Fifty Years Ago, Graig Nettles Got Caught Red-Handed With an Illegal Bat

This week is the 50th anniversary of one of the stranger moments in Yankees history, the day Graig Nettles got caught cheating by using an illegal bat filled with rubber in a game at Shea Stadium against the Tigers. Lets get to it.

NEW YORK (Sept. 7, 1974) - From his perch behind home plate, veteran Tigers catcher Bill Freehan had seen countless bats shatter during his MLB career, but the one that came apart on this Saturday afternoon at Shea Stadium was unlike any he’d ever seen.

The bat belonged to the Yankees’ Graig Nettles, and when the lefty-swinging third baseman hit a Woody Fryman pitch off the very end to start the fifth inning, the ball found grass in the outfield for a single but the bat severed and it wasn’t just lumber that came spilling out of it.

Freehan immediately pointed this out to the home plate umpire Lou DiMuro, then began collecting the pieces which turned out to be not cork, but rubber. Regardless, it didn’t belong in the bat so once DiMuro had the evidence, he pointed down to first base and called Nettles out.

This was not great timing for the Tigers because back in the second inning, in Nettles’ first at bat in the second game of a doubleheader, he cranked a solo homer with the same bat, and there was nothing Detroit could do about that and wouldn’t you know it, that wound up being the only run as the Yankees earned a split with a 1-0 victory.

“I’m sure that was the same bat he used when he hit the homer,” said Freehan.

In the first game, also using the same bat, Nettles had hit a two-run homer but Detroit still won easily, 8-3.

You know the old saying, “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” Well, despite his plea of innocence, there was no doubt that Nettles was cheating and the only thing funnier than the bat coming apart was Nettles’ attempt at an explanation.

“I didn’t know there was anything in the bat,” Nettles told reporters, apparently with a straight face. “That was the first time I used it.”

Maybe he meant that day, but it certainly wasn’t the first at bat with that bat.

“Some Yankee fan in Chicago gave it to me,” Nettles said. “He said it would bring me luck. I guess he made it.”

This, of course, only made Nettles’ explanation more ludicrous. Major league hitters have always been super particular about the lumber they use, so there was no way that Nettles just took a bat that was given to him by a fan and used it in a game. Zero chance.

According to Nettles, he had previously been using a bat owned by teammate Walt Williams over the previous few days, and selected the “fan’s bat” by accident. “I picked this one up by mistake,” Nettles said. “It looked the same (as Williams’ bat) and felt the same. As soon as the end came off, I knew there was something wrong with it.”

Again, no one was buying that, especially the Tigers.

“I know a lot of guys put cork in the ends of their bat to make them lighter,” Freehan said. “Nettles did it differently than I’ve ever seen it done before. It looked like he had sawed the end off, drilled a hole and put the cork in, then glued the two pieces back together. It came apart because he hit the ball on the end.”

Freehan knew a thing or two about this because his long-time teammate, Norm Cash, was notorious for using corked bats. “I used to see Norm Cash do it a lot,” Freehan said. “Actually what it does is give you better wood. You get better wood in a heavy bat than you do in a light one.”

Like Freehan, Tigers manager (and former Yankee skipper) Ralph Houk didn’t seem to believe Nettles either, while at the same time defending his own team. “We never cheat,” said Houk, perhaps temporarily forgetting about Cash’s presence on his roster. “I don’t know if (Nettles) used it for the home run, but I assume he did.”

Yet, according to baseball rules, the umpires had no power to take away Nettles’ home run because of suspicion that he might have been using an illegal bat at that point in the game.

What was interesting is that DiMuro did not eject Nettles from the game, and the American League ultimately did not suspend Nettles even though it was clear he had cheated.

The game didn’t mean much to the Tigers as they were sitting in last place in the AL East, but it was big for the first-place Yankees. They improved to 74-64 and maintained a one-game lead over the Orioles, though they ultimately couldn’t hold on. Despite a 15-9 finish, the Yankees were overtaken by the red-hot Orioles who won 18 of their last 24 including a huge three-game sweep of the Yankees in New York Sept. 16-18.

• Sept. 2, 2019: The Yankees saw their streak of not getting shut out end at 220 games as the Rangers beat them 7-0 at Yankee Stadium. Texas’ Mike Minor went 7.1 innings allowing just five hits and a walk and then Shawn Kelley and Emmanuel Clase got the final five outs. Current Yankees catcher Jose Trevino homered off losing pitcher Masahiro Tanaka.

  The last time they had been blanked was June 30, 2018 by Chris Sale and the Red Sox. The streak, which ranks second in team history behind a 308-game streak between 1931-33, nearly ended the day before as the Yankees trailed the A’s 4-0 going to the bottom of the eighth. But the Yankees broke through for three runs, and then in the ninth, Brett Gardner and Mike Ford hit back-to-back homers to walk it off 5-4. Ford became the first rookie in Yankees history to hit a pinch-hit walk-off homer.

• Sept. 8, 2007: Alex Rodriguez hit his 50th and 51st home runs of the season, both off Kansas City’s Brian Bannister, and that enabled him to set the MLB record for most homers in a season by a third baseman breaking the mark shared by Mike Schmidt and Adrian Beltre.

  A-Rod also became the first player to hold the home run record at two positions as he had hit 57 as a shortstop for the Rangers in 2002. Additionally, he became only the fourth Yankee to hit 50 or more home runs in a season, joining Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Mickey Mantle. Since then, Aaron Judge has also joined the exclusive club.