Word: batted
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...dressing room on charges of "willfully causing unnecessary cruelty to animals." The possible penalty: a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail. Yankee Manager Billy Martin, loser of a dispute involving a home run hit by George Brett's now famous pine-tarred bat, felt that his star was getting a bad rap. "They say Winfield hit the gull on purpose," said Martin. "They wouldn't say that if they could see the throws he's been making all year...
...skin against unpolished timber, so the T-85s he orders by the cord from the Hillerich & Bradsby Co. in Kentucky are unstained, pure white bolts of mountain ash, legendary Louisville Sluggers. In order to keep his grip without gloves, the Kansas City third baseman takes tar and slathers every bat like a small town honoring a scoundrel. About the middle of the club, maybe a little higher up than the label, Brett cultivates a sticky reserve for when his palms get especially clammy, like when Goose Gossage is pitching...
...incidentally, stands for Throneberry, the first baffling circumstance in last week's bizarre comeback story of a baseball bat that hit the losing home run. Wood is not a casual concern to ballplayers. Why a .353 hitter like Brett would lumber along with a Marvelous Marv Throneberry model (lifetime .237) is the sort of paradox that, scientists say, has trees talking to themselves. With two men out and one runner on base in the top of the ninth inning, the New York Yankees leading the Royals, 4-3, Brett took up his gooey cudgel and went out to meet...
There are rules regarding the personal customizing of bats, as Yankee Third Baseman Graig Nettles well knows. Several seasons ago, the barrel of Nettles' bat went off embarrassingly and a spray of little rubber balls shot forth. Nettles was the first man ever to bounce out to the third baseman, the shortstop and the second baseman all at once. Recently in Kansas City, he noticed Brett's bat was duty and mentioned it to Coach Don Zimmer...
...playing field." The umpires' call was "technically defensible"; MacPhail did not blame them. With a flourish, he even commended "Manager Martin and his staff for their alertness." But all future complaints about pine tar will have to be lodged before the fact. Brett's cherished bat, "a seven-grainer," one ring for every year of a tree's troubled life, was returned to him with the heralded news that he had 20 home runs, not 19, and there are still two outs in the top of the ninth. The Royals are leading...