Rather than hijack this thread, I’ll ask my question here.
When was the last time a team in a major professional sport (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, or MLS) forfeited a game? I’m specifically interested in whether or not it’s ever happened in a MLB game in the modern era (I’m sure that more than a few of those early MLB games in the 1870’s & 1880’s were forfeited for one reason or another; the game wasn’t as tightly controlled and organized then as it is today).
What prompted this question was a 15-inning Cubs vs. Braves game a few days ago. After the Cubs had used up all their bench and most of their bullpen, the announcers were speculating on whether or not the Cubs’ manager would bring in a starting pitcher. It would seem to me that it may be prudent to forfeit the game rather than risk overworking a valuable commodity like Kerry Wood. But then again, I’m not a MLB manager, and the Cubs won the game with a bullpen pitcher on the mound, so it was all moot.
DISCLAIMER: I mentiond MLB, MLS, NBA, NHL and NFL simply because I wanted to leave out minor-league and/or semi-pro incidents. If any non-US Dopers want to chime in with tales of what happened in professional sports on their shores, I won’t mind.
Well, The White Sox had to forfeit the second game of a double-header back in 1979 when an “anti-disco” promotional stunt between games led to near-riot conditions and the almost total trashing of the field. Does that count?
In 1909 South Sydney and Balmain were asked to play the Rugby League Grand Final as a curtain-raiser for a Wallabies vs Kangaroos match, Balmain took this as an insult and did not turn up.
South Sydney kicked off, then forward Bill Cann picked up the ball and scored. They walked off the field and were duly declared premiers.
I don’t imagine at that time any sport was professional but it was big news.
I seem to recall a near-riot at nickel beer night at Cleveland (baseball). The fans got ugly, menaced the opponents (Texas?) who were whisked off the field, and the Indians forfeited. In the 1970’s I believe.
In Premier League Football in the UK Middlesborough didn’t turn up for a match against Blackburn, I think it was in 1998. They claimed that they had too many injuries to field a full team.
This was deemed to be unnaceptable and they ended up getting docked three points (rather than it just being chalked up as a loss and recieving no points for the game). Ironically they ended up getting relegated by less than three points. If they had fielded a team of 11 goats that day they would have stayed in the league!
Only a very attenuated view of professionalism. Rugby League came about from the inability of Rugby Union clubs to compensate players for financial losses. I knew a former Australian player that all fans would know, who retired in the 1970s. He didn’t earn enough to buy his home. Modern pay rates are a fairly recent phenomenon, even 20 years ago most professional sports people had a job because you couldn’t live on your contract payments.
Are you sure about that? The first openly all-professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, played in 1869-1870. The first organized major baseball league, the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, started in 1876.
I’m pretty sure there was professional soccer in England a few years before that.
As I say I don’t imagine much sport was truly professional back then but I’m just basing that on what I do know. Deep into the 20th century Australian sports stars had other jobs, some had to reject opportunities to play for Australia because work interfered. Early 20th century English soccer players had jobs, often as physical labourers. Just before WWII English cricket was split between Gentlemen and Players. The Players who were paid to play often still had jobs.
Doesn’t a team forfeit if they can’t make it to the game? I would think that teams are forced to forfeit relatively frequently due to grounded flights, bus crashes, etc. Not to mention what happened to a certain Uruguayan rugby team.
At least here in the U.S. games are usually postponed or sometimes cancelled rather than forfeited. Inability of a team to even get to the game is considered more of an Act of God.
True, but the situation was confusing there. After all, WG Grace made more money playing cricket as an “amateur” than any pro did. I know that even in English rugby union before open professionalism many top players received “under-the-table” payments, and not just to compensate for lost wages or to pay for expenses.
As for whether what cricketers or rugby players received constituted a “good wage”–you could make the argument that cricketers don’t receive a good wage now. I knew an Oxford Blue who told me that he had been offered a provisional county contract but turned it down because he could make more money even at the lowest rungs of a City financial firm. Nearly all county cricketers have odd jobs in the close season.
But that might be an argument for another thread. I know of one international cricket match that was abandoned for crowd violence (it was the World Series of Cricket “test” match between West Indies and Australia at Georgetown), and several Test matches which were abandoned for other reasons, but no forfeits. OTOH, there was a “World Series” baseball game from the late 19th century (actually, it was the “championship series” between the National League and American Association champs) which was forfeited because the Association manager objected to an umpire’s call. The story is in Total Baseball–I will post it when I get home.
Moving away from baseball, there was a forfeit in the American Basketball Association’s first season, on March 23, 1968. In a playoff game, no less.
Both the New Jersey Americans and Kentucky Colonels finished tied for fourth place, the last playoff position. A one-game playoff was scheduled at the New Jersey home court. However, the circus has booked their home arena (the Teaneck Amory in Teaneck NJ), so the game was sheduled for Commack Arena on Long Island. The arena at the time was the home of the Long Island Ducks of the American Hockey League. A makeshift floor was put on the ice, but water kept condensing on the floor, making it slippery. In addition, the roof was leaking from a rainstorm, dripping more water onto the court. Officials finally determined the conditions were unplayable and New Jersey lost by forfeit.
The Americans evidently didn’t hold it against the arena – the moved there the next year and changed their name to the New York Nets.
In the situation of the long Cubs-Braves games, if the Cubs had forfeited because they didn’t want use up too many pitchers, there would have been serious repercussions. Most likely the Cubs players would have been irate that their manager just let them give up. Pro athletes at that level are extremely competitive. They would have kept playing even if they were both out of the pennant race. It’s just not in their nature.
Most likely the Commissioner’s Office would have issued sanctions of some kinds against Baker and the Cubs. Fans buy tickets expecting a game played to its conclusion. Not a game that ended because one team gave up.
Even if the Cubs had had to use a starting pitcher, it wouldn’t have been that hard for them to reconfigure their rotation in the short term by calling up a new starter from the minors to fill in and sending down a pitcher who wasn’t going to be available for a few days anyway.
I am always reminded of John Madden’s line during the Super Bowl when the 49ers destroyed the Broncos.
“They always say, ‘Well, they never quit!’ Of course not, they don’t let you quit!”
That was a real-life forfeit. The White Sox wanted to boost attendance for a double header with the Detroit Tigers. They had a local disk jockey named Steve Dahl host a “Disco Demolition Night”{ promotion wherby if you brought a disco record to the game you could get in for $1 and they would blow up the records on the field between games. Then the trouble started. . .
A capacity crowd showed up and an estimate of 10,000 additional were outside the stadium. They didn’t collect all of the records. The bunch of the records were “blown-up” between the games leaving a huge patch of the center field grass burned. Of course, the crown got unruly and some started throwing records like frisbees. Not a good situation especially in a place like Comisky Park which, at the time, was known as the largest tavern in the world.
The umpires declared the field unplayable for the second game and the White Sox were forced to forfeit.
In qualifying for the 2006 World Cup a game between Guam and Nepal was cancelled because both teams withdrew. Now the world will be left to wonder what might have been.
