George Brett's Pine Tar Incident: Baseball's Controversial Moment

[00:00:00] On July 24, 1983, Kansas City Royals third-basement George Bretts had just hit a home run to give his team the lead versus the New York Yankees.

[00:00:10] But shortly after he passed home plate, the Empire looked at his back, pointed to the dugout and called him out due to issues with too much pine tar being on his back from an obscure rule from back in the day.

[00:00:23] Bret loses his mind and rushes onto the field and is held back as he is tossed from the game, but the game isn't over yet. As it would go on, weeks later to be finished officially.

[00:00:35] Here's the story behind this iconic and crazy event in baseball history today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive in sport history every day.

[00:00:51] And today's trivia question to listen out for is how many days did it take for them to finish the game between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees were George Bretts. Got thrown out due to his pine tar.

[00:01:05] So before we dive into this iconic moment, let's get into the man behind this George Bretts. He was born in Virginia, the youngest of four sons, and his brother, Ken, was also a pitcher in the major leagues and pitched.

[00:01:20] In the 1967 World Series, just at the age of 19, and his two other brothers actually had baseball careers too, but only made it to the miners. So he was born into baseball and had and was gifted the talent that him and his brothers were also gifted for baseball.

[00:01:35] And when he graduated high school in 1971, he was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round of the major league baseball draft.

[00:01:44] And at the time he was drafted, he was actually a short stop and he had issues while in the minor leagues going to his right. So since he had issues going to his right, they put him somewhere where he wouldn't have to do that that much.

[00:01:56] They put him at third base. He had an strong enough arm to make the throw from third base to first quick enough, and he didn't have to go to his right because there was the foul line.

[00:02:03] So it was a great change for him and he continued to hit on the field, but his hitting was always something that stood out. In the 1973, he finally got to call up to the Kansas City Royals to make his debut on August 2, 1973.

[00:02:18] Going against the Chicago White socks as they're starting third baseman. He would only play a 13 games in that season and would get the starting job in 1974. Though he struggled at the plate, he eventually caught on and by his second season, he was hitting over 300 for the season.

[00:02:35] In 1976, he made his first all-star game, which he did so for 13 straight seasons. But his best season came in 1980 when he was named the AL MVP, batting 390, which was a record for modern third baseman at the time.

[00:02:52] And he almost was able to hit over 400 to become the first person to do so since Ted Williams in 1941. But he had a little bit of a slump towards the end of the season that left him at 390. And despite this great hitting, he was only second that year.

[00:03:06] And that was the highest batting average since 1941 when Ted Williams hit over 400. And he was later surpassed by Tony Glenn in 1994, although Tony played less games and had less at bets. But at this time, the Kansas City Royals were consistently a great team in the American League.

[00:03:23] And they developed a rivalry with the Yankees as they swept them in the playoffs in 1976, 77 and 78. And they would make it to the world series in 1980, but which they sadly lost in six games.

[00:03:37] But during the series, Brett actually became a household name as he had to leave the second game in the sixth inning due to hemorrhoid pains and had to have minor surgery the next day.

[00:03:48] But he would return in game 3 and hit a home run, which is often forgot about as he's only remembered as having hemorrhoids. But in 1981, he starts to show his anger as he hits a

[00:03:58] media photographer for taking a picture of him after a loss with a crutch. And a few weeks later, he destroyed two toilets at the Met stadium. And later on that year, he had to be restrained

[00:04:10] by teammates for being questioned by reporter while out of hotel. So we get to 1983. And at this point, both the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals are in the hunt to make the playoffs, to

[00:04:22] chance to try to make the world series. And they had already started the rivalry few years earlier as they were constantly buying to win the AELP in every year, being the two of the top two teams.

[00:04:35] So on July 24th, 1983, in New York, a Yankees stadium with almost 34,000 people in attendance. The Royals and the Yankees put on a show where they close match up going back and forth the entire game.

[00:04:51] And in the top of the night, with the Royals trailing 4-3, George Brett came up to bat. And the Yankees called in their closer, Richard Gusage. And after filing off his first pitch,

[00:05:04] he hit a two-run home run over the right field fence, giving the Royals the lead in the ninth inning five to four. And Brett was ecstatic as one would be who just took the lead of a home

[00:05:16] run and tried to cross the base path with joy and a smile on his face. But Yankee manager Billy Martin approached the home play on fire, Tim McLean, and requested to examine Brett's bat.

[00:05:30] See before the game, Martin and other members of the Yankees noticed that Brett had excessive pintar on his bat. Now, pintar is a very sticky substance that's often brownish blackish

[00:05:44] that players would put on their bats to help with grip. As a bat is usually has some shine to it. And when it's hot out and sweaty out, your hands can get sweaty, you can lose a grip on it.

