what happened this game?

Question

when george brett hit a HR at yankee stadium then billy martin comes out and asks umpire to look at the bat and then umpire calls him out instead. what was wrong with bat?

Answer 1

PineTarGate, as it came to be known.

Brett honered in the ninth to give the Royals a one run lead. Martin came out to appeal that a foreign substance (pine tar) was too high up on the bat. A substance may not be applied to the bat higher than 18 inches from the knob end of the bat. Martin went to Home Plate Umpire Tim McClelland
and protested. McClelland and his crew (the late Nick Bremigan, Joe Brinkman and I do not recall the fourth man) viewed the bat and measured against the 17 inch width of home plate and determined that the bat was altered by definition. The penalty was batter called out, ejected from game and facing a 10 game suspension from the league office. The Royals protested and AL president Bobby Brown upheld the protest with the Royals, by saying the spirit of the rule was not violated and ordered the game completed on KC's next trip to NY.

The next year the rule was changed to allow a difference between an altered bat (corked, shaved barrel, etc.) and an illegal bat (substance too high on barrel) for an illegal nat to simply be removed from the game.

I loved reviewing that game in Umpire school.

Answer 2

You're describing the pine tar game.

At the time, the rulebook had a limit on how far up on the handle a bat could have pine tar. Brett's bat exceeded that limit, and not by just a bit.

The rulebook also set the penalty for that at the play in which it was used being disallowed. Brett was ejected for the game for his reaction to that call.

The Royals appealed the game at that point. This was the last time that any such appeal was upheld. The next time the Royals were in NY that year, the game was picked up from that HR, and played to it's conclusion. The Royals ended up winning that game.

The following winter, the rule was amended so that any question about a bat would have the bat itself removed from the game. It also insists now that an appeal be made before the bat is used.

Answer 3

There is a major league rule about how far up a bat pine tar can be present. By the letter of the rule book George Brett's bat had pine tar too far up the handle so he was called out. In reality this was a gutless and cheesey move by Billy Martin but the umpires had to call him out by rule. Poor George got so upset he gave himself hemmhorroids and had to miss many games. Seriously he did get hemmhorroids but probably not from this. Billy Martin doing this is like a cop giving a guy driving his pregnant and in labor wife to the hospital a speeding ticket for driving 39mph in a 35mph zone. PRETTY WEENEY!

Answer 4

MLB rules state that pine tar can't be beyond 20 inches from the bottom of the bat, and when they measured it on Brett's bat it was at something like 22'1/2 inches. What follows is the same thing as a corked bat-not only was Brett called out, he was imediately ejected.

The thing that makes it really stupid is that you could have checked almost any bat used that year (or any other) and found the same thing.

Answer 5

the pine tar was too high up the barrel of the bat

Answer 6

pine tar

Answer 7

B/C HE HAD PINE TAR IN HIS BAT

Answer 8

I can't do it any more justice than Wikipedia already does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tar_Incident

Box: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1983/B07240NYA1983.htm

Answer 9

what is a riged bat!
duh!

Answer 10

pinetar.