Several things led me to re-posting this Ethics Alarms entry from 2017.

First of all, the MLB network showed a documentary on the career of George Brett today, and scene above, with Brett erupting in fury at the umpire’s call voiding his clutch, 9th inning home run, is one of the classic recorded moments in baseball history. There was also a recent baseball ethics event that had reminded me of Brett’s meltdown: Yankees manager Aaron Boone was thrown out of a game because a fan behind the Yankees dugout yelled an insult at the home plate umpire, and the umpire ejected Boone thinking the comments came from him.. When Boone vigorously protested that he hadn’t said anything and that it was the fan,Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt said, “I don’t care who said it. You’re gone!”

Wait, what? How can he not care if he’s punishing the wrong guy?

“What do you mean you don’t care?” Boone screamed rushing onto the field a la Brett. “I did not say a word. It was up above our dugout. Bullshit! Bullshit! I didn’t say anything. I did not say anything, Hunter. I did not say a fucking thing!” This erudite exchange was picked up by the field mics.

There was another baseball ethics development this week as well, one involving baseball lore and another controversial home run. On June 9, 1946, Ted Williams hit a ball that traveled a reported 502 feet, the longest he ever hit, and one of the longest anyone has hit. The seat was was painted red in 1984 (I’ve sat in it!), and many players have opined over the years that the story and the seat are hogwash, a lie. This report, assembling new data about the controversy, arrives at an amazing conclusion: the home run probably traveled farther than 502 feet.

But I digress. Here, lightly edited and updated, is the ethics analysis of the famous pine tar game and its aftermath:

***

 I have come to believe that the lesson learned from  the pine tar incident is increasingly the wrong one, and the consequences of this extend well beyond baseball.

On July 24, 1983, the Kansas City Royals were battling the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. With  two outs and a runner on first in the top of the ninth inning,  Royals third baseman George Brett hit a two-run home run off  Yankee closer  Goose Gossage to give his team a 5-4 lead.  Yankee manager Billy Martin, however, had been waiting like a spider for this moment.

Long ago, he had noticed that perennial batting champ Brett used a bat that had pine tar (used to allow a batter to grip the bat better) on the handle beyond what the rules allowed. MLB Rule 1.10(c) states: “The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from the 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.” At the time, such a hit was defined in the rules as an illegally batted ball, and the penalty for hitting “an illegally batted ball” was that the batter was to be declared out, under the explicit terms of the then-existing provisions of Rule 6.06.

That made Brett’s bat illegal, and any hit made using the bat an out. But Billy Martin, being diabolical as well as a ruthless competitor, didn’t want the bat to cause just any out. He had waited for a hit that would make the difference between victory or defeat for his team, and finally, at long last, this was it. Martin came out of the dugout carrying a rule book, and arguing that the home run shouldn’t count.  After examining the rules and the bat, home-plate umpire Tim McLelland ruled that Brett used indeed used excessive pine tar and called him out, overturning the home run and ending the game.

Brett’s resulting charge from the dugout (above) is video for the ages.

The Royals appealed the play and the game. Then American League President Larry MacPhail ruled that contrary to what the rules said, the home run should count. The game was restarted nearly a month later, on Aug. 18, with the Royals now leading 5-4. KC Closer Dan Quisenberry retired the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth to save the win for Kansas City, but not before Martin tried a few more tricks. He called for an appeal at first, second and third, claiming that Brett hadn’t tagged each base. When the umpires rejected those claims, Billy protested that they didn’t have grounds to make a ruling, since none of the umpires had been officiating on July 24. But someone in the AL President’s office had anticipated Billy’s tactic. The umpires had a signed affidavit from the other umpires from the game ready to settle the issue.

In explaining his decision to reverse a decision that was clearly the right one according to the rules, MacPhail argued that the “spirit of the restriction” on pine tar on bats was based not on the bat providing an unfair advantage to its user, but financial prudence; any ball coming in contact with the pine tar would be discolored, and require that it be discarded and replaced, thus increasing the home team’s ball budget. MacPhail ruled that Brett had not violated the spirit of the rules nor deliberately “altered [the bat] to improve the distance factor.”

This made no sense, and was obviously, in the words of Aaron Boone, “bullshit.” Teams encourage players to throw balls into the stands. They spend gazillions of dollars, often foolishly. The discoloration of a ball now and then warranted this draconian pine tar rule? If so, then MacPhail was making a lame “it’s a stupid rule” argument, the equivalent of jury nullification, which will get a judge, which was his role here, kicked off the bench. Nor can an executive, which he also was,  ignore rules that he didn’t put in place. It would be as if, say, just to pick a crazy hypothetical, a President decided that enforcing our immigration laws and sending illegals back where they came from mean,  just ignored it.

To be fair, there was a  precedent for MacPhail’s ruling. In a 1975  game played between the Royals and the California Angels, KC’s John Mayberry hit a homer with an overly-tarred bat.  In that one, the umpire crew declined to enforce the rule and void the run. MacPhail also heard this protest, and upheld the umpires’ decision. That one was wrong too. The bat was an illegal one in both cases. The rules said, unequivocally, what the result should be when an illegal bat was used. An out. There was no ambiguity. If the spirit of the rule was to stop batters from using too much pine tar, declaring such bats illegal was entirely in the spirit of the rule. MacPhail was attempting to temper the harshness of a law with ethics, which is itself unethical because it undermines the integrity of any system of laws and rules.  (Who did he think he was, Justice Sotomayor? Wait, she was just in college then…)

The “spirit of the rules”  dodge can be used, and is, to allow  genuine law breakers to escape accountability because “those laws weren’t meant for people like you.” All the “it’s not in the spirit of the rule (or law) to enforce it means  is “enforcing the rule (or law) will make too many people angry.” This may also have been the reason James Comey decided to let Hillary Clinton off the hook. Surely the laws against mishandling classified information weren’t intended to affect Presidential elections; it would violate the spirit of the law. [NOTE: I wrote that in 2017, remember.)

Because George Brett, whom most fans and writers admired and loved, would be the victim of enforcement, Billy Martin, whom most baseball fans detested (with good reason) was robbed of his just reward for paying attention and knowing how to use baseball’s rules to his advantage.

Let’s all think of other laws and rules, and how “the spirit” dodge can be used to let violators escape accountability from violating them at the whim of the authorities, or allow the government to avoid a result it won’t like because that result “isn’t in the spirit of the law.