The Pine Tar Game

I had an Atari 2600 in the summer of 1983 that we played incessantly.

My friends and I loved those games but we were also crazed kids who played every sport imaginable while we listened to music and did the guy things of the early '80s.

On July 24, 1983, my friend Brian Power and I were hanging out at my house. As I recall, my parents were gone and it was just us on a cool summer day.

It was a Sunday. We played Atari and listened to the Yankees on the radio in my room.

The Royals were in for the back end of a four-game series that included a Friday doubleheader. They split the doubleheader while the Yankees won on Saturday. The Sunday finale featured Bud Black starting on the mound for the Royals and Shane Rawley going for Billy Martin's Bronx Bombers.

In the midst of the crazy Steinbrenner years, the Yankees were playing decent baseball. They were 12 games over .500 battling for the top of the American League East Division with the Orioles.

Having met in three straight American League playoffs, and four of five, there was still a healthy dislike between New York and Kansas City, although that almost seems weird now to say.

But to put it clearly: these teams actually hated each other.

The Royals scratched a run across in the second before Dave Winfield tied the game with his sixteenth home run of the year in the bottom of the frame.

A Frank White single in the fourth put the Royals back in front, and a triple off the bat of Don Slaught gave the Royals insurance in the sixth.

New York came back with three in the bottom of the sixth on a Don Baylor triple that scored two and a Winfield single that plated Baylor.

It was a different time -- one in which a one-run lead didn't automatically mean bringing in the closer. In fact, we didn't know what a closer was. A team had a relief ace or "fireman" and that pitcher would often work more than just the last inning.

Leading 4-3 heading into the ninth, Billy Martin stuck with Dale Murray, a right-hander who had come on after Rawley gave up the triple of Slaught in the sixth. Murray worked three and a third on this day, allowing only one hit until he faced UL Washington with two out in the ninth.

On the radio (embedded below as part of the resumption of the suspended game), Phil Rizzuto and Bill White discussed that Goose Gossage was less than pleased with how he was being used at the time.

A nice play by rookie Don Mattingly, wearing number 46 at first base, had the bases empty and the Yankees on the verge of the win.

But Murray allowed a base hit to Washington and Rizzuto noted that Martin was on his way to the mound.

"Holy cow," Rizzuto said. "You think Billy is going to bring The Goose in to pitch to Brett?"

I can clearly remember a moment of "oh no" (or different words) as I recalled Brett launching a moon shot off of Goose in the 1980 ALCS. If I hadn't fully hated the Royals and Brett before then, I did after that.

Sure enough, Billy was going to Goose to face Brett. Damn you, UL Washington and your toothpick.

Brian and I looked at each other. Atari would wait. No more Yars' Revenge (or whatever we were playing). We sprinted to the floor model color TV in the living room (keeping in mind we were playing Atari on a black and white TV).

We turned on channel 11. There was no cable for the Adams household, which is why I didn't see Dave Righetti's no-hitter just 20 days earlier as that was on SportsChannel.

In the booth calling the play-by-play was Frank Messer, the professional of the Yankees' radio crew since 1968, with former players Rizzuto and White rounding out the classic trio (and working on radio as I said that day). Serving as the TV analyst was the recently-retired Bobby Murcer, who would be honored with a "day" at Yankee Stadium on August 7 (which I would be at).

So it was Brett vs. Gossage, and as you know, chaos ensued.


In Mahopac, Brian and I looked at each other, mouths wide open. I sat in my fathers' recliner, stunned and thrilled.

We went back to Atari.

But it wasn't over. The Royals protested the decision made by the umpires and indicated by home plate umpire Tim McClelland. The umpires cited Rule 1.10(c), which stated, ""a bat may not be covered by such a substance more than 18 inches [46 cm] from the tip of the handle." Thus they enacted Rule 6.06, which determined that Brett was out as the ball had been "illegally batted" due to excessive pine tar.

American League President Lee MacPhail agreed with the Royals. He wrote: “It is not in accord with the intent or spirit of the rules and the rules do not provide that a hitter be called out for excessive use of pine tar.”

I can still feel anger in my soul over that decision 36 years later. I felt -- and still, feel -- that MacPhail threw his umpires under the Kansas City bus.

But despite everything that Steinbrenner and Martin did, the game went on. There were lawsuits before the resumption of the game. When it resumed on Aug 18, Martin put Mattingly at second base and Ron Guidry in center field as a show of what he felt was a mockery.

The radio broadcast of Aug 18 is below. Included in that is the ninth inning of July 24. Note that Rizzuto points out that Thurman Munson was cited for a similar event, while White believes that pine tar shouldn't be used against Brett.


It was a crazy day. The Yankees looked like they would lose, then won, went right back to losing.

Just another day in the George Steinbrenner era.