Has this ever occurred in the NBA or MLB? Can’t imagine it in baseball. Even the backup pitchers can take the field if they need to.
I believe that if you cannot field 9 players (or 5 in basketball, etc…) you must forfeit. Looking for a cite.
Thanks for all the examples, by the way.
No, you forfeit - because you must have a complete lineup.
In ice hockey, when a young enforcer is trying to make a name for himself it is considered proper for the opposing team’s veteran enforcer to give him a chance to fight (and earn some enforcer creds).
I just found something interesting in a Google search. In the NBA, you must have five players. (Rule 3, Sec 1A). If you are down to five players and one fouls out, he actually stays on the court and plays. For every additional foul that he commits, the opposing team gets a technical foul shot in addition to the regular foul shots (if any) that they would have gotten. It actually happened in January in a game between the Bucks and the Warriors.
I always kind of like the fact that in football (NFL and CFL), it is not unusual for a player on one team to help a player on the other team up. It doesn’t happen on every play, but it does happen occasionally.
I remember reading about a coach whose team was facing O.J. Simpson, back when he was the NFL’s top running back. In watching the game films, he noticed that Simpson stayed on the ground for as long as he could at the end of each carry; he (the coach) reasoned that Simpson was taking the chance to catch his breath. So, he told his defensive players to make certain to help Simpson up to his feet immediately at the end of every play. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference, as Simpson still had a great game, but the coach indicated that it made his players look like gentlemen. 
I don’t think it’s happened in the NBA, but I vaguely remember a story about a college basketball team that had to play 4 on 5 for the better part of a half. And won. (I think the story was that they could only suit about 7 players for the game for some reason, and then 3 of them fouled out).
Look about four posts up.
In Soccer/Football a team will kick the ball out of play so an injured player, regardless of team, can be treated. Unfortunately this courtesy is abused by players faking and/or exagerrating injuries.
In baseball if it looks like multiple runs will score the first runner will grab the discarded bat so no one is injured.
And then, on the ensuing throw-in, the ball will be immediately played back to the team which kicked it out originally.
In baseball if the pitcher is the next to last out, or somehow winds up on base or scoring in a play that results in two outs, the next batter will usually purposely extend his at bat by taking pitches, stepping out, fouling off pitches, in order to allow the pitcher to get his shit together.
Also in baseball, the batter after a great base stealer will usally take a pitch or two (or three if it’s 1 ball 1 strike) in order to give him a free shot at 2nd base. Inversely, if a good base stealer is on first with a left handed pull hitter up, he will usually stay at first to give the hitter a few pitches to pull one through the hole on the infield.
In the Tour de France the entire pack will slow down and wait if the leader has a mechanical problem. There are all sorts of things like that, where groups will work together to help riders who are technically opponents. You’ll also see a case when a rider is killed (which still happens from time to time) and his team will be allowed to win the next stage in his honor.
For this reason, it is now accepted at the professional level (and this is quickly trickling down to the amateur level as well) that this is no longer normal practice. It is a great shame, but football was never the most sportsmanlike game anyway. Teams at all levels will still kick the ball out when it is obvious the injury to the opposing player is genuine.
The most interesting case was probably in the Premier League a few years ago when a goalkeeper ran well out of his area to clear the ball, failed to put it in to touch, and got injured. The ball was crossed back in to the penalty area by the attacking side, whereupon an attacker (Paolo di Canio, the maverick Italian then at West Ham who achieved notoriety by pushing a referee off his feet having been sent off when playing for Sheffield Wednesday) sportingly caught the ball with the goal at his mercy.
In 1999 Arsenal beat Sheffield United in an FA Cup tie (single elimination competition) where Arsenal scored the winning goal when one of their players failed to return the ball to Sheffield after they had kicked it out to allow a player to be treated. The Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, offered to replay the match. This was done, and Arsenal won that one too.
Hmmm, interesting. I wonder if that could be abused, given that most teams would gladly give up an extra point per foul if it meant they could keep their star from fouling out (oh, wait, NBA. I guess it’s academic since stars don’t foul out in the Stern NBA, so let’s consider a hypothetical league that adopts this rule). I suppose if a game is near the end, and everybody including the bench is about to foul out, you could sit your star and have you scrubs intentionall foul out or “injure” themselves so the last five players available include the star.
Probably not abuseable enough to make it a bad rule, overall.
In baseball, some umpires will let the pitching coach or manger and/or players visit the mound before a pitching change and let them take their time (the longer the visit, the more the relief pitchers get to warm up in the bull pen). This ‘visit to the mound’ can be shortened by the umpire, or it can be permitted to linger by the umpire. Depends on the umpire and the game situation.
Some umpires will show mercy for a team that has had to switch pitchers often or, if they are really astute, for a tired/worn bull pen. For example, if a team is finishing a series in which they’ve overused their relief pitchers, I’d expect that most umpires would allow longer visits to the mound. This is pure courtesy. Umpires are know to shorten mound visits and crack down on any dragging out tactics, but they do extend a courtesy now and then.
Ah yes, I’d forgotten that one. I wonder if Wenger would do the same thing today, what with fixture congestion/pressure to win (though I’m not sure either of those factors has changed appreciably in 11 years)?
I also remember Robbie Fowler being awarded a penalty (I think it was when he was playing for Liverpool, against Arsenal) when he had not in fact been fouled. He actually tried to convince the referee that a mistake had been made in his favour, but the referee would not change his decision. I’m pretty sure he then went ahead and scored the penalty, though - I guess the possible repercussions from the fans, his manager, and the FA would have been too great had he deliberately missed.
On the other side of the coin, there’s an old, possibly apocryphal story about Jim Thorpe. Thorpe was an incredible athlete, but as a football coach in later years, he’d gained weight and was out of condition (in relative terms.)
This was when football was a bit less regimented, and everyone played both offense and defense, among other things. A giant opposing lineman crushed Thorpe’s running back early in the game, injuring him out of the game. On a subsequent play, the same player came in and hit the backup running back, inuring him too.
So Thorpe put himself in the game at running back. He called a running play. The bruiser came in and hit him, hard. But Thorpe was tough. He called the same play again. As the younger, faster, bigger man closed in to finish off the legend, Thorpe politely flipped him the ball – technically a fumble.
But you’re allowed to tackle players who recover a fumble. Thorpe hit his man.
While the bruiser was being packed off to the hospital, Thorpe simply said, “Shouldn’t have hit Ol’ Jim.”