Reading, Writing & Rhubarb

Like kindergarten teachers explaining recess rules to a new class, big-league umpires take time out during spring training to explain baseball's official code of conduct to the players. Like kindergarten teachers, they know better than to mistake attention for agreement. Last week, with barely a dozen games played in the 1957 season, the players were having such a good time breaking rules that baseball's rulemakers were busy rewriting the book.

Hoak's Hoakum. Cincinnati's Don Hoak was first to set the rule writers working. Leading off second in a game with the Milwaukee Braves, Base Runner Hoak started for third when Cincinnati's Wally Post laced a grounder to short. Redleg Gus Bell, who had been holding first, took off for second. With his sharp infielder's eye, Hoak recognized the setup for an almost certain double play. With his sure infielder's hands he fielded the ball, tossed it to the Braves' astonished shortstop, Johnny Logan. "Hit" by a batted ball, Hoak was automatically out, but there was no double play; the other runners were safe.*

Don Hoak's blatant assault on the rules was too much. From now on, said National League President Warren Giles, if an umpire thinks that a runner has deliberately interfered with a batted ball in order to break up a double play, both the runner and the man behind him on the base paths will be called out.

While the authorities were busy hopping on Hoak, the Braves and Redlegs were chewing up another old rhubarb: Does Milwaukee Pitcher Lew Burdette throw a spitball? Even Burdette does not deny that he wets his fingers while he fidgets on the mound. But when Cincinnati's Manager Birdie Tebbetts accused him of serving up a spitball, Burdette put on a look of innocence. A spitter? Not he. He always dried his fingers before he pitched, said Burdette.

Stubbornly skeptical, old Catcher Tebbetts protested so loudly that League President Giles went back to the rule book once more. The good book, Giles discovered, prohibits a pitcher from spitting on his glove or on the ball; it prevents him from rubbing the ball on his clothing or defacing it in any way. But there is no edict against spitting on the fingers and then drying them off. Pontificated Giles: "Burdette was using smart psychology." He kept right on using it against the Redlegs last week while he beat them, 5 to 4, for the ninth straight time. Whenever he was in trouble he went to his mouth, careless of a Cincinnati slow-motion movie camera that was recording every pitch.

Count to 20. Giles's ruling passed the buck to the umpires, who are used to such chores. On top of everything else this season, they have had to start acting like stop watches. Anxious to speed up the game, the rule writers had a winter meeting and decreed that whenever the bases are empty a pitcher must pitch within 20 seconds after receiving the ball. What is more, a batter may not leave the batter's box after the pitcher is ready to throw.

The rhubarbs that these rules can cause are beginning to ripen. Batters and managers have sounded off bitterly; the big rush, says Chicago White Sox Manager Al Lopez, gives pitchers a dangerous opportunity for quick pitches that will catch batters unaware. Says Lopez: "Someone's going to get killed if they enforce the stepping-out-of-the-box rule."

*Hoak's trick recalls a story told about Hack Wilson, who walked toward the plate for his turn at bat, saw a throw from the previous play coming in from the outfield to cut off a runner at home, and hit it out of the park. Explained Hack (then a rookie being relentlessly curve-balled by pitchers): "It was the first straight ball I've seen since I've been in the major leagues."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.