April 26, 1964

Houston Colt 45’s (5-6)

At

St. Louis Cardinals (6-5)

“Did you ever hear of a ballplayer asking an umpire if a runner tagged up?” – 3B Umpire Mel Steiner

The game 12 lineup:

1. Curt Flood CF
2. Dick Groat SS
3. Johnny Lewis RF
4. Ken Boyer 3B
5. Tim McCarver C
6. Bill White 1B
7. Charlie James LF
8. Julian Javier 2B
9. Curt Simmons P

I want you to think about that quote for a moment. Have I ever been playing and asked an umpire if a runner tagged up? For sure. You? Wouldn’t you think that was a common question to ask an umpire? We’re looking at 1964 well into the future. There are lots of things different about the world back then. I’m not going to rule out that asking umpires relatively simple questions was one of them – and I don’t play in the Majors. Maybe they still don’t? I have no idea. But, well, it doesn’t sound GHASTLY to me, at the very least.

The game didn’t start off well. In the top of the 1st, with a runner on, and Jim Wynn up, Curt Simmons threw him an outside fastball. The logic was simple – the wind was blowing in from right field, so pitch him that way!

It didn’t work. Wynn took the outside fastball and hit it onto the right field pavilion. Simmons famously through his fastball about 12 miles per hour, and Wynn would become a borderline Hall of Famer, who once hit 37 homers in a year in spite of playing in Houston – so it’s probably not all that surprising to you. But in this case, Wynn was a 22-year-old without much success in his career, and Simmons found himself “shocked.”

The Cardinals tied the game in the most Cardinaly way possible. In the 2nd inning, Ken Boyer grounded out to score Dick Groat from 3rd. In the 4th inning Bill White scored on a Julian Javier double play.

They took the lead on a Bill White homer in the bottom of the 6th.

3-2 Cardinals. Just to be clear, not one word was written about any of the Cardinals runs. Even though this game filled multiple columns the next day. It quickly became a weird one.

With two outs in the top of the 7th, facing Jerry Grote, Simmons decided to go outside again, and Grote knocked it for a single.

Damnit, this strategy is going to work one of these days!

So Simmons went outside on Eddie Kasko, who promptly hit it for a single. Only this single got by Johnny Lewis in RF – not for the 1st time – and wound up getting Kaso to 3rd, tying the game 3-3.

Simmons went then with an accidental high changeup to Bob Lillis, who hit a single of his own to center.

Houston up 4-3.

And it’s too bad, because had they shut down Houston that inning, we might still have heard of this game today. Because that’s when it got weird.

In the top of the 8th, Harry Fanok took the mound, in the penultimate game of his career.

He started off the inning walking Walt Bond. Bond went to 2nd on a sac bunt by Mike White. The Cardinals tried to get Bond at 2nd, and failed. And thus there were 2 on and no outs.

Jim Wynn couldn’t play hero again, he struck out. But Bob Aspromonte singled in a run, and Jim Beauchamp walked to load the bases.

OK, let’s pause here. Let’s make sure you know what’s going on.

The Astros are leading 5-3. They have the bases loaded, and one out. Got it? Bases loaded, and one out.

Fanok’s day was done, the Cardinals called on Ray Sadecki, with Rusty Staub at the plate.

Staub hit a sinking liner to Right Fielder Johnny Lewis. Everyone thought Lewis trapped the ball, but the umpire called it a catch. 2 outs. The runners on 2nd and 3rd took off. Lewis threw home too late, the run had scored.

But notice I said they took off. I did not say they tagged up.

The Cardinals didn’t know. Did the runners tag up? Or did they take off without tagging up because they assumed the ball was trapped?

Someone – presumably Ken Boyer or Tim McCarver, asked 3B umpire Mel Steiner if the runner tagged up. He said that he did.

Dick Groat in the meantime, yelled for the ball at 2nd, because he knew his runner hadn’t tagged up. McCarver threw the ball to 2nd, they appealed to the umpire. Out 3.

