They say you see something you’ve never seen before every time you watch a baseball game. I’m sure that fans that attended the May 4th, 1980 game between the Dodgers and Phils at Vet Stadium would agree. (Most of the the info in this story comes from retrosheet.org.)
In the top of the first, the Dodgers’ Davey Lopes singled and Rudy Law reached base on an error. After an out, Law stole 2nd, so now he was on 2nd and Lopes was on 3rd. Steve Garvey hit an infield single, scoring Lopes. Dusty Baker then came up. He hit into a force out, leaving him on first and Law on 3rd. However, Baker had batted out of order. Dallas Green came out of the dugout to protest. The man who should have batted, Ron Cey, was called out, and Baker got to bat again. This time he delivered a 3 run blast to left, giving the Dodgers a 4-0 lead. Green went nuts, saying that the force out should have counted and Cey should have been out (which would have ended that half of the inning.) Green was ejected and then protested the game. He was wrong. The umpires got it correct. The Dodgers went on to win the game, 12-10.
In 2004, as manager of the Cubs, Baker would forget to inform an umpire of a double switch, and the Cubs batted out of order. When that resulted in an automatic out for the Cubs, Baker went wild. He was then ejected from the game, 24 years after his batting out of order had caused Dallas Green to lose his cool and get ejected. Baseball is a funny game.
