Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated

7.00: Ending the Game

For the many historians who consider the National Association a major league, the first official major-league game took place on May 4, 1871, at Fort Wayne, between the Kekiongas of Fort Wayne and the Cleveland Forest Citys. The Kekiongas, behind pitcher Bobby Mathews, in an extraordinarily well-played game for the time, took a 2–0 lead into the top of the ninth. The visitors failed to score, but because the rules throughout the National Association era and as late as 1879 required that a full game be played even if the bottom of the ninth inning was meaningless—as was the case on this day—the Kekiongas had to take their raps.

Apart from giving fans a full nine innings for their money, the rule served no useful purpose and if anything invited abuses. Professional baseball in its infancy was rife with gamblers eager for an edge and also a fair number of players willing to provide them with one for a price. Games that went the full nine innings with the winner already determined in the top half of the ninth were prime meat—especially games between weak teams and strong ones. A popular scenario, once it was determined the heavy favorite would bat last, involved wagering the favorite would not score any runs in its last raps if enough players on the favored team were in on the bet and willing to cooperate. It generally proved to be a sucker’s bet, and there were others if, say, the pitcher on a heavy underdog had been reached beforehand and coaxed to surrender an agreed upon minimum number of runs or hits in the bottom of the ninth. Fortunately, the majority of players continued to play their best after the final verdict was decided, but others just went through the motions, reluctant to expend extra energy or risk injury during a half inning whose only import was that all the statistics in it counted.

The last date all major-league games went a full nine innings regardless of which team led after the top of the ninth was on September 30, 1879, the final day of the only MLB season ever to feature the two top contenders—Providence and Boston—ending the campaign by meeting six games in a row to decide the NL pennant. Another memorable first occurred on Opening Day the following season: the first walk-off or sudden death hit in major-league history. On May 1, 1880, at Cincinnati, visiting Chicago batted last and trailed the Reds, 3–2, in the bottom of the ninth. After Chicago’s vaunted rookie pitcher Larry Corcoran opened the frame with single, an error by Cincinnati shortstop Sam Wright put Chicago shortstop Tom Burns on board and both came home soon thereafter when Cincinnati right fielder Jack Manning threw Joe Quest’s routine single over Reds catcher John Clapp’s head, allowing the game to end, 4–3, the moment Burns, the trailing runner, touched home. Had there been a third runner on base and he too had scored, his tally would not have counted because the game officially ended the moment Burns, the winning run, crossed the plate.

Although this rule that normal play shall continue still applies in the major leagues, it may soon become obsolete. Already some minor leagues are experimenting with having each team start every extra frame with a runner on second and none out. What’s more, the 2019 All-Star Game was chosen to showcase the experiment at the major-league level if the game was tied after 12 innings. (Happily, the American League won, 4–3, in regulation, obviating the need for experimentation.) The rule is an unpopular one thus far, even though its purpose is to promote more scoring and curb the number of protracted games that reduce their audiences with each passing inning and also, importantly, deplete the bullpens of both teams to a point where they end with a position player having to take the mound when the game is still in doubt, usually with farcical consequences.

If this rule were to become part of the major-league fabric, it is first going to require some deep thought on how to score it. Does a pitcher still retain his perfect game if he starts the 10th inning with a runner on second base? If so, does he lose both it and his no-hit bid if that runner is hit by a batted ball, making the third out in an otherwise unblemished inning? And who will start each extra frame occupying second base? The same runner each inning? A different runner each inning? The last out of the previous inning? A player chosen by the opposition? Or—perish the thought—if the game goes long enough and both benches are emptied, a player who’s already been in the game?

Ties were frequent in the days when games could not be finished due to darkness or were forbidden from turning on their lights turned if the game began in daylight. A game nowadays that is halted with the score tied is treated as a suspended game and finished at a later time. However, ties do still exist. A recent one occurred on September 29, 2016, in a game at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park when the Pirates and Cubs were deadlocked at 1–1 in the sixth inning when heavy rain stopped play for over an hour and the game was eventually called by plate umpire Brian Gorman. The tie was the first since 2005, and was declared such rather than a suspended game because the two teams were not scheduled to play again in 2016 and the Cubs had already clinched home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs while the Pirates were out of contention, eliminating any substantive reason to make up the game.

