In The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball I have a chapter on “Delaying the Game for Fun and Profit” and today we got to see a real-life example. In Cleveland, conditions were terrible (see these pictures) and the game was first delayed 57 minutes because of the conditions. Then during the game, there were delays of 22 minutes, 17 minutes, and a whole hour and seventeen minutes.
Then, potentially one pitch away from an official game umpire Rick Reed called off the game at 8:41.
Here’s how this ties into the game: the Indians were ahead 4-0, but Paul Byrd had walked the bases loaded. Facing Jose Lopez, he was up 1-2 in the count. All he needed was the out.
Mariner manager Hargrove went out to complain about the conditions. From the Seattle Times blog “Hargrove said plate umpire Alfonso Marquez wasn’t listening to Jose Lopez when the latter complained he couldn’t see.” He argued with the umps as conditions got still worse, and the game was called. Never happened. He was down 4-0 and likely to lose the game, and now, he gets a fresh shot at it. The errors his players committed are wiped off the book.
Now, Hargrove couldn’t have known that arguing would work, but it’s also clear that in that situation, there’s no reason not to: an out and he loses. If he gets tossed and the game forfeited to the Indians, he loses. If he tries and it works, though, he’s saved the team a loss. I’m sure he seized on the slightest pretense to go out and make his argument, and made it as long as he could.
In the book, I argue that any rule short of always suspending will encourage this sort of thing. If there’s such a huge incentive for a team to stall and have a game called, of course they’re going to try it. If they’re just going to restart this game tomorrow, doesn’t it make more sense to start it from the point it was stopped?
There’s obviously a logistical problem - some suspended games are extremely hard to make up, and no solution for those cases is easy. No one wants to see a game that’s meaningful for one team played after game 162 in September, with the other side sending a squad of not-yets and never-beens from the minors, potentially changing a pennant race. But then, how is that significantly different than today, where the Indians might lose tomorrow a game they should have won today, if the end of the season makes that game meaningful in the AL Central standings? Given the quality of teams in that division, it’s entirely possible the finish could be that tight.
If the Indians lose the restart and that keeps them out of the playoffs, will anyone remember today, when Hargrove came out to complain and won his team a new start? Will it finally get us some rules reform on these rules?
Zu Long | 06-Apr-07 at 10:16 pm | Permalink
Perhaps another argument is that MLB should accept the delayed game when conditions are sub-standard, and unlikely to permit a full 9 innings. Looking at the weather report going into game-time, there was no way a full game could have been played.
Further, conditions were awful. The only runs scored in the game were on errors. Who’s to say those errors would have been made in the first place?
If you can’t reasonably expect 9 innings to be played, the game shouldn’t be played.
Finally, what if Mike Hargrove was right, and Jose Lopez really COULDN’T see the ball? The umpire could have been ignoring calling the game during the 5th in the hopes of getting a game on the books. If mother nature picked the 5th with 1 batter left to go as the time to make conditions impossible to play in, is it really fair to ask Hargrove and Mariners to suck it up and take the loss?
DMZ | 06-Apr-07 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
Sure. Players said that they couldn’t see the ball come off the bat because of the snow. There’s really no way that the game should have been played in those conditions at all - the problem being that the rules create such a huge incentive for the home team (and the umps) to get to the legal game threshold that even the safety of the players was threatened.
Zu Long | 06-Apr-07 at 10:29 pm | Permalink
I’m just presenting the other side of the argument- it might have been cheating, but it might not have been too. Suspending Hargove for protecting his players seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?
Zu Long | 06-Apr-07 at 10:32 pm | Permalink
Wait, you ment the game, not the manager. My mistake.
Zu Long | 06-Apr-07 at 11:34 pm | Permalink
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070406&content_id=1882874&vkey=news_cle&fext=.jsp&c_id=cle
Victor Martinez went out of the game with a hamstring injury in the third apparently. Man, Cleveland looked pretty good out of the gate. Martinez going down could cost them more than the make-up game.
Angela | 07-Apr-07 at 10:52 pm | Permalink
Yeah, Zu Long. I was hoping the game would go on the books because if Martinez had to get hurt, at least he could get hurt in a game that counted. :\
Steve | 08-Apr-07 at 11:01 am | Permalink
“Wait, you ment the game, not the manager. My mistake.”
Well, even if Hargrove was suspended for the rest of the game, that’s one pitch.
That last pitch was a way to watch both managers try to game the system, one to delay until the snow was so bad the game *had* to be called, the other to force a pitch and then (presumably) have the game ended thereafter.
tangotiger | 09-Apr-07 at 12:10 pm | Permalink
Dick Williams (I think it was him… maybe it was Tanner… it was an Expos manager) did the same darned thing, when they played the Blue Jays.
What’s that you said? The Expos never played the Jays in the 80s? You obviously haven’t heard of the Pearson Cup, where every year, the Expos and Jays would play during the regular season… an exhibition game!
And the rule for end of game was also time-dependent. The Expos manager simply stalled for time, until the game had to be called.
If a manager would stop at nothing to win a meaningless exhibition game, I don’t doubt what they’d do for real.
Of course, the game should just be suspended, not cancelled.
In the NHL Cup finals, between the Oilers and Bruins, it was 3-3 when the game was cancelled in the 3rd period because they lost power. Not suspended, but cancelled.
If only life were that easy…
Allen | 09-Apr-07 at 12:27 pm | Permalink
Ironic that Mike Hargrove was nicknamed ‘The Human Rain Delay’ as a player. From Wikipedia: “He also attained the nickname “The Human Rain Delay” for his deliberate routine at the plate before each at-bat and before each pitch. He drove pitchers crazy by stepping out of the batter’s box after each pitch and starting his routine, which consisted of (1) adjusting his helmet, (2) adjusting his batting glove, making sure it was tight on his hand and especially the thumb, (3) pulling each sleeve on his uniform up about an inch, and (4) wiping each hand on his uniform pants before finally settling in the box.”
In the 1980’s, the radio announcers for the Indians would often joke when the team was losing in the 4th or 5th innings (as was frequently the case for the Tribe in the 80’s) and there were thunderstorms in the forecast (as is often the case in Cleveland!). They’s say that if Hargrove were up to bat, with the time that each of his mannerisms took to complete before each pitch, that the game was guaranteed to be rained out, and thus the nickname.
Fleer honored Hargrove and his nickname in their 2006 ‘Greats of the Game’ card set: http://home.earthlink.net/~fugazzi69/hargrove.htm
DMZ | 09-Apr-07 at 12:29 pm | Permalink
I actually joke about Hargrove as a player in the book.