Too Many Mitts

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So I take the wife out shopping today. She shops, I sit in the car and read Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008, everyone’s happy.

On page 145 of the Annual, I come across an amusing anecdote about a gentleman named Clay Dalrymple:

One July day in Baltimore in 1969, the umpires were faced with a problem. Clay Dalrymple was to catch for Baltimore that evening, but he emerged from the dugout with both a catcher’s mitt (on his hand) and a fielder’s glove (in his back pocket).

“I asked him about it,” reported home plate umpire John Rice. “And he told me he was going to switch to the fielder’s glove if he had a play at the plate.”

The umpires huddled, and though they couldn’t think of a rule that specifically forbade the use of the second glove, they exacted a promise from Dalrymple that he wouldn’t use the glove until a ruling was made by the league office.

Oriole manager Earl Weaver argued, of course. “If nothing covers it in the rules,” offered Earl, “then why rule against the glove? Why not for?”

This incident (which thanks to the magic of Baseball-Reference, we know occurred in a game against the White Sox) led to the addition of Rule 1.12 to the Official Major League Rules Book. Gotta love Earl Weaver.

And Clay Dalrymple…