7.01 (e)

If a game is postponed or otherwise called before it has become a regulation game, the umpire-in-chief shall declare it “No Game,” unless the game is called pursuant to Rules 7.02 (a) (3) or 7.02 (a) (4), which shall be a suspended game at any time after it starts.

Rule 7.01 Comment: The Major Leagues have determined that Rules 7.01 (c) and 7.01 (e) do not apply to any Wild Card, Division Series, League Championship Series or World Series games or for any additional Major League championship season game played to break a tie.

Prior to 2008, postseason games did not have different rules from regular season ones regarding suspended games. As a result, over the years there were several tie games in World Series play. For those who accept that the annual postseason World’s Series contests between the American Association and the National League, which ran from 1884 through 1890, were the first World Series games between two rival major leagues, ironically the last such best-of-seven postseason—the 1890 World’s Series between the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the Louisville Cyclones—ended tied at three games apiece because Game Three on October 20 at Louisville had resulted in a 7–7 draw called by darkness after eight innings. And, due to miserable weather, it precluded any desire by either side to play a decisive Game Eight, as eventually did occur for the first time in the 1912 World Series.

The first application of the Rule 7.01 special comment came in Game Five of the 2008 World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park on October 27. The first suspended game in World Series history was halted by heavy rain and winds with the score tied, 2–2, in the bottom of the sixth after the Rays had tied the game in the top of the frame. Owing to lingering bad weather, the game was not resumed until October 29, and even then the temperature at game time was a blustery 44 degrees. The Phillies promptly scored a run in the bottom of the sixth and the game ended with Philadelphia winning, 4–3, on Eric Bruntlett’s run in the bottom of the seventh and taking the World Series in five games.

Commissioner Bud Selig later decreed that the game would have been suspended even if the Rays had not tied it, regardless of what the rule book stated. The next month, Major League Baseball instituted a rule stating that no postseason games nor any games with potential postseason significance—such as All-Star Games and tiebreaker games for division titles or wild cards—could be shortened due to weather. All games in those instances are suspended and completed at a later date from the point of termination, even if they are not yet regulation games.

Yes, the rule at first included All-Star Games, but that part was dropped prior to the 2017 season. Their results no longer have any bearing on which league hosts the World Series opener and even desultory fans know their inclusion stems from the 2002 All-Star fiasco at Milwaukee that Selig ruled a 7–7 tie when both teams ran out of pitchers.

The exception to the present rule enabling a team to win by more than one run when a game is ended by a sudden death home run was first added in 1920. Before then, the rule was firm that a team batting last could not win by more than one run when it won the game in walk-off fashion in the ninth or an extra inning. If with the score tied and the bases loaded a player hit a sudden death outside-the-park home run, rather than a grand slam he was given credit only for one RBI (the number of runs needed to win the game) and a single (the number of bases the runner scoring the winning tally needed to make). Among the 38 players who lost home runs to the old rule was Babe Ruth. When Ruth homered off Stan Coveleski for Boston on July 8, 1918, with Red Sox teammate Amos Strunk on first base to end a ten-inning 0–0 game with Cleveland, he was credited at the time with only a triple.

In 1968, the Special Baseball Records Committee—which was formed to resolve historical disparities or errors—voted to credit all the players who had hit sudden death home runs before 1920 with an additional career four-bagger. Ruth’s home run total was hiked from 714 to 715, where it remained for all of about a year before the committee reversed its decision on May 5, 1969, and again assigned Ruth only a triple for his 1918 blow. It has remained a triple ever since, but other home runs that should have been reduced to the number of bases needed to score the winning run have slipped through the cracks and are still in the record books as home runs. A premier example occurred in Cleveland on July 10, 1880, when Jim McCormick of the Cleveland Blues was locked in a 0–0 struggle with Fred Goldsmith of the Chicago White Stockings heading into the bottom of the ninth. After shortstop Jack Glasscock reached first on a single, second baseman Fred Dunlap hit a long blast over center fielder Larry Corcoran’s head and circled the bases, giving Cleveland a 2–0 victory and ending Chicago’s then NL record 21-game winning streak. Technically, Dunlap’s hit should have been a triple as per a new rule installed just that year, which dictated that the game ended as soon as Glasscock touched the plate, but the official scorer either forgot the rule change or didn’t agree with it and credited Dunlap with an inside-the-park home run. So it has remained ever since

The marathon 26-inning 1–1 tie game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves on May 1, 1920, at Braves Field came forty-nine years too soon. Rather than Brooklyn’s Leon Cadore and Boston’s Joe Oeschger probably throwing well over 200 pitches each to no avail, now the game would have been suspended when darkness made it impossible to continue (and the field was without lights, as they all were in 1920) and then resumed at the top of the 27th inning the next time the teams met. Before 1969, however, a game called at the end of a completed inning with the score tied after nine or more innings was declared a draw and then replayed from scratch later in the season.

