Billy Martin rolled out an unusual defensive line-up. It included lefty first baseman Don Mattingly playing second base, and pitcher Ron Guidry in center field. It was in part Billy’s way of protesting what he saw as an egregiously bad decision by American League president Lee MacPhail. When Guidry’s turn to bat came up in the bottom of the inning, Martin sent Oscar Gamble to pinch hit for him. Guidry has the unique distinction of having played two games in the outfield (he had previously been used there for an inning in a late-season game in 1979) but never coming to bat a single time in the regular season, as his entire career was spent in the DH-era American League before the beginning of interleague play. (He did bat a few times in the World Series, though.)

e) The Great Mets Pitcher Merry-Go-Round. On July 22, 1986, the New York Mets played a remarkable extra-inning game against the Cincinnati Reds. When Kevin Mitchell and Ray Knight were both ejected in the 10th inning, Mets manager Davey Johnson did not have enough position players left at his disposal to continue the game; he decided to send Jesse Orosco, who had been pitching, to left field and brought in Roger McDowell to relieve him. With two outs in the 11th inning, the two switched places, with McDowell going to the outfield and Orosco going back to the mound. In the 13th inning, they switched again, with McDowell finishing the game which ended in 14 innings.

f) How many pitchers can you use? On September 28, 1986, the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers were involved in an extra-inning contest. In the 13th inning, Giants manager Roger Craig sent pitcher Randy Bockus to pinch hit for an injured Robby Thompson. Bockus stayed in the game, playing the outfield, until the 14th inning when he was replaced by a pinch-hitter—pitcher Mike Krukow. As the game was not over, Craig then sent a third pitcher—Jeff Robinson—to play the outfield in the 15th. The game ended in 16 innings, before Craig had a chance to expend more of his moundsmen. It is not clear why Bockus was good enough to pinch hit in the 13th, but not to take his turn at bat in the 14th. Likely, Craig was playing things by ear by that point of the game.

g) Switch until you’re dizzy. Another interminable game caused the next situation. On May 14, 1988, with the game still tied in the 16th inning and no more pitchers available, Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog had to resort to desperate measures. Infielder Jose Oquendo, who had been playing first base, was sent to the mound while outfielder Duane Walker took over at first base, and the previous day’s starting pitcher, Jose DeLeon, neither nimble nor used to playing the outer depths, had to occupy an outfielder’s spot. It was a white flag move, but the makeshift line-up held on until the 19th inning against the Braves. During that time, DeLeon and fellow corner outfielder Tom Brunansky switched positions 11 times in an attempt to keep the ball away from the tall Dominican. In the bottom of the 19th, after the Braves had finally scored some runs against Oquendo, Herzog mercifully pinch hit for DeLeon—with another pitcher of course, John Tudor.

h) Will Somebody Give Me Some Hitters, Please. Billy Martin’s last stint as the New York Yankees’ manager ended on a strange note. On June 11, 1988, he wrote a line-up card that had Rick Rhoden as the designated hitter, batting seventh. Granted, Rhoden was an above-average hitter—for a pitcher—but, in what was the only instance in our study of a pitcher being the starting DH, Martin wanted to make a point: he did not have enough hitters on his roster. His starting line-up that day including such hitting weaklings as third baseman Wayne Tolleson, second baseman Bobby Meacham, catcher Joel Skinner, and shortstop Rafael Santana. Rhoden was not actually the worst hitter in the bunch. He did drive in a run with a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning that day; his point made, Martin replaced him in the fifth with pinch-hitter Jose Cruz, who was himself playing on fumes. Martin was fired less than two weeks after pulling this stunt.

THE BIG VOID, 2000-2006

By the end of the 1990s, the use of pitchers at positions other than the mound was down to a trickle, and from 2000 to 2006, not a single instance was recorded. The reason was simple. If pitchers were somewhat disposable in an earlier time, they had become more priceless than racehorses by the turn of the 21st century. With an average starting pitcher making somewhere between $5 and $10 million per season, only a foolhardy manager will risk using one in any situation that could cause injury, unless he is angling to be fired. This is not just some theoretical point. On August 30, 1981, with the Montreal Expos in a pennant race, manager Dick Williams decided to use ace pitcher Steve Rogers as a pinch-runner in an extra-inning game against the Atlanta Braves; Rogers succeeded in breaking up a double play, but he injured a rib in the process and was out two weeks while the Expos still lost the game. That was the final straw in getting Williams fired eight days later. Risking injury to one of your top starting pitchers is a steep price to pay for a move that is bound to attract a lot of criticism, no matter how well it may turn out.

But in baseball, circumstances do change. The 13-man pitching staffs alluded to earlier are a product of the recent decade. Even if Major League Baseball has made recourse to the disabled list much more flexible and allowed teams to bring up temporary replacements when players go on compassionate leave or paternity leave, there will again be situations when a team is simply out of players and needs to do something drastic to continue a game. After the seven-season hiatus, the recourse to using pitchers outside of their comfort zone on the mound is growing. We mentioned the Brooks Kieschnick experiment; both Cody McKay and Dave McCarty contemplated increasing their prospects for future major league employment by becoming two-way players. Each team now seems to have a utility player who can play four or five positions on its roster. Pitchers are being used regularly as pinch hitters because of a lack of other options—something that had not been seen since the 1930s and 1940s,[fn]Pinch-hitting pitchers never disappeared completely; Gary Peters in the 1960s, Ken Brett in the 1970s, and Dan Schatzeder and Don Robinson in the 1980s kept the species alive, but they were very much an exception during those decades.[/fn] and some like Carlos Zambrano and Micah Owings are asked to do so relatively frequently. There are bound to be more extra-inning marathons in the future and a demand to press pitchers into service elsewhere, if they are able to handle the duties. In 2007 and 2008, it happened once each year; in 2009, it happened twice, and twice again in 2010. We may be entering a time when there is a slight renewal of the practice.

But that said, one thing remains clear: Major League teams still treat their pitchers as being entirely different creatures from their position players, and a major revolution in thinking or playing style will be needed for that to change.

PHILIPPE COUSINEAU has been a member of SABR since 1998. A life-long fan of the Montreal Expos, he is a foreign service officer with Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and a member of the SABR Quebec chapter.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The author would like to acknowledge the help provided by baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org in writing this article. He would also like to thank members of the SABR Quebec Chapter for their feedback on this article, which originally took the form of an oral presentation on the first SABR Day, January 30, 2010.