As was mentioned in the Royals thread, today is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Pine Tar Game:

ESPN Story

Got talking around the water cooler here at work, and the question came up as to why the rule exists, and we were stumped. So, does anyone know what "advantage" a hitter gains from pine tar on the bat more than 18 inches from the bottom of the handle that you would make a rule to prevent such over tarring? Does it distract the pitcher, or improve pop off the bat by deadening vibrations - I truly have no idea, and hope someone here does....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/sports/b...&ei=5087%0A

I had heard something similar, but slightly different. It was to keep pine tar off the balls, but not because it could aid the pitcher's breaking stuff, but because it made the balls more difficult to see. This was back in the days when they used one ball for a whole game and keeping it clean was key to avoiding more Ray Chapmans.

This is the version I remembered for the origin of the rule:



http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_orig...ule_in_baseball

During one of the All star game events this was discussed.

At the time they said the pine tar rule was directly from one of the owners who was such a cheap SOB that he didn't want the players ruining the baseballs by getting pine tar on them, thus forcing teams to spend more on baseballs per game.

If that's the case, why is this rule still in effect? How long ago did they start using lots of balls for games? 50 years? 30? Brett have every reason to go bonkers!

The bigger question is: Why the hell is pine tar even used/allowed anymore?. The advances in modern batting gloves -- grip, fit, comfort, breathability, moisture wicking, weight -- have pretty much rendered that stuff obsolete.

Beyond grip pine tar preserves and seals the wood thus usually making a wood bad a bit more sturdy.

Probably for the same reason, umps still massage Delaware River mud into baseballs, and Slippery elm lozenges can still be found in some pitcher's lockers, Tradition.

Breaking out my best Zero Mostel . . . TRaaaditioooonnnn, Tradition!

Why would you need pine tar that far up the bat anyway?

Sure the rule is pointless, but so is having pine tar up that far.

Not so fast. Brett didn't wear gloves, and I believe he explained that he left a reservior of pine tar up above the handle of the bat and would grab some tar from there when he needed it.

I also am not convinced by that Wiki answer. As I recall there's a general rule about not doctoring the hitting end of a bat with tacks or whatever and forbidding pine tar beyond the 18" limit was just a portion of that general rule. Since pine tar didn't help the ball go further (unlike cork), that was the basis for MacPhail's overturning the umps.

For brs3, it wasn't very many years ago that a lot fewer balls were used in a game. Replacing every ball that the catcher fails to snag on the fly from the pitcher and handing out every foul to the fans are relatively recent innovations.


Addendum: the Pine Tar homer gets replayed a lot, but what doesn't get shown enough is Brett's upper-deck homer off Gossage in the 1980 ALCS. A 3-run total crush job by Brett that silenced the Stadium, and finally propelled the Royals into the World Series.

The Video:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...sp&c_id=mlb

There is at least a solid reason for the mud on the baseballs, to remove the "sheen" from new baseballs, preventing them from being so slippery when they are shipped from the factory to the teams to be put into games.

I can't explain the Slippery Elm lozenges though...

The wiki answer is indeed correct. The only reason the rule was implemented was to save money because pine tar puts a stain on baseballs that's extremely difficult to get out.

What many people don't know, and what I never knew until my Yankee fan boss told me last week (it's briefly mentioned in the ESPN article), is that the Yankees were victims of the rule 8 years earlier (7/19/75) when Thurman Munson got called out on an RBI single.

Gammons was on BBTN last night and they asked him about the rule. He said the cheap owner was Calvin Griffith.

The rule that was in effect at the time isn't in effect now. The current rule that applies, 1.10.c, reads:

c. The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from its end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18 inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.

NOTE: If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to c. above until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out, or ejected from the game.

I agree with Lose, the rule is pretty useless. If the penalty for violating the rule is only to remove the bat, it really doesn't penalize anyone.

Maybe it wasn't pine tar.

http://www.theunticket.com/george-brett-shits-himself-story/

(click the play button in the lower left of the video, not the one in the middle)

I disagree. The rule may have been stupid, but it was a rule. There is NO reason for a professional ball player not to know the intricacies of all the rules. Some may not make sense or may not be fair, but they are the rules. The time to complain about a rule is during the offseason when something can be done. You can't complain when a call is made against you and use the "but this rule is stupid" argument.

I vividly remember Miguel Tejada having a hissy fit because he did not know the difference between obstruction rule 7.06(a) and (b), in the 2003 ALDS (the Nixon walkoff HR game). Had he known the rule, the A's would have swept Boston.

Loosely paraphrasing Dr. Adair's observations (The Physics of Baseball, vol. 3) on bat corking, replacing the part of the barrel end of a bat with a lighter material reduces its swing weight and swing length, resulting in a small reduction in distance; replacing it with heavier material will slow the bat down, resulting in a small decrease in distance.

Plenty of guys use pine tar and batting gloves...I used to use Neumann gloves that had stickum impregnated in them, but I don't think there are any gloves now that are truly sticky when you buy them. For me, the gloves are more to help prevent blisters than for grip, although they do help with grip some. Using pine tar gives a quantum leap in grip over gloves alone.
I wonder if ML players can use the spray-on stickum stuff? Years ago, a guy borrowed a softball bat of mine during a game and hosed the grip down with stickum...in my next at bat, I literally almost carried the bat to first with me because it stuck to my gloves and was hard to drop. I had to replace the grip after the game.
(The guy who borrowed the bat was called "Bubba" and was about 250lbs of solid muscle, so I didn't complain about him trashing my bat... ...even funnier that a guy that size wanted to try my 26oz bat!)