The 1969 rule change enabled the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers to break the record in 1984 for the longest game inning-wise in American League history. On May 8, 1984, the two clubs battled for 17 innings to a 3–3 stalemate at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, resuming the struggle the following day. Harold Baines eventually slammed a walk-off homer off the Brewers’ Chuck Porter with one down in the bottom of the 25th to give the White Sox a 7–6 triumph. Tom Seaver, who worked the final inning of the suspended game in relief and then started the regularly scheduled game and went 8⅓ innings, won both contests for Chicago. Note that Rule 7.02 (8) specifies that if a game is suspended before it becomes a regulation-length game and then resumed prior to another regulation game, the regulation game that day is trimmed to seven innings unless it should happen to be a postseason game.

Previously, the record for the longest game in American League history had been 24 innings, last done on July 21, 1945, at Philadelphia when the A’s and Detroit Tigers were forced to settle for a 1–1 tie. Had the current rule been in effect then, the game would have been completed at a later date, as would have the Dodgers and Braves 26-inning classic. As it stands, the longest game in National League history played to a decision came on September 11, 1974, when the Cardinals beat the Mets, 4–3, at Shea Stadium on an errant pickoff throw in the 25th inning.

Meanwhile, that 26-inning tie continues to be the longest game inning-wise in MLB history. The contest lasted three hours and fifty minutes, and featured Boston second baseman Charlie Pick going a single-game record 0-for-11 and Braves shortstop Rabbit Maranville the only starter to bat .300 on the day, going 3-for-10. The following day, a Sunday, the Dodgers played at home against Philadelphia and lost, 4–3, in 13 innings. They then journeyed back to Boston that evening, and on Monday afternoon lost, 2–1, to the Braves’ Dana Fillingim in 19 innings, giving them a total of 58 innings played in a three-day period and nothing to show for it (except the 26-inning tie). Nonetheless, they won the 1920 NL pennant by a comfortable seven-game margin over the New York Giants.

Major-league teams nowadays not only devote maximum effort to complete suspended games and make up postponed games, but are in fact required to do so—especially when the game(s) in question could have a bearing on a pennant or division race. Such has not always been the case. This issue was first addressed after the 1908 season, when Detroit copped the American League pennant by a half-game over Cleveland. The margin of victory was a postponed game at Washington the Tigers had not been required to play, leaving Detroit at 90–63, whereas Cleveland, playing a full 154-game slate, finished at 90–64.

Cleveland fans were understandably upset, but White Sox followers also had a legitimate grievance. The White Sox finished a game and a half behind Detroit at 88–64 after failing to replay two games that ended in a tie. Had the Tigers played their postponed game and lost them, and the White Sox won both of their replayed games, the 1908 American League race would have ended in a three-way tie, with Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago all at 90–64.

Few historians have noted that the 1908 season was the fifth in a row in which postponed games were a significant factor in the American League pennant race. In 1904, the first year that both major leagues adopted a 154-game schedule, Boston and New York tied in victories with 92, but Boston had three fewer losses. Philadelphia and Chicago both garnered 92 wins in 1905, but postponements reduced the A’s slate to 148 games, whereas the White Sox played 152. The following year the Sox benefited by postponements, finishing three games ahead ofNew York as both teams were held to 151 contests; had the clubs been required to play out the schedule, New York could have tied the Sox at 93–61.

The 1907 season was the only time in major-league history that a pennant winner lost more games than an also-ran. A rainy summer in the East shaved nine games off the Philadelphia A’s schedule, while Detroit lost only four contests to the weather. Philadelphia finished at 88–57, a game and a half behind Detroit’s 92–58 mark. Had the full slate been played, the A’s record conceivably could have been 97–57, leaving the Tigers five games back at 92–62.

