Someone at work, otherwise sane, is under the impression that a batter can be pinch-run for and then can re-enter the game at his own position. Obviously he is wrong; I am working on the exact rule.
Part of his delusion is that he swears that they used to do it for Babe Ruth in his older, fatter, slower years. Another person (who agrees with me on issue #1 that it can’t happen today) seems to recall seeing something similar. Anyone have any insight on this? My suspicion is that maybe it was allowed in the minors or some “show league” but I can’t imagine it in the Bigs.
From the Major League Baseball Office Rules 2000 Edition
Now logically since the term “courtesy runner” exists, this means that either someone tried to use one or it used to be in the rules somewhere. I don’t know the history there, so I will defer to someone else on that matter who knows more about baseball during Babe’s era.
The movie “The Babe” showed Babe Ruth having a courtesy runner in his final year with the Boston Braves. This set up the phony dramatics of Babe waving off the courtesy runner to run the bases himself for his last home run. Given the many factual errors in the film, I’d say that they’re probably wrong about this, too.
I don’t believe it was ever a formal rule, but rather a common practice in the ‘olden days’ which the umpires would allow when both teams agreed. The ‘official’ justification was to prevent a delay of the game when a runner was slightly injured on a play. Rather than hold up the game while he stretched, had ice applied, or whatever (when his team absolutely did not want to pull him from the game) they would ask the other team to let him be temporarily replaced by a ‘courtesy runner’. Since baserunning was considered to be a relatively minor part of the game (compared to hitting, pitching, and fielding), the other team would often acquiesce. With the implicit understanding, of course, that the other team would do the same for them when on the other side of the field … This practice finally got abused so badly that it was specifically outlawed, but I can’t remember exactly when.
But I’m sure it was still in use when Babe was playing.
The courtesy runner rule was dropped in 1950 IIRC. The last documented use of one was in 1948 also IIRC. I read an article in a SABR publication about them. Usually the courtesy runner was the guy who just made out before the guy who got on base, since he wouldn’t be affected by coming up to bat.
It means that there are more complete records from Cleveland games than from other teams. The Retrosheet people put together this info as they find it. It’s quite possible that the Retrosheet group just happened to uncover a trove of Cleveland scoresheets.