RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Well, actually, the dinger was allowed after the league over-ruled the umps, and the final few outs of the game were replayed a week or so later.

My view of this is that it is dangerous to have rules on the books that are not, or seldom, enforced. Under the rules of the game at the time, the umpires were right, the pinetar extended too far up the bat, and the home-run was disallowed and Brett was called out. The American League over-ruled its umpires and its own rules to change the game.

That being said, it was one of a handful of incidents (three I think) in which a similar ruling had been made in the several years the rule had been on the books.

There are parallells with the "Merkle's Boner" incident of 1908, in which Fred Merkle, the runner at first, failed to touch second on a fair ball hit to the outfield, driving in the winning run and apparently ending the game. In so doing, Merkle was following the practice of almost all players of the time in similar circumstances. Almost none of those players (only one, in fact) had ever been called out before. The umpires were right, in the sense they followed the rules, but it strikes me as damn bizarre timing to start enforcing a rule that had been cavalierly ignored for years.

I think a similar situation is looming in baseball today, and it involves catchers blocking the plate. The rule states the following:

"The catcher, without the ball in his possession, has no right to block the pathway of the runner attempting to score. The base line belongs to the runner and the catcher should be there only when he is fielding a ball or when he already has the ball in his hand."

Now watch a major league game and watch what happens. Catchers regularly set up six feet down the third base line and wrestle the runner until help arrives, or squat over the plate and allow the runner to touch anything they like as long as it isn't the plate.

This is never called obstruction, though a reading of the rule clearly indicates that it is. I suspect that someday soon, in a crucial game, an umpiring crew will take it upon themselves to enforce the rule, and we will have a reprise of the "Pine Tar Game"