Despite a pledge following the 1908 campaign to make up postponed games that had a potential bearing on a pennant race, there have been several occasions in the years since when this was not done. The most glaring was in 1915, when three teams were bunched within half a game of each other at the close of the Federal League season. Owing to postponements, the flag-winning Chicago Whales played just 152 games and finished at 86–66; the Pittsburgh Rebels with the same number of wins but one more loss ended in third place, a half-game back, at 86–67. Finishing second were the St. Louis Terriers at 87–67. The Terriers were just one percentage point off the pace and are the only team prior to the inception of division play in 1969 to lead its circuit in victories yet fail to win the pennant.

Some critics tend to excuse the Federal League, contending it was not a true major league, but no satisfactory explanation has ever been presented for the American League’s failure to order meaningful postponed games to be made up in 1935 or an even more serious gaffe by the National League three years later. Detroit copped the 1935 American League flag by a three-game margin over the New York Yankees that could have turned into a one-game deficit if both clubs had fulfilled their 154-game commitments. In 1938, the Chicago Cubs triumphed by two games over the Pittsburgh Pirates, but could likewise have wound up one game in arrears had the Pirates played and won four postponed games while the Bruins were losing their two unplayed contests.

The 1918 and 1972 seasons also saw teams benefit from the full schedule not being completed, but for reasons that were unavoidable. Owing to America’s involvement in World War I, the 1918 campaign was terminated on Labor Day with the huge disparities between the number of home and road games the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians played contributing to a Red Sox triumph by 2½ games. In 1972, after a spring-training lockout delayed the start of the major-league season, it was ruled that all games that were canceled as a result of the lockout would not be made up. Detroit then proceeded to win the American League East crown over Boston by a scant half-game. This memory prompted both major leagues to make up all canceled games during the course of the season when another labor lockout delayed the start of the 1990 campaign.

Technically, the last time a major-league game was forfeited because a team failed to show up was in 1902, when the Baltimore Orioles were unable to field a full team for an American League game on July 17 with the St. Louis Browns at Baltimore. The Orioles were in total disarray at the time after ex-National Leaguer John McGraw jumped the club to join the New York Giants, and he and owner Andrew Freedman induced several key players to also jump to his club. Others were sent to Cincinnati, leaving the Orioles with only three players. To fill out their roster so that they could finish the season without further forfeits, player contributions came from other American League clubs and also the high minors. In consequence, only Baltimore’s three core players participated in as many as 100 games and the Orioles became the first team to complete its full schedule without a pitcher who worked as many as 200 innings.

Before the Baltimore decimation, the last time a team was saddled with a no-show loss was on October 12, 1892, when the Cleveland Spiders failed to appear for a scheduled makeup game at Pittsburgh. The game the day before had ended in a 4–4 tie, stopped by darkness. Pittsburgh wanted to replay the game and according to the rules notified both the Spiders and the league office. Cleveland insisted it already had scheduled a benefit game back in Cleveland on the 12th and left Pittsburgh on the midnight train. At game time on the 12th, umpire John Gaffney declared the game a forfeit win for Pittsburgh.

By the 1890s, forfeits for nonappearance were a rarity, but less than ten years earlier, owing to the vagaries of train travel, they had been fairly common. In September 1884, the Washington Unions bagged two victories in the space of 12 days when railway delays prevented, first, the Pittsburgh Stogies and then the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds from reaching the Washington ballyard by game time; the Cincinnati forfeit was later overturned, however, by Union Association officials.

It has been more than sixty years since a major league team last received the ultimate penalty for stalling or deliberately trying to delay a game. On July 18, 1954, facing the Philadelphia Phillies at home in Sportsman’s Park, the St. Louis Cardinals trailed, 8–1, in the second game of a rain-delayed doubleheader with one out in the top of the fifth and darkness fast approaching. Since the game was not yet official and the rules then did not permit turning on the stadium lights to continue play, Cardinals manager Eddie Stanky thought he saw a way to escape defeat.

Eddie Stanky, known as “The Brat,” exasperated umpires as both a player and a manager but was on three different National League teams that won pennants in a four-year span. He was ejected from more than 50 games in his checkered career.

