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Impossible but True: Pitch Ends Up in Ump’s Chest Pocket

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Here’s a bizarre item that I missed over the weekend: During Sunday’s NCAA Regionals game between Arizona State and Fairfield, with the Sun Devils batting and runners on second and third, a pitch sailed past the Fairfield catcher’s mitt and struck the plate ump in just the right spot so that it plunked into the chest pocket of his jersey.

As you can see in the video above, much hilarity then ensued. At first nobody seemed to know where the ball had gone. Then, once everyone realized that the ball was in the ump’s pocket, everyone started wondering which provision in the rulebook — if any — would apply to a situation like this. Was it a dead ball? A wild pitch? Something else?

Here’s another angle:

The ump ultimately ruled that it was a wild pitch and that both runners were therefore entitled to move up one base, Correction: The rule is that a ball lodged in the ump’s equipment is a dead ball with all runners moving up a base, which meant Arizona State scored a run on the unlikely play. But Fairfield ended up winning the game, ending State’s season.

More than any other sport, baseball tends to have incidents of balls ending up lodged inside the uniforms (although usually it’s the players’ unis, not the umps’), mainly because it’s the only major sport with button-front jerseys. Here’s a really fun video compendium of MLB players who ended up with a batted ball inside their jerseys — fielders, mostly, although the first example on the video involves a batter who ended up wearing his own foul ball:

Most of those involve ground balls. But here’s an even stranger one, involving a line drive hit back to the pitcher:

Some people no doubt view these types of plays as good arguments for eliminating button-front jerseys and replacing them with pullovers. Personally, I see it the other way around: Plays like these, embarrassing as they might be for the fielders involved, are so much fun that they form a strong argument in favor of button-fronts. Imagine if all the players in those video clips had been wearing pullovers. Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where unusual plays like that can take place? I sure would.

There have also been instances of a batter being hit by a pitch that ended up in his jersey. One that I remember very clearly, because I was watching on TV when it happened, took place on April 23, 1992, when a pitch hit Mets outfielder Daryl Boston in the belly and somehow ended up in his jersey. The bases were loaded in the bottom of the 13th inning of a scoreless game at the time, so Boston retrieved the ball from his jersey, flipped it to the ump, and trotted to first with one of history’s most unlikely game-winning RBIs.

I couldn’t find video of that incident (or of any other pitches that lodged in batters’ jerseys, alas), but here’s a newspaper account that ran in the following day’s New York Times:

Until now, though, I’d never see a ball lodge in an umpire’s jersey — nor would I have thought that such a thing was even possible, given how small the umps’ jersey pockets tend to be. I bet you could try to duplicate the result of that Fairfield pitch a thousand times without being able to do so. A genuine one-in-a-million fluke!

Also: As you may recall, last Friday I wrote about the phony story that Steelers coach Bill Cowher has been telling about the time he stuffed a photo in an NFL ref’s pocket. That means two of my last blog posts have been about sports officials’ jersey pockets. That’s probably another million-to-one shot!

(Super-duper-thanks to our own Brinke Guthrie for bringing the pocket-pitch incident to my attention yesterday.)

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Buffalo ballpark report: With the Blue Jays recently shifting their home games from Dunedin, Fla., to Buffalo — and with fans permitted to attend the Buffalo games, unlike last season — Uni Watch reader Brad Loliger and his wife took in Sunday’s Jays/’Stros game. “It’s wild to see what they’ve done to the stadium,” he says. “The renovations are incredible.”

In addition, Brad has this very interesting report:

The in-stadium experience was different from any other sporting event I’ve gone to, relative to advertising. Yes, there are ads for Canadian companies on the outfield walls. But as far as I could tell, there were no jumbotron commercials or PA announcements shilling products — no “2nd inning replays brought to you by Tim Hortons” or “Molson Canadian, the official beer of the Blue Jays” or “Blue Jay Trivia Brought to you by Hudson Bay Co.”

During stoppages in play, they just played music and showed the Blue Jays logo on the screen, or played a montage of Blue Jays clips. No games with the fans in the stands, no promos. It allowed you to just focus on the game!

