A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

"OTHERWISE, I'D BE KNOWN AS THE GUY WITH HEMORRHOIDS": On July 24, 1983, twenty-five years ago today, I sat in my cousins' kitchen in Brooklyn on a Sunday afternoon watching the end of the Yankees-Royals game on a 13-inch tv. George Brett hit a two-run home run in the top of the ninth to give Kansas City the 5-4 lead ... but then Yankees manager Billy Martin had a question about Brett's bat. You know the rest.

Or do you? I've never actually read American League president Lee MacPhail's ruling before today, in which he reinstated Brett's home run on the grounds that the umpires' nullifying it was contrary to the intent and spirit of the rules, which "do not provide that a hitter be called out for excessive use of pine tar. The rules provide instead that the bat be removed from the game." Further:

Although Manager Martin and his staff should be commended for their alertness, it is the strong conviction of the League that games should be won and lost on the playing field -- not through technicalities of the rules -- and that every reasonable effort consistent with the spirit of the rules should be made to so provide.