After changing pitchers three times in the fifth inning, though the Phils had made just one hit, Stanky decided to go to his bullpen a fourth time; the umpires had already warned Stanky that his tactics bordered on stalling. Meanwhile, the inning was suddenly interrupted for eight minutes by a free-for-all brawl, principally between the Phils’ Earl Torgeson and Cards catcher Say Yvars after Torgeson ranted that Cards pitcher Cot Deal was trying to hit him. When crew chief Babe Pinelli saw Stanky wave in Tom Poholsky from the bullpen, he picked up the field phone and announced that the game was forfeited to the Phils. Because the game went fewer than five innings, the official scorer did not send in a box score. Many of the Phils lost hits and RBIs, and Phils rookie Bob Greenwood was denied an almost certain victory in his first major-league start. The following day, Stanky was suspended for five games—partly for his role in the pre-forfeit donnybrook which culminated with him wrestling Phils pilot Terry Moore to the ground at home plate. But he could be permitted to chortle when Moore designated Greenwood to start again against the Cardinals, seemingly on a misguided hunch that the rookie would still have it after a short workday. Instead, Greenwood was removed in the first inning after the Cards’ first four hitters all singled and later was saddled with a 5–1 loss.

In The Complete Book of Forfeited and Successfully Protested Major League Games, Nemec and Miklich offer a perfect example of this rule in action on July 3, 1887, in an American Association game in Louisville between the Colonels and the pennant-bound St. Louis Browns. “A swirling misty rain began falling in the second frame with Louisville ahead, 5–1. Umpire [Ben] Young stopped play for 10 minutes, but when it continued to rain ‘so lightly that the uncovered seats were not vacated by the people,’ he ordered the game to resume. St. Louis player-manager Charlie Comiskey did so grudgingly, but after the Colonels posted two more runs in their half of the second, he wanted the game postponed because it ‘began to sprinkle again.’ Young denied his request, contending that the skies were doing no more than gently dampening the field. Comiskey ‘refused to play, whereupon Young gave the game to Louisville.’” An excellent and innovative umpire according to most accounts, Young was drummed out of the AA almost immediately thereafter (the July 3 contest was his AA coda in fact), with Comiskey leading the movement to get rid of a man who would not buckle to his will, and never returned to the majors. He died in a railroad accident on September 1, 1890, while on his way to umpire a minor-league game. During transport from the accident site to the nearest morgue, Young’s body was robbed of all money and personal effects.

A major-league game has never been forfeited solely because a team was unable to put nine players on the field. Ever since the rules forbade a team playing shorthanded for any reason, clubs have always managed to scrape together a full crew, sometimes by dragging a player of local repute out of the stands. On June 15, 1889, in an American Association game at Baltimore, Louisville dredged up its entire outfield corps at the last minute in its 20th consecutive loss in what evolved into an all-time record 27 straight defeats. There have been many instances, however, when a team sustained a forfeit because it refused to put nine players on the field, or even any players, as happened to the Baltimore AL team in 1902 when it could not round up enough volunteers to fill out a lineup.

One of the odder cases involved a season-closing series in 1886 between the Washington Senators and Kansas City Cowboys. The two teams were locked in a struggle to avoid the National League cellar. Arguably the greatest nineteenth-century umpire, John Gaffney, who had misguidedly taken time off from umpiring to manage the last-place Washington club, sent a telegram to Kansas player-manager Dave Rowe on September 26, asking, “Will you play three postponed games in the morning?” Rowe’s response, received on the 28th, stated, “Yes: go ahead. All O.K.” But Rowe later claimed he thought he was responding to Gaffney regarding the playing of a postponed game on the morning of September 27 and refused to play any morning games with Washington thereafter. The seventh-place Cowboys consequently failed to put in an appearance for the morning game of a scheduled doubleheader on October 7, which was the first of three scheduled doubleheaders on three consecutive days. Umpire Joe Quest, a former Chicago second baseman, forfeited the contest to last-place Washington when he and the team appeared at Washington’s Swampoodle Park for the appointed time of the morning game on October 7 and then stuck around to officiate the afternoon game, which the Nationals won on the field, 12–3. The same pattern persisted on October 8 and October 9, with Washington winning all three afternoon contests, giving them a season-high six-game winning streak. However, the streak was broken on October 11, the final day of the season, when Kansas City prevailed, 7–5, in its final game as a member of the National League and clinched seventh place, 1½ games ahead of Washington. The games were otherwise noteworthy in that Kansas City brought so few men to its season-ending series in Washington that novice pitcher Silver King occupied right field for the Cowboys on days when he wasn’t pitching.