[00:05:55] And pintar was used by multiple players. But there was a rule that you couldn't have the pintar more than 18 inches above the handle of the bat, a very obscure rule that was very ever used

[00:06:08] but it was in the rulebook. So even though they noticed this, they wanted to wait till the point within the game where they may need to use it. And as the all the umpires examine the bat

[00:06:18] and even laid it across home plate, which is 17 inches, which gives them a rough estimate of how high the pintar is on the bat. And when they saw that it was clearly above the 18 inches,

[00:06:28] the home plate umpire found Brett in the dugout pointed at him and called him out and reset the game to being forward to three. Now obviously this would encourage any of us as we had just been

[00:06:40] called out not knowing what just happened. Feeling like there was some sort of cue as he was just talking to the Yankees manager. So he runs out furious being held by as many teammates as

[00:06:52] can catch him yelling at the umpire with ferociousness coming at him with all his will. Now Brett was thrown out of the game because of this obviously, but after they were able to take

[00:07:03] Brett out of the field and then back into the dugout, the game was able to resume with the Yankees winning 4-3. Now the Royals protested this game and four days later, the American League president

[00:07:15] Lee McFale upheld the protest and explained his decision that it wasn't the spirit of the rule. See this rule was obscure and had not been used in years mainly because back in the day

[00:07:28] when they first made the rule, pintar was expensive and they wanted to limit the use of pintar so that to not get the advantage to someone else. Not because it gave an advantage on the actual

[00:07:40] field, not that it actually gave an advantage having it higher up on the bat at any point. And the higher they headed up on the bat, the more it would get on the balls and the more

[00:07:49] the teams would have to pay, more the more the home team would have to pay to supply more balls as it could ruin a ball. So thus they restored Brett's home run and stated that they had to

[00:08:00] resume the game at the time of Brett's home run. However his ejection from his alper's would still stand and so Brett could not finish the game. But then after this decision, the Yankees filed a decision

[00:08:13] saying that Brett did not touch every single base which meant he would have been rolled out anyway but they could not verify this claim and so their dispute was not upheld. And again

[00:08:25] the Yankees tried to charge ticket holders for this half an inning left in the game to come see it even if they had a ticket to that game and this produced lawsuits in the Bronx Supreme

[00:08:38] Court that were still going on at the date they had scheduled the game for August 18th 1983 which was 25 days since the original game. But by the time the game had started, they gave anyone

[00:08:53] that had a ticket to the first game free injury to enter that game and the game started with two outs at the top of the night with the Royal's leading five to four with only about 1,200 fans

[00:09:05] and attendance. And even as the game started, Yankees made an interbilly Martin win on to the field into protest that saying he did not touch first base second base third base or even home.

[00:09:16] And each empire had to say he was safe. He was safe. He was safe as they tried everything to get this win to know a veil as the Royal's went on to win the game 25 days after it first started.

[00:09:29] And at this point it put the Yankees in fifth place and basically out of postseason contention. Now after all of this happened they actually changed the rules to to all this that if you

[00:09:41] have an objection about someone's bet or equipment you had to make an objection before they started their at bet, not after which is probably what it should have been in the first place. But usually rules are created after something happens and things get changed afterwards.

[00:09:59] It happens in every sport because you don't know what might happen. And normally this is not an issue but it does happen on rare occasions. As for George Brett after this he was regretful for his outburst but he was actually happy as he now is known

[00:10:17] as the Pintar guy instead of the hemorrhoid guy from when he played in the world series which he gladly takes and he went on to continue his great career where he got his number

[00:10:28] five retired by the Kansas City Royals and became inducted into the and was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot in 1999 and was a Kansas City Royal for life. And he finished his career second in the major league history. He's finished his career with

[00:10:45] the most hits by a third baseman in major league history which was later passed by Adrian Beltrade and it's constantly mentioned as one of the best third baseman to ever play the game even though

[00:10:54] now he's mostly remembered for being the Pintar guy but it's a memory he will gladly take. As he says he didn't know about the rule he just liked the bat and used Pintar

[00:11:05] for throughout his career but hope gladly take be known as the Pintar guy. I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you like this topic please leave us a rate

[00:11:15] rating or review wherever you're listening if you like this topic and want us to cover a topic that you enjoy please leave us a review wherever you're listening and tell us that tell us what

[00:11:26] you want us to cover and your name and we would gladly do that just for you. And come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And did you catch the answer to today's trivia question? How many days did it take

[00:11:39] for the Royal's and Yankees to finish their Pintar game from the win to begin to officially ended? The answer was 25 days.