The Pine Tar Game

With two outs in the top of the ninth and the Royals trailing by one, George Brett drove a Goose Gossage fastball into the right-field seats for a two-run home run and a 5–4 Kansas City lead. Yankees manager Billy Martin walked to the plate umpire and pointed at the barrel of Brett's bat.

The pine tar on the handle, Martin argued, ran well past the seventeen inches the rulebook allowed. The umpires measured the bat against the width of home plate, agreed, and called Brett out. The home run was erased, the game was over, and the Yankees had a 4–3 win. Brett came out of the dugout so fast that it took three men to hold him back.

Kansas City protested. Four days later the American League president sided with the Royals on the spirit of the rule, reinstated the home run, and ordered the game resumed from that point. It finished on August 18 with the Royals winning 5–4, and the rulebook was rewritten that winter.