Official control of groundskeeping crews was first given to the umpire-in-chief in 1906 for the purpose of making a playing field fit to resume action after a rain delay, but though tarps had been introduced as early as the 1880s, groundskeeping crews at that time were small and often swiftly overwhelmed if a sudden rainstorm hit. The umpire consequently was unlikely to make an issue out of it if the crew was slow in protecting the field. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, most teams had a sizable staff of groundskeepers, and expectations had risen accordingly. On August 15, 1941, with the Washington Senators leading the Boston Red Sox, 6–3, in the eighth inning at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, a thunderstorm caused a 40-minute delay. By the time the squall abated, the field was too wet to resume play, so the umpires called the game and declared Washington the victor, 6–3. Boston manager Joe Cronin immediately lodged a protest, contending that the game could have continued if the Washington crew had not been laggard in covering the field. American League president Will Harridge agreed with Cronin and awarded the game to the Red Sox by forfeit. Harridge’s verdict cost the Senators’ Venezuelan righty, Alex Carrasquel, a likely win.

Midway through the 1993 season, the New York Mets nearly became only the second team in history to collect a forfeited win because of a rain-delay snafu. On June 29, the day after Mets pitcher Anthony Young sustained his record-breaking 24th consecutive loss, the 40-member Florida Marlins’ grounds crew fumbled with a tarp for fifteen minutes at Joe Robbie Stadium before getting the infield covered after a storm had stopped play. The crew’s ineptness eventually had players on both teams laughing hysterically in their dugouts while the public-address system played the theme to Mission Impossible. The Mets ultimately won the game in 12 innings, 10–9, on Tim Bogar’s sacrifice fly (but nonetheless finished in the NL East cellar).

Some twenty-two years later, three seasons after the Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins had opened Marlins Park, which had a retractable roof, on April 6, Opening Day, the Marlins had an even more embarrassing weather-related experience. Although the weather forecast predicted a 20 percent chance of rain, Marlins president David Samson elected to gamble and keep the roof open. The season opener against the Atlanta Braves had reached only the second inning when spectators began to stampede for cover as a massive, dark storm cloud suddenly unleashed a steady rain onto the open park. Samson immediately commanded the roof to be closed and the field be covered by its tarp in the interim. Unfortunately, no one quite knew where the tarp was since it had never been used in this sort of situation. That was, until Samson remembered he had ordered it to be tucked to an out-of-way storage space far from the infield.

By the time it was found the cloudburst had ended and the retractable roof covered the entire park. Even though the field was soon playable again, the Braves nonetheless might have lodged a protest had they not led, 1–0, at the time. As it was, they won, 2–1, and most in the near- capacity crowd left the park in dry clothes after Martin Prado lined out to second for the last out of the game. To keep his job from his seat in the protected press box Samson apologized profusely over the phone during the storm to team owner Jeffrey Loria, who was seated in the driving rain near the Marlins dugout.

Until fairly late in the twentieth century successfully protested games were not infrequent. But now, because of the money and logistics involved in either replaying or resuming a protested game, Rule 7.04 has been written so that it is all but impossible for a protest to succeed. Remarkably, there has been only one upheld protest since the 1986 season. It occurred on August 19, 2014, at Chicago’s Wrigley Field in a game between the Cubs and the San Francisco Giants, when the skies opened after four and a half completed innings with the Cubs leading, 2–0. The Wrigley grounds crew was directed by the umpires to cover the field. However, the force of the rain was so powerful the tarp unveiling did not occur as rehearsed. The workers were unable to correctly lay the shroud over the entire infield and, as a result, much of the home plate area and left side of the infield were left to suffer the elements at their worst.

Once the fifteen-minute deluge ceased the tarp was removed, but most of the infield by then was underwater. After a four hour and thirty-four-minute effort by the grounds crew to restore the field to playable condition, plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, in front of an almost entirely empty house, accepted that the field was beyond repair and awarded the game to Chicago at 1:16 a.m. on August 20.

