For this one, I’m first going to set the scene and then you can watch video of the 30-minute chaos that followed at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs are hosting the Cincinnati Reds in the last of a three-game series. They’d lost the first two, but entered the day in first place in the NL East with a 26-17 record, a game ahead of the second-place Phillies.
No one scored in the first inning, and the Reds went down 1-2-3 in the top of the second.
In the bottom of the second inning, Leon Durham led off with a walk and Mel Hall singled him to third. That brought up Ron Cey.
What followed Ron Cey’s hit was one of the craziest scenes ever at Wrigley Field. From the Retrosheet boxscore:
Pitcher Soto ejected by 3B umpire Rippley for arguing that apparent home run by Cey was foul; he bumped umpire during argument; the call was reversed and Cubs manager Frey ejected by HP umpire Runge; as Soto was led back to the bench, a Wrigley Field vendor hit Soto with a cup of ice; Soto was suspended for 5 days; both teams played the rest of the game under protest; the delay for the brawl and ejections was 32 minutes
Third base umpire Steve Rippley, who was in just his second MLB season (he eventually umpired through 2003), called Cey’s blast a home run. From Fred Mitchell’s game story in the Tribune:
According to crew chief Bob Engel, who was umpiring at second base, Rippley told [plate umpire Paul] Runge: “Maybe I missed it. What did you see, Paul?”
The crew, including first-base ump Randy Marsh, conferred and the call was changed to a foul ball.
That set off Cubs manager Jim Frey and third-base coach Don Zimmer, who you can see in the video were both livid. Frey, as noted in the Retrosheet recap, was ejected, though that didn’t stop him from going back on the field several times to continue the “discussion.”
Meanwhile, things had begun to settle down when Reds starter Mario Soto — who had a reputation as a bit of a hothead — got hit, but not by just a cup of ice, per Mitchell:
As Soto was carried off the field kicking and screaming, a Wrigley Field vendor behind the Reds’ dugout tossed a bag of ice that hit Soto in the chest. Soto grabbed a bat and tried to go after the vendor.
In some ways you can’t blame Soto for that, whoever that vendor was shouldn’t have done that, though grabbing a bat was a bit much.
About Cey’s hit, Mitchell wrote:
Cey’s drive bounced off the screen in left field. The ball was recovered by Wally Altmann of Alsip, a sophomore at St. Xavier College.
“The ball was foul by about six feet,” Altmann said. “It never went over the fence. It wasn’t even close.”
Thanks to the internet I was able to locate Wally Altmann, all these years later. He now lives in Florida, but still has that ball — signed by Cey and Harry Caray. He confirmed again that the ball was foul, and said, “We actually went to another game and got to meet Cey and be special guests courtesy of WGN.”
The reason Frey got so upset was the reversal of the call:
“It does not matter one iota,” Frey said. “Not one-half of one percent does it matter that it was foul. If the third-base umpire made a strong, definite call, which he did, he should live with it. He’s the closest man to the play.
“I’m 100 percent sure that if the Reds don’t come out and argue, we have a three-run homer. I think he let the Reds put a question in his mind. I think he took an out by asking the home-plate umpire if he had a play. He was intimidated by the Reds.”
“Our main objective is to get the call correct,” Engel said. “After conferring, we decided the ball went foul.”
And that is the point of modern replay review: To get calls correct. If such a play happened in 2024, it would immediately go to replay review — in this case via the home run review (“boundary protocol,” as it’s officially called), and with modern HD television cameras, they’d get a really good look at it and make the right call within a minute or two. The video you see here doesn’t really show exactly where the ball crossed the foul pole, but given the eyewitness testimony of Wally Altmann, the umpires got the call correct.
So instead of a three-run homer, Cey had simply fouled a ball off. Among other things, it took the grounds crew about 10 minutes to clear all the trash thrown on the field from the bleachers. When play resumed, Cey eventually hit a line drive to shortstop for an out, and the Cubs didn’t score in the inning.
After the Reds took a 2-0 lead with single runs in the fourth and sixth, the Cubs took a 3-2 lead with a three-run sixth, with RBIs coming from Ryne Sandberg (double), Gary Matthews (single) and Keith Moreland (sacrifice fly). But the Reds pushed across single runs in the eighth and ninth, and though Jody Davis doubled with two out in the bottom of the ninth, putting the tying run in scoring position, Richie Hebner struck out to end the game.
One more note about this game, which you can see if you watch the entire game video above, is that the Cubs starter was Dennis Eckersley, wearing No. 40 instead of his familiar No. 43. Eckersley had been acquired by trade with the Red Sox just two days earlier and this was his first start in a Cubs uniform. He could have been forgiven for thinking, “What did I get myself into?” after this crazy brawl. Eckersley threw a complete game in a losing effort that afternoon.
About the unusual number, at the time of the trade Don Schulze, a rookie righthander, was wearing No. 43. Schulze was sent to the minors shortly afterward and Eckersley reclaimed No. 43, which he’d wear for the rest of his Hall of Fame career. Schulze, meanwhile, would soon be part of a very important 1984 Cubs trade.