I’m guessing this was because the in-stadium advertisers would be Canadian companies and fans in attendance would not be able to buy from said companies? In any event, it was very refreshing, and just a really neat thing to notice — I loved it.

I’m wondering if any other Uni Watch readers have gone to Blue Jays games in Buffalo and noticed the same thing..?

Interesting! Again, this didn’t come up when the Jays played in Buffalo last year because fans weren’t allowed to attend. Sounds like Buffalo might be the best place to enjoy an MLB game this season! The Jays will be playing there at least through July 21.

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Collector’s Corner
By Brinke Guthrie

Holy flashback fonts, Batman! Love the 1970s graphics on the cover of this  Ford Crowd Pleaser Pirate Kit where you can “Back The ’75 Drive” for your hometown Pittsburgh Pirates. It includes a team photo, bumper sticker, and pocket schedule. A bit strange that wasn’t this done in, you know, yellow and black, but Bucs fans could snag one of these at their local Ford lot.

Now for the rest of this week’s picks:

• These little team-branded paper bags from 1956 contained metal player figures for Eagle brand tabletop hockey games. The bags were for Detroit, Montreal, Boston, New York, and Toronto.

• The box cover text for this 1968 baseball card game Solo Ball is terrific. “Wholesome Entertainment and Fun for Baseball Fans of All Ages!” “Enliven Your Leisure Time for Countless Hours!” 

• Speaking of baseball games, this one goes back to 1906. Parker Brothers made this one, called College Base Ball. Dig some of the instructions: “The club ‘at the bat’ begins by placing a man on ‘home base.’ The player ‘at the bat’ throws the dice and places a man according to the throw of the dice as shown upon the board.” 

• “Greetings From Magnificent (We Hope) Dodger Stadium,” reads this 1964 postcard sent to the Lenneherr family of San Francisco. “The World’s Most Beautiful Baseball Park” has indeed held up well through the years.

• A cartoon caricature of hockey great Gordie Howe in his Houston Aeros WHA uni graces this 1974 Little Caesar’s calendar. And hey, a buck-off coupon for a large “Square Shooter” pizza comes with it.

• Amazin’ cover art for this commemorative record album of the 1969 World Series-winning Miracle Mets. Made by Fleetwood, naturally.

• Nice artwork on this set of two Kansas City Royals Pizza Hut/Pepsi placemats commemorating the team’s run of 1970s Western Division titles. 

• Couple of Big Apple baseball bumper stickers here: one for the Yankees (“Yankee Fan! Oh What a Feeling!’ From your Tri-State Toyota Dealers”) and one for the Mets (“I Was There at Tom Seaver Day — July 24, 1988,” from WFAN).

• The Brewers’ “MB” ball glove logo is shown in all its glory on at least two of these 1982 Brewers seat cushions.

• The “Sharktooth” design is the template for this 1990s Buffalo Bills NFL Pro Line Parka from Logo Athletic.

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The Ticker
By Alex Hider

Baseball News: The Cubs’ City Connect jerseys had already leaked, and now the caps have appeared on New Era’s website. … Ump watch: Ed O’Brien notes that Marvin Hudson, working second base yesterday in the Marlins/Red Sox game, had a cross dangling from his back pocket. … Here’s more on the Pride uniforms that the Giants wore over the weekend (from Phil). … Reds 1B Joey Votto has been doing a rehab stint at Triple-A Louisville. While he’s been wearing the typical minor league double-flapped helmet, he’s still wearing his Reds logo socks. … This animated chart tracks the Twins’ all-time franchise leaders in wins above replacement. … Cleveland.com has an in-depth piece with opinions on how the city’s baseball team should handle its name change (from @spiders_six). … Here’s how some MLB mascots would look on a ballcap (from @OspreysFB). … Teams are only slated to wear City Connect uniforms a few times each year, but the White Sox radio team indicated during Saturday’s game that the Sox plan to use theirs as a full-fledged alternate moving forward (from Kary Klismet). … Also from Kary: The city of Katowice, Poland, is building a new baseball stadium that will serve as the home field for the local Rawa Katowice club. … New caps for the New Jersey Jackals of the independent Frontier League (from John Cerone). … The Richmond Flying Squirrels, the Giants’ Double-A club, will wear ’50s/’60s fauxbacks this weekend (from Rob Larson). … Chris Mycoskie notes that the Big South Conference sleeve logo on Campbell University’s uniforms is massive, and according to Mike Miller, it’s not even current! … This photo slideshow has plenty of great old baseball pics from 100 years ago — the 1921 season (from Dell Michaels). … Hmmm, Seminoles or Semimoles? That’s what happens when you split letterforms across the placket (from Joseph Tanner).