The Cardinals thought this meant that the run didn’t count from 3rd. Afterall, everyone has to tag up, and one player didn’t. They forced him at 2nd. So 3 outs.

But of course, MLB has the super stupid 4th out rule, wherein if it’s not a force play – here meaning another runner is forcing you to said base, you have to appeal to get them out. So the Cardinals were shocked to find that even though there were 3 outs in the inning – and even though they got the last two on a double play with a force out throw – the Astros got to keep their run.

The Cardinals…disagreed.

Study this photo. There will be a quiz later. Because it got weirder.

The Cardinals argued the call, and were told, essentially, that they appealed to the wrong base. Had they appealed to 3rd base, they could have called that runner out, and the run would not have scored.

BUT THE CARDINALS ALREADY ASKED IF THE RUNNER TAGGED UP, AND THE UMPIRE SAID YES.

That led to the strange quote that started this whole thing.

Explaining why he said yes, Umpire Mel Steiner said, “Before an appeal is made, we have to assume that the runner tagged up legally.”

Wut?

OK, again, I’m not an umpire. The run counts even though he didn’t tag up. Got it. But they have to assume? Why? What if instead the runner had been running back to 3rd, and the Cardinals threw the ball to 3rd, and the fielder caught it before he made it. We see this on line drive double plays all the time. They don’t tag the runner, the runner is still called out. If you had to ASSUME the runner tagged up, then it would require a tag play to get him out. After all, you can only decide to report what you saw when there was an actual appeal.

The Cardinals didn’t appeal to 3rd – because the umpire said he tagged up. And then the umpire was baffled that the Cardinals…believed him? Baffled that they asked in the first place?

It’s 60 years later and I’m baffled.

The Cardinals played the game under appeal – that appeal not being the stupid 4th out rule – but that the umpire had mislead them. And he did!

Keane wondered why he bothered to give an answer at all? Why say yes? Why not either 1) say the truth, or 2) Not actually answer? Wouldn’t not giving an answer be the proper course of action?

“If so, that would have tipped the whole thing, and we would have appealed,” said Keane, “instead, we were knocked cold by his answer.”

But to me this gets even weirder. See that picture? According to the rulebook – and I know rules change, so I’m actually saying according to the rule as printed in the paper 60 years ago – a team doesn’t lose their chance to appeal until the next pitch. If it’s at the end of the inning, then they lose their appear when the defensive team leaves the field.

Tim McCarver (and by the way, Tim McCarver, not knowing the rules to baseball, after Tim McCarver spent decades slowly lecturing all of us with his drawl on every strange rule you’ve ever heard of, is downright wonderful) is STILL WEARING his full catcher’s uniform. His mask is in his hand. He clearly isn’t close to leaving the field. That’s manager Johnny Keane running out of the dugout to argue. McCarver isn’t heading that direction, he’s standing there like someone whose been there quite a while. And while we’re at it, that’s Rusty Staub looking on, still wearing his batting helmet. Even HE hadn’t left the field.

So the game was played under protest. And while the Cardinals added a run in the 8th to make it 6-4, they couldn’t come close enough to make that rule matter. Ultimately, that was the final score, ump show or not.

But let me tell you – someday I’m going to get a genie bottle, and I’m going to become commissioner. And I’m going to change one rule a year. And, ok, I have a decade of changing back all of Manfred’s stupid rules. There will be no ZOMBIE RUNNERS IN EXTRA INNINGS OH MY SWEET LORD.

But eventually I’m going to get to the 4th out rule. And I’m going to say “this is stupid and intuitively wrong.” and I’m going to rule that forcing any runner on a tag up and getting the 3rd out nullifies the run. Because that would make sense in baseball with every other rule we know, and that’s why every-single-freaking-time this rule comes up, you see professional players, managers, and umpires all baffled. It’s stupid. How has someone not set themselves on fire to raise awareness to this cause? Come on people. Contribute to society.

As it stood, the Cardinals fell to 6-6, and found themselves in 6th place.

Naturally, the devil can be found in any game with a 4th out play.

Thinks would get better for the Cardinals soon. And then they would get a whole lot worse.