I'm no lip reading expert, but it appears that Brett said, "Excuse me sir, I respectfully disagree with your call and kindly ask that you reconsider." That's what it looked like to me anyway.
I was there that day, on the Loge level behind 1st base heading to outfield. After the homerun, everyone got up, and started to walk out of the park. My wife and I stayed put, as we knew that trying to leave the parking garage for the next hour would have been foolish. We saw the discussions on the field. We didn't know what the TV/Radio announcers were saying. We watched the umpire go towards the Royals dugout and call Brett out. Pandemonium ensued in the STANDS. Everyone who was walking out stopped, turned around, and went back to their seats. The short clips you see can't come CLOSE to the frenzy going on in the stands. I've never seen anything that comes close in comparison to this, and that includes Reggie Jackson's 3 homeruns in the World Series.
As others have stated, the bat is in the HOF. The announcer is actually wrong about why the bat was taken off the field. It was taken off the field by another HOFer, Brett's teammate and memorabilia collector Gaylord Perry, who realized he had just witnessed a piece of baseball history.
Fun fact: My dad’s friend met George Brett a while ago and had him sign a bottle of pine tar to which George said, “Well this is a first”. And then signed it and my dad’s friend gave it to me and now it’s on my shelf in my room. :)
@@rootbeer2399 Imgur links show up in youtube comments though, so it would be easy to just snap a pic, upload, and paste the link here. But alas, it's just an attention-baiting story.
Ugly Ass what you said makes no sense because you said old school commentators like the one in this video are so much better then modern ones but vin scully is an old school commentator he's been commenting for over 40 years you ugly ass
One of the best moments in baseball history. I remember this very well. George Brett running out of the dugout. A sheer classic moment that will live forever.
Knowing that it’s 40 years old, makes me feel super old. I was 27 at the time. But I thought I remembered Rizzuto & Bill White on the call. 🤷🏼♂️ Always been a Tigers fan, & they were building towards the next year, so I didn’t care about the Royals, but I sure loved when the Yankees lost. Brett was an all time GAMER!
I was at this game. Will never forget. July 24th. I was invited by my friend's family who used to make a 5-hour one way trek to see a game annually. Never would've guessed it would turn out like this!
I am Phillies fan so I was all about Mike Schmidt so anything that went against Brett (rival in my head) was a ok. Having said that...what a ridiculous call after Brett hits a crushing homerun.
@@carlhammill5774 Same here, and that was on my 16th Birthday, too! Still, Brett is mainly saying "B.S." a lot in that clip and never actually throws any kind of punch. It's all arms flailing, tobacco chewing, yelling kind of thing. Good times!
@@orbyfan No way. We weren't driving another 5 hrs one way and giving up our ticket stubs for 4 outs of baseball. 😂 Btw, I still have my ticket stub. 👍
Billy Martin was a mad genius....and I am a diehard Royals fan. He knew about the bat but waited until this huge moment in the game to make the call. They don't make rivalries like this anymore
Bro I wore the wrong jersey once, and the other teams coach didn't point it until I hit a double in a clutch situation 😒 I had like 2 at bats before this where noone said anything
logalogalog - Another “coincidence”: Dusty Baker was Sammy Sosa’s manager still the time (after managing Barry Bonds). Now he’s going to manage the Astros. 🙄
+Robert Weingartner Here is precedent that should call for the Detroit Lions/Seattle Seahawks game to be reconvened with that sloppy call inside of 2 minutes to go.
+SuperPat88 so should all packers games where the calls went against them - refs hate the packers and the rules are literally written to make sure the packers can't win. luckily a rodg and brett favre (see! george brett/brett favre!!! its a brett to brett time-space continuum) are so ridiculously good you can't legislate them out of the nfl
Brett was this furiously animated only because it was nearly impossible to get a hit off of Goose Gossage, let alone a home-run. Pretty funny now, but if I were a Royal fan watching this I would have smashed the television.