Pro Football News: Apparently, not all of the phantom Packers Super Bowl XXXII champs gear made it out of the country. The Pack lost to the Broncos that year (from @deggyfresh). … Cardinals DE J.J. Watt was wearing a practice uniform with a different color collar than the rest of his teammates during a recent practice (from @TruColorNet). … We have our first look at 49ers rookie QB Trey Lance in his new home uniform (from Phil). … Back in 2014, the CFL’s Ottawa RedBlacks were slated to wear a plaid helmet to match a jersey with plaid elements on the field. The checkered lids never showed up on the field. This blog unravels the mystery behind the helmet that never saw the light of day (from Kary Klismet).

College Football News: Several Florida players posed for a photo in Gators basketball jerseys at a recent practice (from @fillupg1). … Pitt has released a limited-edition bobblehead of alum Aaron Donald, though it depicts him wearing a uniform he never wore with the team (from @Angelsand182). … Texas A&M has added white trim to its sleeve cuffs on the maroon jerseys (from Connor Russell).

Hockey News: Pandemic protocols meant the medal ceremony for the IIHF World Championship finals looked a bit different on Sunday. Team captains and management gave out medals, as opposed to tournament officials. “The NHL Network announcers, understanding of the situation, seemed to be in favor of the team-centric presentation model going forward,” John Muir said. … The Manitoba Junior Hockey League club in Neepawa announced earlier this year it was moving away from an Indigenous nickname and logo it had used for several decades. Yesterday, they unveiled their new team name — the Titans (from Michal Grajewski).

Basketball News: Former NBA player and coach Steve Alford has a hotel in his hometown of New Castle, Ind., that includes tons of photos of of him — including one photo in which he’s wearing his shorts backward (from Mark Montieth).

Soccer News: Norwich City, which will compete in the Premier League this upcoming season, has switched from one gambling jersey ad to another. But supporters criticized the deal when they found out the new advertiser used NSFW content to promote itself (from our own Jamie Rathjen). … Spotted at Sunday’s match between U.S. and Mexico: a fan wearing a rare U.S./Mexico frankenjersey (from Ben Hagen). … Here are all the new 2021 uniforms in the Canadian Premier League (from Wade Heidt).

Olympics News: Former U.S. gymnast Dominique Dawes is calling for a change in uniforms across the sport that will de-emphasize the sexualization of its female athletes (from Phil). … Here are the podium designs and medal-presentation uniforms for the upcoming games (from Jeremy Brahm). … Here’s the medal design for the 2020 U.S. Olympic team track and field trials (from David Wiechmann and Timmy Donahue).

Grab Bag: The next three submissions are from Kary Klismet: New logos for The Sun Conference of the NAIA (also from Timmy Donahue). … Spokane, Wash., has approved a new downtown multi-use stadium. … DC Comics’ Shazam! family of superheroes is getting new uniforms for the Shazam! 2 movie. … Dr. Derek Gragg was introduced as Northwestern’s AD yesterday. John Muir notes that while Gragg was wearing a purple tie, there were several shades of purple visible at the introductory press conference. Gragg was also presented with a customized football jersey with No. 23, as he’s the school’s 23rd AD. … With another college sports season (almost) in the books, Clint Richardson of the Auburn Uniform Database has published his annual review of all the uniforms worn by the Tigers’ athletic teams in 2020-21. … Baylor University has purchased advertising at a local Topgolf location in a deal that’s being called “reverse sponsorship” (from Timmy Donahue).

 
  
 
Comments (53)

    Sunday’s game (mentioned in the lede) was not a College World Series game. CWS begins June 19th, and is played entirely in Omaha. ASU/Fairfield was a Regionals game, played in Austin, TX.

    Something of interest at the end of the article about the Ottawa Redblacks’ plaid helmet. A team official confirming new uniforms in 2021 season.

