An erroneous scorer’s decision from Game 3 of the American League Championship Series was changed Sunday, bringing an end to one of the most unusual game-ending plays in baseball’s postseason history. Even professional observers described the play as weird.
A decisive passed ball originally charged to Baltimore catcher Lenny Webster was removed, and instead Cleveland’s Marquis Grissom, who scored the winning run in Cleveland’s 2-1 victory Saturday, was credited with a stolen base.
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It was a play not likely to be forgotten and worthy of reconstruction, particularly for serious aficionados:
The Indians were hitting in the bottom of the 12th with one out, Grissom at third and Omar Vizquel batting. On a 2-and-1 count, ideal for a suicide-squeeze bunt, reliever Randy Myers threw a sharp-breaking slider, low and inside, just off the plate, an excellent pitch.
“I don’t know why I didn’t bunt it,” Vizquel, an expert bunter, said Sunday. “It wasn’t a strike, but it was right there.”
Vizquel, who had squared around for the squeeze, missed the pitch to even the count at 2-2. But that was of no consequence. More important was that catcher Webster didn’t hold on to the ball. It struck his glove and rolled away, coming to a stop no more than 10 feet to his left, on the third base side of the plate.
Grissom, who was running with the pitch, scored standing up and without a play. Later, Webster insisted he didn’t try to tag Grissom in the belief the ball ticked Vizquel’s bat and was therefore a foul ball, which would have prevented an advance.
Umpire John Hirschbeck, working the plate, immediately made the call: Vizquel had swung and missed and Grissom was safely across with the winning run. Game over.
Baltimore manager Davey Johnson argued that he had heard the tick of Vizquel’s bat making contact. Later, Johnson conceded he may have been too far away in the Orioles’ first base dugout and revised his comment. “Maybe it was wishful hearing,” he said.
Appearing at a postgame news conference, Webster stridently maintained it was a foul ball, that the pitch had ticked Vizquel’s bat.
Whatever, the most likely explanation was that Webster, seeing Grissom charging in from third, was rattled and took his eye off the ball.
Taking your eye off the ball, even for a split second, is a common mistake made by schoolboy catchers, especially when a swinging bat comes into view.
If Webster had caught the ball, Grissom, despite his outstanding speed, would have been hung up between third and home, an easy out.
In the press box, there was a dispute. The official scorer ruled it a passed ball, contending that if the ball had been caught, Grissom would have been tagged out, pure and simple.
But Seymour Siwoff of the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball’s longtime rules intrepreter, said the scorer was in error. Siwoff pointed to Rule 10.08 (a), which reads as follows:
“When a runner starts for the next base before the pitcher delivers the ball and the pitch results in what ordinarily is scored a wild pitch or passed ball, credit the runner with a stolen base.”
In other words even if the catcher has the ball in plenty of time, a putout cannot be assumed. This rule comes into play mostly on steals of second and third base, but also applies when a runner, on a squeeze or on a straight steal attempt, scores from third.
The official scorer changed his ruling an hour before Sunday’s fourth game.