Braves and Cards Managers Fined for Hi-Jinks

June 21, 1965 - The fifth inning of yesterday’s game between the Braves and Cardinals at Milwaukee County Stadium didn’t look like baseball. It wasn’t. When National League president Warren Giles heard about it, he called it “farcical play” and fined managers Bobby Bragan of Milwaukee (pictured) and Red Schoendienst of St. Louis $200 each.

Bragan used “stalling” tactics and Schoendienst retaliated with “speed-up” play in the game, which was finally won by the Cards, 6-4.

With rain threatening to force a postponement in the top of the fifth and the Braves trailing, 5-0, Bragan used three pitchers to face three St. Louis batters in hopes that the game would be called before it became official. The Cards thwarted the maneuver by having two baserunners stroll deliberately into outs.

Here’s the way it looked to the 10,644 witnesses: 

With one out in the fifth, Bragan huddled with a pitcher who hadn’t allowed a run, then replaced him. Dick Groat of the Cards singled and continued to second base, where Frank Bolling waited to tag him out.

Bragan visited the mound again and brought in a new man, who walked Lou Brock. Brock continued walking to second base where, this time, Bolling intentionally dropped the ball for an error. Brock continued to third base, where Eddie Mathews ended the farce by tagging him out to end the inning.

All the moves proved worthless, as the rain held off, and the game went the route.

Both managers said they didn’t care for the sort of tactics they used. But Bragan added: “As long as the rules are the way they are, any manager is going to try to take advantage of them if he thinks he has a chance to avoid defeat. He would not be doing his job if he didn’t.”

Schoendienst admitted the fifth-inning business “was bad all around, even on our part. Baseball is too good a game to have it fouled up that way. We settled down to business after umpire Ed Sudol told us we were going to play the game no matter what happened — even if it poured the rest of the way.”

Bragan said he’d like to see a rule where all rain-interrupted games would be continued from the point of interruption on another date.

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