The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

One of the themes in The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball is that the greats who really study and know how to take advantage of the rules contribute to the game’s advancement. Today, I wanted to bring up Paul Richards. Richards loved finding ways that he could gain an advantage. I love this quote from his Hall of Fame Veterans Committee profile, from baseball historian Warren Corbett:

“He pushed the envelope,” Corbett said. “He was always looking for an edge. He would skate up to edge of rule. Sometimes he would skate over the rule.”

He encouraged his players to get hit by a batted ball if it would break up a double play, for instance, which resulted in a rule change. But that’s not what I wanted to write up.

In the rules, there’s an interesting aside in Rule 3.03, which covers defensive switches.

Rule 3.03 Comment: A pitcher may change to another position only once during the same inning; e.g. the pitcher will not be allowed to assume a position other than a pitcher more than once in the same inning. Any player other than a pitcher substituted for an injured player shall be allowed five warm-up throws. (See Rule 8.03 for pitchers.)

8.03, if you’re curious, covers how many warm-up pitches they can take.

This is in order to prevent a team from (say) having a right-handed pitcher and a left-handed pitcher in the game at once, hiding one in left field while the other pitched and swapping them back and forth so that right-handed hitters only faced righties, left-handed hitters only faced lefties, and switch hitters would presumably get whoever the manager liked more in that situation.

You will occasionally see a pitcher head to the outfield for a batter and then resume pitching, but that’s it: at that point they’re forbidden from moving him again.

I mention this because Keith Scherer pointed me to this as at least party the result of the antics of Paul Richards, who was notorious for using bait-and-switch lineups and stuff like this. Richards is generally noted as the inventor of the oversized catcher’s mitt used when they draw the short straw and have to catch a knuckleballer.

Unfortunately Retrosheet doesn’t have a box score for these.

June 25, 1953, he brought Harry Dorish in, moved pitcher Billy Pierce to first (!) for two batters. On May 15, 1957, there’s another Dorish/Pierce move. Richards took the unusual move of putting pitcher Harry Dorish at third so that Billy Pierce could face Ted Williams. As much as the Williams shift (where teams put as many fielders as they dared on the right side of second) made it seem tempting for Williams to pull the ball to the left, with a pitcher at third it’s almost comical. Williams popped up and Dorish returned to pitch.

September 11th, 1958 — well, here’s the Baseball Library write-up:

Orioles manager Paul Richards lists three pitchers in his starting line-up, hoping for a scoring chance in the first inning, at which point he can remove the extra pitchers for a batter of his choice. Billy O’Dell, batting 9th at P; Jack Harshman in CF, batting 5th; Milt Pappas at 2B, batting 7th. Only O’Dell bats as he goes to 14–11, losing to KC’s Ned Garver, 7–1. The A’s plate five in the 8th, paced by Bob Cerv’s 33rd home run.

That, along with Earl Weaver’s use of phantom DHs, helped create the rules around declared lineup restrictions and substitutions.

And, obligatory plug, if you enjoy finding out why the rules are this way, you’ll like the book.

In the first rule changes since 1996! Glory be!

There are large changes to scoring rules, including how plays are defined.

Ball doctoring:
- implemented a rule that a position player who scuffs or defaces a ball is ejected and receives an automatic 10-game suspension
- aaand, as the story puts it

The same Rule 3.02 now specifically prohibits placing “soil, rosin, paraffin, licorice, sandpaper, emery paper or other foreign substance” on the ball. The rule’s penalty phase dictates, “The umpire shall demand the ball and remove the offender from the game. In addition, the offender shall be suspended automatically for 10 games.”

This is particularly interesting. I see this as a reaction to the Kenny Rogers World Series incident, where Rogers appeared to have something on his hand during the first inning.

Moreover, though, I wonder if there’s a perception within baseball that there’s a lot more of this going on than we know out in the general public. Baseball hasn’t changed the rules that attempt to prevent ball doctoring in ages. Why now? While position players have traditionally been accomplices in scuffing or doctoring, was there some reason that the rules committee needed to make a change? Doctoring on the whole is way down from its heyday — there isn’t any pitcher operating today for whom an illegal pitch is a primary part of their arsenal.

There are some “pace” rules, which will almost certainly be ignored
- the totally unenforced “time to deliver a pitch” when no one’s on base is now only 12 seconds. Penalty is a called ball.
- batters are supposed to keep at least one foot in the box the whole at bat, with certain exceptions

Baseball’s tried this before, and it doesn’t work. Umpires don’t want to time the game with a stopwatch, and they don’t want to affect the game outcome over things like this. How many times did Steve Trachsel ever get a ball called for violating the 20-second rule?

What else…
- the suspension rules have changed to almost entirely eliminate ties
- on a dropped third strike, if the batter leaves the dirt area around home plate, they’re out – the catcher doesn’t have to chase them,
- players can’t run into the dugout to catch a foul
- the rules around suspended games changes, so there almost can’t be a tie anymore.

I’m disappointed by the changes. Baseball cracked the rules open to fix some things and didn’t change, for instance, the horrible rules around rainouts. That whole section’s going to ruin a post-season game or a pennant race eventually, and baseball’s ignoring it until they’re forced to confront the situation.

It’s weird that baseball announced this with a tiny story late on Friday, attempting to avoid the news cycle (this is why politicians release all their unflattering news on Fridays – by Monday it’s stale and the press doesn’t cover it). These are substantial changes, especially to the way things like sacrifice bunts are scored, and deserve notice and discussion.