Kansas City Royals 5 at New York Yankees 4 F — When the Royals visited Yankee Stadium in late July of 1983, everyone assumed that the Independence Day celebrations were over. However, George Brett provided some fireworks of his own with a controversial game-winning home run off of Yankee closer Goose Gossage. When home plate umpire Tim McClelland declared Brett out due to an excessive amount of pine tar on his bat, the Royals superstar flipped his lid and ignited a brouhaha that took nearly a month to settle. When the dust cleared, Brett’s home run was allowed, although it wasn’t until August that the two teams could finally complete the contest and make the “Pine Tar Game” part of history.

47 Comments

  1. wow. I knew that was Hall Mcray coming to bat. Pretty good after being close to 40 years since seeing all these guys. Too funny.

  2. When Brett was in his prime he was a force. I remember him being about as feared at the plate as anyone in any era.

  3. When he used home plate as a measure which was news to me, it was obviously clear if the pine tar was too high on the bat.

  4. 2:24:40 the moment Yankees fans and Brett haters HOPE the Yankees pull it out and if they don’t…. Their consolation is Brett gets mad! Brett loses his mind! Brett is butthurt! In other words, if those pussies were in Brett’s shoes they wouldn’t have done anything. They would have accepted it, tucked their tails in and cried. Lmao
    Side note: look at all those empty fairweather Yankee fan seats?! I guess Billy Ball was on its last legs.

  5. Funny the announcers say the never seen the umpires measure the bat across the plate when they were there in 75 when the Twins and Yankees had this happen

  6. Every newscast across the country, including WBBM channel 2, recapped that game in the sports segment.

  7. George kept putting the pine tar further and further up the bat handle.. and he got caught by a wickedly sharp- eyed Yankee coaching staff. Wow..

  8. fun fact.i believe the royals contested the call and the game was restarted at a later date 2 witch the royals won.

  9. Why was it only the Yankees manager talking with the umpire? If they had an argument in defense they would have been out there. Obviously they knew it was illegal.

  10. EXPLAIN THIS TO ME! how could the league OVERTURN the umpire's call in this game, but NOT overturn the BAD umpire's call (the umpire admitted he made the wrong call) that cost Detroit Tiger pitcher Galarraga a perfect game on the final play?!?!?!

  11. Umpire enforced the rule. It was a dumb rule, but a rule none the less. The ruling should have stood .

  12. And what nobody ever mentions or talks about is why did they have to come back and finish this game if he was caught red handed with the smoking gun
    Stupid rule or not it still was the rule back then so why did they have to come back to play this game

  13. George Brett was not a pleasant player of a normal standard of a professional – I have heard some weird things about him. Awfully strange. I liked Robin Yount more.

  14. Starting at about 2:10:00 the entire sequence is entertaining…Goose hopping out of the car from the bullpen while the announcers say "sponsored by Skoal Bandit," then the Brett at bat and subsequent events

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