    2019 was the year New Era took over supplying uniforms for the CFL. They adopted many templates that were signature to old supplier Adidas.

    Have a feeling we may see some other teams with new uniforms once the CFL makes its return after missing 2020 due to pandemic (tentatively slated for August). Maybe some new designs from New Era. Hearing things about the Elks and Stampeders maybe having new uniforms hidden away.

    “Some people no doubt view these types of plays as good arguments for eliminating button-front jerseys and replacing them with pullovers.”

    You could have just stopped right there. :)

    I’ve often said there is room in baseball for both button-fronts and pullovers, but for every fun incident like the ball in the ump’s pocket, we get several placket desecrations like the Semi-moles (I’d hate to see that mascot…). At this point, let’s just go all pullover all the time.

    The downsides to wearing a button front that you mention are due to either manufacturer error or the players not properly wearing their uniforms. When it comes to the latter that can easily be addressed by managers making sure their players are in proper uniform. The former is a fun quirk that happens time to time and, as this site’s existence will attest to, the uni-verse gets a chuckle out of seeing typos.
    Pullovers just don’t look professional when it comes to baseball.

    Just to be clear in the context of today’s lede, there is no reason to believe that a pullover umpire jersey could not have a pocket.

    True. But the odds of the pocket incident being repeated are way lower than another ball going into another button-front jersey. I actually hope it does happen again, but I think we won’t see it again.

    Concerning Joey Votto’s logoed socks, I was at a Bats game a week ago and was surprised to see the entire outfield wearing socks with the Reds logo on them whether than the Bats logo.

    That Cubs City Connect hat is a beaut. Wish I could say the same about most everything else of the uniform :(.

    Awesome article as always, Paul. So weird to read about all these different cases of this weird, purely baseball phenomenon.

    Looks like a Chicago Red Stars hat….women’s pro soccer. That whole uni is trash.

    The World Junior Hockey Championships this past winter did the same thing with the medal ceremony. The team captains gave the medals out to the rest of the team. It was fun to see and looked like the teams liked it better than a random suit giving out medals.

    The World Junior Hockey Championships this past winter did the same thing with the medal ceremony. The team captains gave the medals out to the rest of the team. It was fun to see and looked like the teams liked it better than a random suit giving out medals.

    Further correction on today’s lede: the game isn’t a “College World Series Regionals game.” The “College World Series” refers only to the final rounds of the NCAA’s annual baseball tournament, held in Omaha, involving the eight teams that have advanced out of the Regionals and Super Regionals to compete for the national title.

    It should more properly be called an “NCAA Regional Baseball Tournament game.” Calling it a “College World Series Regionals game” is sort of the equivalent of calling second-round NCAA basketball tournament game a “Final Four Regionals game.”

    Thanks for the explainer, Kary. For the sake of simplicity, I’ve changed it to “NCAA Regionals game,” which I hope will suffice.

    I think that works! Thanks! And feel free to delete any duplicates or near-duplicates of this post that show up. It disappeared after I originally posted it (without giving me the usual “your comment is awaiting moderation” message), so I tried to re-post it a couple of times, to similar effet.

    One more correction on today’s lede: the game isn’t a “College World Series Regionals game.” The “College World Series” refers only to the final rounds of the NCAA’s annual baseball tournament, held in Omaha, involving the eight teams that have advanced out of the Regionals and Super Regionals to compete for the national title.

    It should more properly be called an “NCAA Regional Baseball Tournament game.” Calling it a “College World Series Regionals game” is sort of the equivalent of calling second-round NCAA basketball tournament game a “Final Four Regionals game.”

    Thank you for adding my Auburn Uniform Database article to the Ticker today! The AUD would not be where it is today – let alone exist at all – without Uni-Watch!

    “As you may recall, last Friday I wrote about the phony story that Steelers coach Bill Cowher has been telling about the time he stuffed a photo in an NFL ref’s pocket. That means two of my last blog posts have been about sports officials’ jersey pockets.”

    Going from “Ump Watch” to “Ump Pocket Watch” (pun not intended, but noted). I love how this site can drill down to niches within niches!

    I’m sorry the Cubs City Connect hat costs $60?!?!? That’s insane.