Later, on August 20, Giants manager Bruce Bochy protested the umpires’ ruling and deemed the cylinder that the tarp was wrapped around a mechanical device that fit the definition of a reason for his club to protest that the game should have been suspended rather than terminated as per then Rule 4.12.

The Giants further contended that the game should have been forfeited to them as the visiting team based on the rule cited above from the 2014 rule book that if, after it has been suspended, the order of the umpire to groundskeepers respecting preparation of the field for resumption of play are not complied with.

Later that day, Major League Baseball announced, for the first time since June 16, 1986, in a game at Pittsburgh, that a protest was upheld. The game was ordered to be resumed as a suspended game, nullifying the Giants’ forfeit request. The league office issued the following explanation of the incident:

An examination of the circumstances of last night’s game has led to the determination that there was sufficient cause to believe that there was a “malfunction of a mechanical field device under control of the home club” within the meaning of Official Baseball Rule 4.12 (a) (3). Available video of the incident, and conversations with representatives of the Cubs, demonstrate that the Cubs’ inability to deploy the tarp appropriately was caused by the failure to properly wrap and spool the tarp after its last use. As a result, the groundskeeping crew was unable to properly deploy the tarp after the rain worsened. In accordance with Rule 4.12 (a) (3), the game should be considered a suspended game that must be completed at a future date.

In addition, Major League Baseball has spoken with last night’s crew chief, Hunter Wendelstedt, and has concluded that the grounds crew worked diligently in its attempt to comply with his direction and cover the field. Thus, there is no basis for the game to be forfeited by the Cubs pursuant to Rule 4.16.

The game was resumed on August 21 at 4:05 p.m. CDT, and ended with the Cubs victorious by the score of 2–1, despite being outhit 11–3. The regular scheduled game was played three hours after the suspended game ended and the Giants won, 8–3.

Pay special attention to the last sentence of current Rule 7.04. Even if it is held that the protested decision violated the rules, no replay of the game will be ordered unless in the opinion of the League President the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning the game.

Here is an earlier day example of a protested game that went completely awry and would almost certainly never have been successfully protested under today’s guidelines.

Often in bygone days a disputed play would develop so early in the contest that it seemed more feasible to start from scratch, especially when an inability to duplicate the circumstances surrounding the protested game would put one team at a disadvantage. A good example took place in the August 1, 1932, contest at Detroit between the Tigers and New York Yankees. The hilarity was first introduced when second baseman Tony Lazzeri came to bat in the second inning under the assumption that he was the fifth hitter in the Yankees batting order. Plate umpire Dick Nallin informed Lazzeri that he was listed in the sixth spot on the lineup card behind right fielder Ben Chapman. When Yankees manager Joe McCarthy pleaded that he’d made a mistake in filling out the card and Lazzeri always hit fifth ahead of Chapman, Nallin relented and allowed Lazzeri to bat.

Detroit manager Bucky Harris remained mum on the issue until Lazzeri singled. Then he immediately appealed to Nallin, saying that Lazzeri had batted out of order. When Nallin pointed out that Lazzeri had batted in the fifth slot with his permission, Harris changed his appeal to a protest that Nallin had no right to change the batting order after the game had started.

Dick Nallin, the umpire responsible for a Yankees-Tigers game to be played in full on three separate occasions before it counted.

After the Yankees won the game, 6–3, American League president Will Harridge upheld the protest and ordered the contest replayed in its entirety, since Lazzeri’s illegal hit had been made way back in the second inning and led to the Yankees’ first run. The two clubs met again a month later during the club’s next visit to Detroit, but ran into a further snag when the replay, the second game of a September 8 doubleheader, ended in a 7–7 tie that was called on account of darkness.

The game was played for a third time the following day, again as the second game of a doubleheader. Detroit triumphed, 4–1, finally putting an end to the mammoth amount of work that was required to unravel the tangle Nallin’s effort to be accommodating had created. At the close of the 1932 season, Nallin’s tenure as an American League umpire was terminated by Harridge after 18 seasons. Except for his 1932 snafu, Nallin was regarded as a solid umpire. His career highlights were working the plate in Charlie Robertson’s perfect game in 1922 and officiating in the infamous 1919 Black Sox World Series.