I was talking to Mike, the commish of our APBA league this weekend and he was telling me about his current APBA replay. The 1961 season. Mike is a sucker for the 60’s decade when it comes to APBA replays. Mike uses the actual lineups and starting rotations when he does his replays. He uses … Continue reading “The 60’s Save rule: a new one on me”
I was talking to Mike, the commish of our APBA league this weekend and he was telling me about his current APBA replay. The 1961 season. Mike is a sucker for the 60’s decade when it comes to APBA replays.
Mike uses the actual lineups and starting rotations when he does his replays. He uses retrosheet.org to facilitate this. He came across something unusual in the boxscores regarding saves. There were instances of pitchers who were attributed saves even though they didn’t finish the game. Of course, nowadays finishing the game is one of the requirements of recording a save.
But looking through Retrosheet, I found a couple references of pitchers who recorded a save though they didn’t finish the game. After some research, I found this (emphasis mine):
The rule for a Save did not exist in the 1965 version of the baseball rules. A save was not introduced to baseball scoring until 1967. The rule in 1967 was:
“Credit a save to a relief pitcher who enters a game with his team in the lead if he holds the lead the remainder of the game, provided he is not credited with the victory. A relief pitcher cannot be credited with a save if he does not finish the game unless he is removed for a pinch hitter or pinch runner. When more then one relief pitcher qualifies for a save under the provisions of this rule, credit the save to the relief pitcher judged by the scorer to have been the most effective. Only one
save can be credited in any game.”
News to me. I wonder if Mike will be using this rule in his replay.
