Everyone knows what happened. On July 24th, 1983, the Royals were facing the Yankees when in the top of the 9th, George Brett hit a home run only for Yankees’ manager Billy Martin to request that the umpire look at the bat because it had too much pine tar. The inspection was made, the HR was ruled an out, and Brett went ballistic. That’s really all I ever knew. While all that is true, that’s not even close to the whole story. Since the Phillies are headed to Kansas City this 4th of July weekend, let’s go over what happened.
Saturday, July 4 at 8:10p – Jesus Luzardo vs Michael Wacha (R)
Kauffman Stadium – Kansas City, MO
Sunday, July 5 at 3p – Aaron Nola vs Luinder Avila (R)
Monday, July 6 at 2:10p – Cristopher Sanchez vs Noah Cameron (L)
It’s the top of the 9th and the Royals are trailing 3-4 with two outs. UL Washington is at first, Dale Murphy is on the mound, and George Brett is at the plate. Brett is hitting .357 at the time with 19 HRs and a 1.139 OPS. He is very clearly one of, if not the, best hitters in baseball at the time. With the count 0-1, he rockets a pitch into right field and the Royals take a 5-4 lead. This is when Billy Martin came out to home plate and requests that the umpire look at the bat. The rule he is interested in is 1.10(c) which does not allow any substance on the bat beyond 18 inches from the knob. Well Brett’s bat was slathered with pine tar, very clearly more than 18 inches. The umpires took the bat, measured, and determined that Brett had broken the rule and called him out. Essentially, the Yankees won on a walk off HR by the other team.
We all remember Brett going nuts, but you never hear about what happened next. The Royals protested the game. These types of things were handled by the League Presidents at the time, in this case Lee MacPhail of the American League. After 4 days, he ruled that while Brett violated the letter of the law by having too much pine tar, he did not violate the spirit of the rule. Pine tar on the hitting surface doesn’t give any advantage to the batter. The rule is in place because pine tar is gross and the powers that be didn’t want it all over the place. They set an arbitrary limit based on the size of home plate.
The protest was sustained and the ballgame was to be resumed with the score now 5-4 Royals but with Brett still being ejected from the game. The only problem was that the Royals had left town. It wasn’t until August 18th that the game could be resumed. Billy Martin wasn’t having it. In a theatrics showing worthy of a high school play, Martin had his pitcher throw to both first and second base at the restart of the top of the 9th. When both were ruled safe indicating that both Washington and Brett had touched the bases post HR, Martin came out to protest. The umpire actually pulled out a sworn statement by all the umpires of the original game (they were different now too) claiming that everyone had touched their bases and the calls were confirmed. Outraged, now Martin was going to protest the outcome of the game!
Hal McRae was finally allowed to hit and struck out. The Yankees went down in order in the 9th. The Royals won the game. The Yankees protest was overruled.
The craziest part about this in retrospect is that I had never heard any of it. I knew Brett was a great hitter, but he was always tainted in my book because he cheated. I can’t be the only one out there to have labeled him this way based on one of the most famous and memorable tirades in MLB history. Turns out, not only was he not a cheater, but he was right, the HR counted, and the Royals won the game!!! Hopefully this sets the record straight for any Phillies fans who are going to see a clip of that game this weekend.
Philly Front Office 
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