@@marklewen9384 I imagine that it was probably similar to my reaction when my ex-wife bought me an expensive oil-painting of a barn for Father's Day. Lol!
It is my opinion that this demonstrates the highest possible level of angry that a person can show while not physically harming another person...if a scale of angry were to be made...this would be number 1
As an Australian, I remember having a conversation at work years ago with a colleague who said he didn't understand why Americans weren't interested in cricket as it was a similar style game with batting, running, pitching etc and Americans love to be able to recite scores and batting averages just as much as Australians do with cricket Considering a cricket player once received a several thousand dollar fine for 'questioning an umpires call' by offhandedly saying "oh.......ya reckon?" I simply said "This is why" 2:38
This is absolutely classic, I'll never forget seeing this highlight on the 11:00 news. I always wondered if Brett would have hit Mclelland if they hadn't stopped him. Billy Martin was a sly old fox and waited for the opportune time to bring this to the ump's attention. One of the most iconic moments in baseball history.
Billy Martin was a piece of s--t who paid attention to the wrong things and was always fighting even with his team. He had no control over himself, no more than an average ballplayer and could have been a great manager if he had learned to do things right.
I was at this game with my father. He was ready to leave the game because the Yankees were winning & wanted to beat the traffic going home. I convinced him to stay when Brett came up to bat. So glad we stayed to watch this happen.
For the idiots in the comments that think George cheated, he didn't: "The Royals protested the game. Four days later, American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the Royals' protest. In explaining his decision, MacPhail noted that the 'spirit of the restriction' on pine tar on bats was based not on the fear of unfair advantage, but simple economics; any contact with pine tar would discolor the ball, render it unsuitable for play, and require that it be discarded and replaced-thus increasing the home team's cost of supplying balls for a given game. MacPhail ruled that Brett had not violated the spirit of the rules nor deliberately 'altered [the bat] to improve the distance factor'." The Royals came back and won 5-4, with Brett's homerun counting. :)
I remember when Lee MacPhail reversed the decision. But he also ruled that the Yankees had to play the bottom of the 9th with the Royals one run ahead, because they didn’t get a chance to have their last at-bats on the day of the game. So the two teams met again just to play the bottom of the 9th and the Yankees failed to score, resulting in a win for the Royals.
so weird looking when they zoom in on the crowd as the ball lands and seeing so many fans and nobody wearing a jersey or shirt with the team logo, just normal clothes.
@@slimpickens9135 You've been randomly calling everyone peasants. Do you have a Napoleon Complex or are you just testing out a "vewy speshul new wowd you leawned today~"
Probably cause it was something families could afford back then, as opposed to majority single people of today who don't have kids and the responsibilities of the previous generations.
@@Charlie-eq3dj Replica jerseys weren't really a thing yet and wearing ones that did exist wasn't part of the spots culture yet. Especially considering very few games were even offered on free TV. So it wasn't really a visual reality for most fans. Maybe one a week like the Sunday day games were on free TV. I am from Minnesota and when the Twins won in 1991, the nightly games were carried exclusively on pay-per-view. I had to listen to the games on the radio.
I remember this like it was yesterday. My dad loved the Yankees, and I hated them more than anything on earth. K.C. was my team and George was my all-time hero, but he could get mad faster than anyone. His homer was actually reinstated later.
Always loved George Brett , had the guts to go out there and challenge the Yankees and their umpires. Noticed that no KC managers were out there defending there player. Anyhow if memory serves me correctly the league made them replay the last inning.
My dad remembers watching this game back in 83. This was a couple of months before he and my mom moved onto the street they still live on now (less than 6 years before I was born) and quite a few of our neighbors across the street are life long Yankees fans, so I'm sure they would've all been standing outside talking about it that evening lol. They were all in their 20s/30s back then, and even used to watch the games at each others houses. Just a few weeks after Dave Righetti's 4th of July no hitter.
