Published Tuesday, August 18, 2009

"Infamous" home runs hit on this day

Sports Column by STUART CROSBY

stuart@newnan.com

Here we are on Tuesday August 18 or T-minus-10 days from the first full scheduled day of high school football for most of Georgia and I am looking forward to that day.

There will be a few games played this week including Pickens Academy of Carrollton, Alabama coming into Newnan on Friday to face the Heritage Hawks, but the big week appears to be next weekend which will also see some of the college teams open their seasons including Georgia at Oklahoma State.

In the interim I thought I would take a peek at some sports events that occurred on this date that possibly you weren't aware of.

Also, I have nothing else to write about in Vox Crosby and some interesting things did happen on this date like several home runs that ignited controversy in their respective games.

One of those home runs occurred on this date in 1965 when the Milwaukee Braves were playing a game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium and Hank Aaron was at the plate.

The game was tied at 3-3 with one out in the top of the eighth when Aaron hit a pitch on top of the pavilion roof for an apparent homer off Cardinals' starter Curt Simmons.

However, this blast was not one of the 755 Aaron hit in his career as umpire Chris Pelekoudas called him out for being out of the batter's box when he hit it.

This call did not make Braves manager Bobby Bragan happy as he argued the decision and was subsequently ejected by Pelekoudas.

The Braves eventually won the game with two runs in the top of the ninth inning as Don Dillard hit a two-run home run that had it's own controversy.

The Cardinals' scoresheet listed no home run as the ball was said to have hit off the wall and that second base umpire Paul Jackowski was "loafing" on his way to make the call.

The call stood for a player, however, who hit 14 home runs in a six-year career during which he didn't make that many appearances.

One guy who was discredited with a home run only to have it returned to his Hall of Fame total was Kansas City's George Brett and the infamous "Pine Tar" game of 1983.

Most of us remember that Brett hit a shot over the right field fence off the Yankees' Goose Gossage to give the Royals the lead until Billy Martin went to plate umpire Tim McClellan claiming too much pine tar was on Brett's bat.

Brett was called out and the fun began as he charged McClellan with current Braves' broadcaster Joe Simpson holding him back while Gaylord Perry and several other teammates tried to hide the bat.

To summarize this legendary tale, the home run stood and the remainder of the game had to be played and on this day, the two teams took about 12 minutes to finish the suspended contest and the Royals were credited with a 5-4 win.

Among the oddities of the filling of this "12-minute gap" was Don Mattingly playing second base and Ron Guidry was in center field for the Yankees and a whole new umpiring crew came in only to face Martin and the contention that Brett missed a base when he went yard.

The original crew sent an affidavit stating that while an entire can of pine tar may have been on the bat, Brett did touch all three bases and home plate so Martin was out of luck.

Hal McRae "started" the evening by striking out to complete the top of the ninth inning and in the bottom of the ninth the Royals made several changes including Simpson going to left and Dan Quisenberry taking over on the mound and retiring three batters very quickly to end one of the strangest games in baseball history.