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Show 1 BASEJB M.I.s BIGGEST Hon; - HODGE AND WARD TOSS BALL AWAY WITH RUNNERS ON TFTROWTNG the ball away wlthoul th permission of the umpire m something a bit new in the way f.;' Ivory stuff In the old days every now and then some coachcr would ask a "rookie" pitcher to ec the ball Occasionally the obliging "rookie' would throw It to the coacher, who would then let the ball go by. while the runners dashed for the plate The players to be involved !n the latest escapade of t lint sort were Charley O'Leary of the Yankees and Bob Hasty of the Athletics. Several years ago in a game at the Polo grounds with runners on second and third. O'Leary coaching on third, requested Hasty to lei him look at the ball. The umpire -saved Hast Feeling that he should pn-s Judgment on Lhe ball if anything was wrong, th' umpire um-pire called time Jus' before Hasty obligingly tossed the ball to O'Lear; Of course, O'Veaty stepped oul "i the way and both runners scored However, the umpire sent ihem bmh back as he had previously called time, suspending pla . Pitcher Hodge of Chicago and Second Sec-ond Baseman Ward of .New York figure fig-ure in the two freak "boneheed plays" of 1922 Due to the concrete stands, a ball Is usually rendered unfit for play it hits the rough concrete If the play er discovers the ball l6 rouKh, he la supposed to throw It to the umpir" for his Inspection. Failure to do that little thiDg caused some very unpleasant moments for Hodge and V ard. In a game at Detroit with Chicago lending by one run. Detroit got runners run-ners on flrFt and recond Hodge, pitching, made up Lis mind that the : ball was unfit for play, and deliberate-1 ly i brew it into the Detroit dvgout The umpire in charge was forced to score the runner from second and advance ad-vance the other runner to third That runner also scored. Chicago managed to win out with a run to spare, so1 ihe "bone" on the part of Pitcher Hodge wasn't so costly as U might hae been. On Decoration day in New York, the Yankees were leading the Athletics 2 to 1 up to the eighth In that Inning with one down Johnston singled against the rightfield wall The contact con-tact with the stand cut the ball badly. It was thrown to Second Harem tin Yv ard. who seeing that it was unfit for play, threw it Into the New York dugout, dug-out, which entitled Johnston to go to third He scored on a sacrifice fly. tying up the game Ward himself scored the winninc run in the last of the eighth, so he atoned for his boot. |