Ignorance of the rule book makes a travesty of the game of baseball

Angels’ manager Mike Scioscia can’t be blamed for thinking the umpires have lost their minds.

What do you call it when the Closer Nobody Wanted returns from exile throwing only fastballs and pays no attention to a man representing the tying run on first base?

You call it some real B.S.— a blown save caused by a case of vast indifference to a baseball fundamental.

If you’re the Tigers, it’s par for the course for the usual Papa Grande crisis. This time around, it comes with a new sort of bi-colored goatee, but otherwise it’s very familiar.

A crisis can be an opportunity, though — if you’re an innovator.

There’s nothing in the rule book that says how long a starter or a reliever can pitch. You could switch all the short men to the front of the game, giving the opposing manager a real headache, and finish with your horse hurling the last six or seven innings. It’s not against the rules.

What fun it would be to have, say, Drew Smyly and Al Alburquerque warming up before every game — and keep the opposing manager guessing until you bring out the lineup card. Have Max Scherzer or Anibal Sanchez ready to enter the game in the third or fourth inning. It would defy all tradition, and even Joe Torre and Bud Selig couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

I return from this temporary fantasy interruption to opine that baseball today could really use the likes of a Tony LaRussa — a working brain not afraid to take bold risks. In bygone days, Tony L. found a way to exploit the rules by bringing in a reliever, having him pitch to a batter, putting him in left field, bringing in another pitcher in place of the replaced outfielder, and thus having two pistols in his pocket ready to fire at will.

Instead, these days we get treated to the obviously addled brain of Astros manager Bo Porter, who last week proved even more ill-suited for the majors than half the Triple-A refugees on his team. In fact, his managerial move would have been laughed out of the minors, college, high school, and even Little League.

At all levels of ball from time immemorial, as any fan who’s been paying even cursory attention knows, a relief pitcher has to pitch to at least one batter before he can be removed. Was Porter really so ignorant that he didn’t know the rule, or was he trying rather futilely to pull a dumb fast one on the umpiring crew?

Of course, you could never get away with such blatant defiance of a universally known rule – just like a basketball coach couldn’t tell a bench player to run out on the court unannounced and receive a pass as play was in progress to make a bucket. Just like a World Cup coach couldn’t get away with a fourth substitution. Just like you can’t suddenly switch your token for a new one and place it on a square of your choice on a Monopoly board.

But in the alternative universe of 2013 MLB, the umps huddled, and then the crew chief, Fieldin Culbreth (yes, really), ruled Porter could take his pitcher out without him having thrown a pitch. Which was a development more surprising than seeing Jose Valverde throw to first base to hold a runner on.

It also raised several questions: Why didn’t someone haul out a rule book, or fire up Google on a smart phone? What was Fieldin thinkin? Why didn’t these umps get shipped to the low minors, along with Porter, on the next train leaving for La-La Land? That’s obviously where they belong.

And what’s next? Will Jim Leyland tell Prince Fielder to run over the pitcher on his way to first base? Will Culbreth’s crew allow the visiting team to swap places and force the home squad to bat in the top of the ninth?

Baseball has always had written rules, unwritten rules, and innovators who devise ways to get around the rules.

The essentials of the game haven’t changed substantially in six generations. But there have always been tweaks — rules put in to thwart the more creative practitioners of the game.

Like Detroit’s Germany Schaefer, who a century ago liked to rattle the pitcher by stealing second base and then on the next pitch stealing first base. His tactic was more a clown act than a coherent strategy, but the lords of baseball did not look kindly on it and devised a rule that banned running the bases in reverse to prevent Schaefer from making a “travesty” of the game.

Someone forgot to tell Porter and Culbreth about that “travesty” prohibition. But then, quite obviously, they know the rule book about as well as Papa Grande knows how to prevent a runner from stealing second. Which is to say, not in the least.