‘83 was a great summer for baseball. I’m a lifelong diehard Yankee fan and remember Righetti’s no hitter on the 4th of July which was also the Boss’s birthday and of course the pine tar. What a time
I remember watching this game and then watching the continuation I believe weeks later after the overruled the umpires decision. I believe Guidry finished playing centerfielder and Mattingly at second base. Unforgettable moment.
very good point.........The Royals protested the game, upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ordered that the game be continued from the point of Brett's home run.[6][7][8] The game was resumed 25 days later on August 18, and officially ended with the Royals winning 5-4.......en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tar_Incident
They didn't do it on purpose. They just used so much that it got all over their gloves, and then when they wold hold the bat, it would get all over it. Bat handles weren't toothpicks that splintered into 1000 pieces any time you missed the sweet spot back then. He had probably been using that back for over a month. Over time, the pine tar level rose.
I think they're afraid it will stick a small amount on the ball so the fielders will get pine tar on their hands or maybe it will fly slightly differently.
I met George Brett today at a royals game, my baseball coach is mike Sweeney and him and George Brett are great friends I have a signed George Brett ball and it was really cool to meet him
Obviously he DIDN'T. This is a clear case of him NOT knowing the rules. Which is why the home run stood and the Yankees lost. Because the rules didn't call for Brett to be called out. Just that the bat be taken out of the game. Nothing else. The home run stands. If you want to think that it helped Brett hit the home run, then Billy Martin cost the Yankees the win by not informing the refs sooner.
The Royals actually won this game. The AL president reversed the umpire's ruling a few days later after examining the bat himself. The teams met again a few weeks later to finish the game. Four (4) straight outs, and the game was over with the Royals winning 5-4.
The thing I notice about this video is how comparatively run down the field at Yankee Stadium looked versus the perfectionist manicuring you see in most MLB parks today.
ME too! I just posted this on Facebook. Feel free to copy... We are living through another Pine Tar Incident The Pine Tar Incident occurred during a baseball game in 1983 wherein the Kansas City Royals played the New York Yankees. With the Royals trailing, George Brett hit a home run that would give his team the lead. The Yankees manager noticed a large amount of tar on Brett’s bat. He requested that it be inspected. The umpires reviewed the bat and determined that the amount of tar on the bat exceeded the allowable amount, according the game’s rules. They nullified Brett’s home run and called him out. This resulted in the game ending with the Yankees winning. Please notice how the side that was called out, in this case the Royals, reacts when caught violating the rules of the game. It doesn’t end there. The Royals protested the game and four days later, the league’s president ruled that Brett’s home run counted. He explained that the “spirit of restriction” on pine tar was not based on an unfair advantage, but a simple measure because too much pine tar would discolor the balls. It was an economic decision, not one based on a tangible impact of either teams’ performance during a game. Brett’s home run was restored and the game was continued with Brett’s home run counting. However, Brett was retroactively ejected from the game due to his outburst against the umpire. The coach and other players were also ejected for their outbursts and arguing with the umpires. The Royals pitcher was also ejected for giving the bat to the bat boy so that he could hide it in the clubhouse. If the game is our election and the overly tarred bat is the evidence of potential election fraud and irregularities, then some questions linger. What will our umpires and league officials ultimately decide? Who tarred the bat? Who is hiding or attempting to hide the bat? Who will be the first to burst out against the umpires? The game continues…
Yes, it was still in the rulebook, but the extra pine tar a little up the barrel gave Brett no real extra advantage. The Commissioner looked at it the same way, and reversed the decision.
Kind of reminds me of the Jim Trabor incident...on some levels it is pretty funny, but to be fair, George was a competitor, and the Royals and Yanks were pretty bitter rivals at that time. Now that the Evil Empire and KC are back to their winning ways, maybe they'll be rivals again...it's what fans like me live for.
I've always maintained that the thing that pissed Brett off the most was that Martin would actually play that card. Royals Yankees back then one of the best rivalries in baseball look at all the Hall of Famers just in this 4 minute clip
One thing that stood out to me was that a guy just hit a go-ahead home run in the ninth inning and he simply trotted the bases, shook hands with the third base coach then went to the dugout to be congratulated by teammates. No chest bumping or wild dances at home plate. Much more cool back then.
