ST. LOUIS–For all the roster gymnastics Major League Baseball teams have been put through over the past year by the pandemic, no games have been lost via forfeit.
In fact, the last MLB game to be lost via forfeit involved the St. Louis Cardinals, on this day in 1995.
The Cardinals were in Los Angeles to face the Dodgers. It was ball night. The strike zone was fluid. It was not a good combination.
By the bottom of the ninth inning, fan anger boiled and when Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was ejected, the balls rained down on the field. The Cardinals left the field for their safety, returned, and then left again before the umpires ultimately ruled that the Dodgers would forfeit the contest.
“Obviously, it was an unsafe situation,” First Base umpire Bob Davidson told the Los Angeles Times that night. “We stopped the game on the third time and the fans here kept throwing baseballs on the field, so for our safety and the St. Louis Cardinals’ safety, we forfeited the game.
“They came raining down from the upper deck,” Former Cardinal John Mabry told MLB.com. “And the next thing to come was the bottle of Jack [Daniels] that hit me.”
“It’s a tough enough job without fans throwing baseballs. As an umpire you hate to do that. Games are nine innings, that’s what they’re supposed to be, but this was a dangerous situation,” Davidson told the Times.
“As I walked in the dugout, I was thinking, ‘Hey, that was all right,’” Former Cardinals reliever Tom Henke told MLB.com. “‘I get a save and don’t have to do anything!’”
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