In honor of this afternoon's Marlins-Brewers game, a double shot:
1: What's the rule about pine tar on the bat?
2: What's the history about the Royals-Yankees' "Pine Tar Game?"
(I might need to be temporary locked from this thread just to avoid spamming.
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1. You can have pine tar on the handle of the bat extending up 18". Anything past that and the bat has to be removed from the game and the umpire will order the batter to use a different bat.
2. Picture it, Yankee Stadium, July 24, 1983. The Yankees and Royals are playing the last game of their season series against each other. It's the top of the 9th and the Royals are down 4-3 with 2 outs, U L Washington on first, and George Brett up to bat. Goose Gossage is on the mound for the Yankees. Brett laces one into the stands in right field to turn the 4-3 deficit to a 5-4 lead. Yankees catcher Rick Cerone nonchalantly hands Brett's bat to the Royals bat boy but as soon as Brett crosses the plate, New York skipper Billy Martin comes out to argue to rookie home plate ump Tim McClelland that Brett had too much pine tar on his bat. The umps confer and used home plate's width (17") to measure the amount of tar on Brett's bat. They found that it exceeded the 18" specified by the rule and McClelland called Brett out, negating the HR and ending the game with a 4-3 Yankees win. Brett tore out of the dugout and had to be physically restrained by Royals skipper Dick Howser. In the tumult, Royals pitcher Gaylord Perry took the bat from McClelland and then passed it off to another teammate to hide it in the Royals clubhouse amongst the other bats so that the American League office would be unable to examine it.
The Royals, of course, protested the game, and AL Lee MacPhail heard the protest. He upheld the Royals protest because he felt the spirit of the rule wasn't in any performance enhancing aspects excess pine tar added but in making it so that balls in play weren't discolored by it and made harder to see and clearly that wouldn't matter with a ball hit out of play. That followed precedent of a ruling he made about 8 years earlier when he upheld a crew's decision
not to negate a homer hit by John Mayberry of the Royals when he had hit a home run with a bat with too much pine tar in a game against the Angels. MacPhail ruled that Brett's dinger was legit and that the game should be resumed at the top of the 9th with the Royals up 5-4. He also retroactively ejected Brett, Howser, and Royals coach Rocky Colavito for arguing with the umpires and Perry for his role in secreting the bat away.
Play was resumed on August 18th (the Yankees tried to put off resumption of the game as long as they could and there was a secondary lawsuit over their original plans to charge $2.50 for fans to come see an inning and a third of baseball) play resumed with two changes in the Yankees defensive alignment - pitcher Ron Guidry substituted in at center field for Jerry Mumphrey (who'd been traded in the interim) and 1st baseman Don Mattingly was moved to 2nd to replace an injured Bert Campaneris. When play resumed (with Hal McRae at bat for the Royals), Yankees pitcher George Frazier threw to 1st and argued Brett hadn't touched 1st. The umpire (Tim Welke) called him safe. Frazier then threw to 2nd arguing that that neither Brett nor Washington had touched the base. Umpire Dave Phillips again signaled that they were safe. Martin, of course, went on the field to protest how umpires who weren't present at the game and who hadn't seen the original action could make such a ruling. Phillips proceeded to produce a notarized affidavit signed by all four umpires from the original game attesting that Brett and Washington had touched alll the bases after MacPhail had gotten word that the Yankees might try just such a tactic to protest the resumption of the game. Martin announced that the Yankees were playing the remainder of the game under protest and left the field. Frazier then struck out McRae and the Royals reliever, submariner Dan Quisenberry, struck out the side to preserve a 5-4 Royals win. Fun fact - the Royals starter (for the original portion of the game) was none other than Bud Black.