Johnny Carson had a great tease referring to this incident on his Tonight Show. Apparently at that time George Brett had been suffering through a severe bout of hemorrhoids. Johnny quipped: "Poor George Brett. Apparently today he got his Preperation H mixed up with his Pine Tar." 😂
@Squirrel Master The homerun landed more than eight rows deep and it wasn't even a strike. It _was_ crushed. Using a bat with too much pine tar is not cheating. Pine tar was spoiling too many baseballs, hence the rule. That's why Lee MacPhail overturned the rookie umpire's erroneous decision to call the _batter_ out. The player at 2:41 bears no resemblance to a coward. None.
I was six years old and in a Yankee family, and I swear to god, the 'Pine Tar Game' was discussed more gleefully than any other news that year. I remember hearing every detailed discussed over and over on WFAN on my dads car radio.
WFAN didn't exist in 1983. During those years, the call letters for the station was WNBC. WNBC declined after firing Howard Stern and changed over to WFAN in 1988 and was the first sports radio station which was so successful, it spurred on the creation of sports radio stations all over the nation.
The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld their protest and ordered that the game be restarted from the point of Brett's home run. The game was restarted on August 18 and officially ended with the Royals winning 5-4.
Don Mattingly played 2nd base and was due up 2nd in the 9th I believe if he got a hit it would have given him a 42 game hitting streak maybe not the right total but a rookie record if he did he grounded out. Ron Guidry was in cf
Billy Martin knew about the pine tar but didn't disclose it until the opportune moment. Most baseball fans then (judging from letters to magazines such as Sporting News and Baseball Digest) thought it was a mistake for the AL President to reverse the call of the umpires.
Ed Vega Whitey Herzog did something similar with Howard Johnson of the Mets in 1987. He knew Hojo had a corked bat but waited till he hit a HR to have it confiscated.
Yes...because most baseball fans are idiots, like so many people on the internet today. They hear about something, but don't research it enough to REALLY know what they are talking about. Lee McPhail DID research it. So he knew that the penalty for too much pine tar was simply that your bat is taken out of play, unless you ask for it back and clean it up before your next at bat. NOTHING is done to the player, or any of his previous at bats.
Everyone forgets that the great Goose Gossage served up that gopher ball to the legendary George Brett with 2 outs in the top of the 9th. What a great 1980’s rivalry and dramatic moment in baseball history.
Yes! Probably saying something like "Why didn't you bring the damn bat to the dugout?" You can see the batboy initially retrieving the bat at home plate. And he stops for some reason (probably because Billy Martin was screaming about the bat) and obviously handed it to the lame ump. He should have ignored Martin like he didn't hear anything and brought it back to the KC dugout where there would be no chance in Hell of Martin ever getting at it. A good lesson for batboys! Do your job for YOUR team!
The umpires for the Pine Tar game between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees in 1983 are (#36/AL/ Tim McClelland), (#37/AL/Drew Coble), (#2/AL/Nick Bremigan), and (#15/AL/Joe Brinkman).
Recently found out they replayed this game. The Royals protested the game, and won since the pine tar on the bat rule was based on economics, not competition. The pine tar would discolor the baseball if it was on the part of the bat that hit the ball, rendering it unusable again, increasing cost of baseballs for the home team. Since they won the protest, they continued play after the home run, and went on to win the game 5-4. Funnily enough, the Yankees protested the resumption of play after trying to throw Brett (who was preemptively ejected for his reaction we all know and love) out at first as the first throw of the game. The Umps called him safe, and they called him safe at second when they threw to second as well. Billy Martin then tried to argue that “None of the Umps that are here saw him touch first base, so he is out at first.” Then, as a show of dominance I would bow to if seen with my own eyes, the umpire pulls out an affidavit that said all 4 umps from the original game saw the players touch each plate. Moral Of The Story: I Miss Protests.