    Very cool report by Brad Loliger on the experience of going to a Blue Jays game in Buffalo. Thanks for sharing it Brad!

    One thing I’ve noticed about going to Major League games in recent years (well, 2019 and a handful of preceding years, I guess) was the way that every nanosecond of downtime during the game – between innings, between at-bats, during pitching changes – was filled with some sort of loud, blaring advertisement of promotion of some kind. There was never time to relax and let the game unfold in front of you.

    Mentally, I noted that it was a qualitatively different experience than going to games as a kid, and maybe 20 years ago, but it’s hard to remember exactly what the experience was like before all of that visual and aural noise. I guess it’s kind of like proving a negative? I just remember that I used to NOT feel like I was being overstimulated to the point of feeling like I was about to have a seizure.

    Agreed. I live in Denver and games at Coors Field are an ongoing loud marketing explosion. Several years ago (2013), I was in Chicago and went to Wrigley, and was presently surprised to find that they just had the old-time organ playing in between innings. At one point, a little Cubs Dixieland band popped up in the stands. It was the most pleasant experience I ever had at the ballpark. Hopefully the Cubs are still keeping it simple.

    The Madison Mallards of the Northwoods League used to be the worst offender of this, they would blast music in between pitches ~ so several hundred 10 second sound clips, full blast, per game. Finally a few years ago they had a PR statement saying they were stopping it. So I guess enough fans complained.

    Interesting point and very true (for all sporting events). But just this morning I was having a discussion with a coworker about going to baseball games and how the nets are essential now because people are just paying less attention to the game itself, and are sucked into their phones, or whatever.
    So in 2021 you simultaneously have people overly distracted by their phones, and the stadium experience itself being a constant barrage of advertisements, promotions, or theatrics.
    Not sure what that says about our culture today, but seems crazy that simply watching a baseball game and conversing with your companion is not enough simulation for a person. I guess we are perpetually distracted in the 21st century.

    “Not sure what that says about our culture today, but seems crazy that simply watching a baseball game and conversing with your companion is not enough simulation for a person. I guess we are perpetually distracted in the 21st century.”

    Couldn’t agree more! I don’t know which is the chicken and which is the egg in this scenario. (Did the sporting events seeking to capture our attention with flashy advertising originate the problem, or are the big leagues just trying to keep up with everything else competing for our ever-decreasing attention spans?) And I can’t claim to stand above the fray on this one (I say as the phone sitting eight inches from me buzzes and I strain to keep my attention on finishing this message). But I long for the simpler experiences of going to a sporting event when the event itself was enough entertainment to command our attention.

    I do hope they played “OK Blue Jays” during the seventh-inning stretch, though, and did the dance thing that goes along with it.

    I don’t think you’ve experienced a Blue Jays’ home game unless you get that.

    They did play OK Blue Jays with the video board showing the words for everyone to sing along. Followed by Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It was pretty much the ideal seventh inning stretch.

    I went to a game last week against Miami and I concur with Brad’s assessment. A great ballpark experience.

    Brad, great report, I was there Friday night, was in same section as beer snake dude, made the night in blow out game.

    As an umpire, I was mostly amused by how “unfair” fans thought it was that the runners were advanced. The ball *got by the catcher*. Then again, it doesn’t matter — this kind of thing is covered for specifically in the rules. The more common (and still quite rare) occurrence of this kind of thing is when a ball end up in the umpire’s ball bag, which is quite a bit bigger than the chest pocket.

    The chest pocket has always been part of the umpire jersey (despite some announcer claiming otherwise) and many umpires use it for their lineup cards and pen, but I moved to the inside pocket of the ball bag years ago and as far as I’m concerned, they could just remove this pocket permanently.

    Imagine how unfair it would be for the baserunning team if they didn’t have a chance to score a run on that play.

    It’s only “unfair” to the defense because they didn’t have a chance to prevent the run, which maybe happens… 5% of the time on a typical passed ball? Maybe less? This one actually probably had a better chance than average for an out because it likely would have taken a pretty hard carom off the backstop.

    To be clear, the umpire didn’t rule it a wild pitch (the official scorer might have), he ruled a dead ball for it being lodged in the umpire’s equipment, which is a provision in the rules. Each runner is entitled to advance one base, and it isn’t a judgment call.

