I used to have a baseball rules quiz book, and I seem to remember that in case of a monumental SNAFU regarding rules interpretation, the umpires can decide on some sort of compromise that is at least partly acceptable to both teams.
I don’t know what they could have done differently in the 1980 NLCS example, though. Perhaps they could have ruled the play a legal catch, allowed Rose score (as if it had been a sacrifice fly), and told Schmidt to return to first. This way the Phillies would have at least gotten their run and still have another batter come up to bat, and the Astros at least would have had recorded one out on the play.
If it’s a legal catch Schmidt is out. It’s a principle of baseball that the player is responsible for their actions. “But the umpire fooled me” would be a complaint you’d have so often if it wasn’t.
Ruling the catch a trap at first was a huge screwup here but there’s not a lot you can do. It’s not a RULES error; the rules were correctly interpreted and applied. An error in applying a rule would be a very different thing, and could result in an appeal. (Back then. Now that isn’t a process.)
It’s already been noted in the sports trivia thread, but Joshua Baez of the Cardinals had a decent MLB debut.
In the first inning, on the first pitch he saw, Baez hit a 2-run homer to extend the Cardinals lead to 3-0. He became the 145th player to hit a home run in his first MLB plate appearance. If I counted correctly, he was the 33rd player to hit a home run on the first pitch he saw.
After the Cubs tied it at 3, Baez led off the top of the 4th with a home run. He became the 3rd person to hit a home run in each of his first two at-bats.
Then in the 6th, after a leadoff walk, Baez hit a 2-run dinger to extend the lead to 6-3. He became the only player in MLB history to hit home runs in his first 3 plate appearances.
Alas, in the top of the 8th, Baez lined out to left field. The Cards won the game 8-4.
His current stats are a batting average of .750, an on-base percentage of .750, and a slugging percentage of 3.000.
All three homers were hit off the same pitcher, Matthew Boyd. That name and homers rang a bell: Boyd gave up two home runs to Jarren Duran in consecutive PAs in the USA vs. Mexico WBC game.
I want to rant briefly about how there’s too many goddamned strikeouts.
Matt Boyd, the guy noted above, has been puttering around MLB since 2015. He’s okay. He’s had some decent years, some bad ones. His career ERA+ is 96.
Matt Boyd, who no one thinks of as Mr. Intimidating, for his CAREER has struck out 8.5 men per nine innings. That is higher than Tom Seaver. It’s higher than Bob Gibson. It’s higher than Steve Carlton.
He once had a year when he got 11.6 men per nine innings. Do you know how many times NOLAN RYAN had a season where he struck out 11.6 men per nine innings? Zero. He never once quite managed to do that. Neither did Sandy Koufax, a man they called “The Left Arm Of God.” It took 100 years before any National League or American League pitcher who qualified for the ERA title did that, and it took Randy Johnson to do it. MATT BOYD then later did it. The immortal pitching legend.
I like a lot of the changes they’d made recently. I like the changes to encourage more basestealing and I love the effect the pitch clock has had. But fuck, man, I am tired of strikeouts, and I don’t know what they can do about it.
Just a week after the Yankees released a “goodbye” letter to fans from former pitcher Tommy John, they announced today that John passed away at home in Florida yesterday, at age 83.
My favorite bit of TJ trivia (from the ESPN article): He was the Opening Day starter for the 1966 White Sox and the 1989 Yankees. Sure, the '89 Yanks didn’t have much of a rotation, but that’s still pretty incredible.
I was going to rant about the Yankees offense, but they actually managed to win an extra-inning game today (3-9 in OT this season.) The pitching has been outstanding but putting runs across the plate has become damn near impossible. In their last 25 games, NY has scored 2 or fewer runs in 12 of them. Unwatchable.
I know Judge, Bellinger and Stanton are out, but there are other MLB players on the roster. Rice and Goldschmidt turned into second-half pumpkins, Jazz Chisholm jr. is busy swinging from his heels and shaving tens of millions off his upcoming free agent contract, McMahon and Wells are clearly confused by the wooden sticks and their intended purpose. Deadline additions Garcia Jr. and Ramos have been duds, and the rest are rookies and journeyman. Bleh, just putrid offensively. I think the worst in MLB since Judge went down.
August 2006. It kicked off with a double-header on the18th. Wow, I can’t believe that was 20 years ago. Cory Lidle won the fifth game and then two months later crashed his plane into a Manhattan apartment building.
Pete Crow-Armstrong accomplished a rare feat in Monday’s game against the White Sox.
In the bottom of the first inning, he homered on the first pitch he saw. He also homered on the first pitch he saw in his final at-bat, a walk-off in the 10th.
According to Google AI, this has only happened 5 other times in history (chronologically from most recent to oldest):
Seattle put a position player in to pitch the 8th. It was ugly. Also in the 8th, CF Julio Rodriguez caught a fly ball and tossed it into the stands… However, it was only the 2nd out. Oh and bases were loaded. 2 more runs scored. It was a miserable showing for the M’s.
And the Brewers put a catcher in to close the game, and the M’s still couldn’t score a run.
The “bullpen pitcher” for the Mariners in the 8th was third baseman Leo Rivas. (Not that the actual pitchers did a whole lot better tonight. )
Also, the Brewers tied the modern-era MLB record for most runs scored while shutting out the other team. Their 22 runs tied a franchise record for run scored in a game, while giving up 22 runs also tied a single-game franchise record for the Mariners.
Also in the 8th, CF Julio Rodriguez caught a fly ball and tossed it into the stands… However, it was only the 2nd out. Oh and bases were loaded. 2 more runs scored. It was a miserable showing for the M’s. 
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