    No games with the fans in the stands, no promos. It allowed you to just focus on the game!

    Imagine that! Sounds like the only ballpark I’d want to be in this year.

    DC Comics’ Shazam! family of superheroes is getting new uniforms for the Shazam! 2 movie.
    I’m Still Calling Him Captain Marvel.
    I’d even settle for Captain Thunder, which is what he was called for one issue in the 70s when DC didn’t have the rights to his name.
    link
    I hope the sequel lives up to the first one, because Shazam! was the best only good DC movie ever made. Fight me…I will die on that hill.

    OK, I haven’t seen Aquaman yet. So I may have to go with “best” instead of “only good.” That’s as far as I budge.

    Good stuff, Ron! I would have guessed that Grandpa Marvel was real. Actually, I thought Uncle Marvel was Grandpa Marvel.

    Does anyone else hate the baseball synthetic fields where the “dirt” is turf as much as I do? It looks terrible plus it can’t be fun to slide on that.

    100% percent agree… and now it looks like they’re doing the entire field, before at least you got the mound and plate area with actual dirt.

    I get why some stadia do it if it’s a multi-purpose site (like Johnstown’s Point Stadium) as it means less maintenance.

    But seeing it in college baseball is annoying because most of those are purpose built baseball-only facilities.

    All those balls into shirt pockets, between buttons into shirts makes me long for the good old no fuss pullover double-knits.

    Nice artwork on this set of two Kansas City Royals Pizza Hut/Pepsi placemats commemorating the team’s run of 1970s Western Division titles.

    Of all the teams wearing “traditional” uniforms, the Royals bore the transition to pullovers and sansabelts better than most. Instead of looking threadbare, like Cincinnati, or busy, like St. Louis, they looked crisp and formal. Part of the tidy appearance was leaving the numbers off the front of the home jersey, and the solid white graphics of the pastel blue road uniform.

    Teams are only slated to wear City Connect uniforms a few times each year, but the White Sox radio team indicated during Saturday’s game that the Sox plan to use theirs as a full-fledged alternate moving forward (from Kary Klismet)

    Good. That’s a handsome uniform, and maybe we’ll start to see more monochrome teams, a fad whose time has come.

    The ticker item about gymnastics says that “Dominique Dawes is calling for a change in uniforms across the sport”, but if you watch the linked video, what she is asking for is to allow female gymnasts the choice to wear less revealing outfits.

    While that does constitute a “change” in current policy, I think the link phrasing is misleading because Dawes just wants to see more options available instead of changing the current style of leotards to something else.

    I know this is a nitpick but only bring it up since UW prides itself in being as accurate as possible.

    Regarding Cleveland’s rebranding, I wonder if this means scrubbing the statues of all references to the Indians.

    I’m in favor of tearing down confederate statues, but this is not the same. Erasing the Indians from statues would be going overboard.

    If Montreal plays Colorado in the next round of the NHL playoffs, the Avalanche should wear the Reverse Retro jersey so that it looks like the Battle of Quebec.

    I know they won’t, but I wish they would.

    FWIW, Dominque Dawes is a little late to the party. USA Gymnastics has already said shorts are acceptable attire for non-international competition (i.e., little girl gymnastics) starting next season. That’s 99.99999 percent of all girls who will compete gymnastics.

    FWIW, Dominque Dawes is a little late to the party. USA Gymnastics has already said shorts are acceptable attire for non-international competition (i.e., little girl gymnastics) starting next season. That’s 99.99999 percent of all girls who will compete gymnastics.

    This is a bit of a nitpick but Dominique Dawes is not calling for a change in gymnastics uniforms, but rather gymnastic uniform policy; that being that she thinks individuals should have the option to choose different styles.

    This is a bit of a nitpick but Dominique Dawes is not calling for a change in gymnastics uniforms, but rather gymnastic uniform policy; that being that she thinks individuals should have the option to choose different styles.

    This is a bit of a nitpick but Dominique Dawes is not calling for a change in gymnastics uniforms, but rather gymnastic uniform policy; that being that she thinks individuals should have the option to choose different styles.

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