What is the score of a forfeited game in Major League Baseball?

Major League teams can trade draft picks?

Which of these teams have had called three different cities home?  LA
Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles, Minn Twins, Wash Nationals, SF Giants?

Caparb ?

I?m an ardent baseball fan and would ALMOST regard all 3 questions as
?trick? questions.  Each has some careful assumptions about the
answer.

1.  Score of a forfeited game.  

Answer: it depends on whether or not the game has gone the regulation
5 innings.  If not, it's 0-0; if it's gone longer than 5 innings it's
the score at the time of the forfeit -- even if the "losing" team is
ahead.

Though there is a web page that says that in a forfeit, the official
score is 9-0, it doesn?t match Major League Baseball (MLB) rules. 
However, the web page in question does have a highly interesting
discussion of forfeits in the 20th Century:
?Forfeited Games Caused by Stupid Fans?
http://www.worldzone.net/sports/baseball/disasters.html

Here are the MLB rules, where the instructions are VERY different,
depending on whether the game has completed the regulation 5 innings
or not and who?s leading:

?CALLED AND FORFEITED GAMES (e) (1) If a regulation game is called,
include the record of all individual and team actions up to the moment
the game ends, as defined in Rules 4.10 and 4.11. If it is a tie game,
do not enter a winning or losing pitcher. (2) If a regulation game is
forfeited, include the record of all individual and team actions up to
the time of forfeit. If the winning team by forfeit is ahead at the
time of forfeit, enter as winning and losing pitchers the players who
would have qualified if the game had been called at the time of
forfeit. If the winning team by forfeit is behind or if the score is
tied at the time of forfeit, do not enter a winning or losing pitcher.
If a game is forfeited before it becomes a regulation game, include no
records. Report only the fact of the forfeit.?

Note that there is an official scorer in the stands at the game but
the results are reported to Major League Baseball at the close of the
game by the lead umpire.  A close friend once worked for Sport
Illustrated and for their official scores page, they could not rely
upon Associated Press or other newspapers ? but only one of the
official scorers.

MLB.com
?Official Rules: 10.00 The Official Scorer?
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/official_info/official_rules/official_scorer_10.jsp

So, let?s look at the 4 most-recent forfeits:

1.  August 10, 1995: Dodgers forfeit while trailing in the 9th inning, 2-1

2.  White Sox July 12, 1979: after a riot at Disco Demolition night
between games of a doubleheader, the team forfeits the second game
(thus the 2nd game wasn?t a ?regulation? game, not reaching 5 innings.
 It hadn?t even started.)   This game is still a legend in Chicago
because the co-organizer was Steve Dahl, a local disc jockey who is
still on the air

3.  Cleveland Indians, June 4, 1974: the Indians had been losing all
game against the Texas Rangers but rallied to tie the game 5-5 in the
9th

4.  Washington Senators on the final game of the 1971 season, when the
fans storm the field with the team winning 7-5


I?ll use the data from Retrosheet for the official scores.  Retrosheet
is a baseball research website that assembles official scoring
information on every game.  Here?s what they have for these 3 games ?

Retrosheet
?Boxscores?
http://www.retrosheet.org/

Cardinals 2, Dodgers 1 (score stands)
White Sox 0, Tigers 0 (no game = no score, but it?s still a loss for
the White Sox via forfeit)
Indians 5, Rangers 5 (score stands but it?s still a loss for the Indians)
Senators 7, Yankees 5 ? but Washington still loses via forfeit.  Score stands.


---


2.	Can MLB teams trade draft picks?

The U.S. professional football and basketball leagues allow trading of
?draft picks? or ?draft positions.?  Major League Baseball does not,
largely due to the longer time that it takes baseball draft picks
(which include high school students) to mature.  Also, draft picks
often take up to a year to sign to a contract, then they?re assigned
somewhere in the minor league system (from the lowest or short-season
A league teams to the highest or AAA teams).

However, once a draft pick is signed to a professional baseball
contract, they can be traded.

Now, as for proof I have to rely on commentary because the baseball
trade/draft/waiver rules are VERY obscure.  So we?ll use ESPN?s Jayson
Stark, who follows primarily baseball ? and the rules haven?t changed
yet:

ESPN.com
?Fans deserve compelling amateur draft,? (Stark, June 2, 2003)
http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stark_jayson/1562064.html


3.  In 1901, the Milwaukee Brewers moved to St. Louis to spend five
decades as the St. Louis Browns (1902-1953).  After Bill Veeck was
forced to sell the team in 1953, they became the Baltimore Orioles. 
That?s the one team that?s officially had 3 homes.

BaseballLibrary.com
?St. Louis Browns?
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/S/St_Louis_Browns.stm

The Dodgers played in Brooklyn and Los Angeles; the Giants in New York
and San Francisco.  The Seattle Pilots were a new franchise that
played only one season before being purchased and moved to Milwaukee. 
They have the honor of being the only baseball franchise to play only
one year in their home town.

But after considering those 4 teams it gets tricky: the Nationals have
(so far) played only in Montreal AND San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Many
might not consider the Puerto Rico games as ?home? games because they
were still the Montreal Expos ? but the Expos played as the home team
for a month at the start of the 2004 season as kind of a market test
by Major League Baseball.  And when they open in April at RFK Stadium
as the ?Washington Nationals,? Washington DC will be the third city. 
(Of course you have to rule out the ?home? of Spring Training or lots
of teams would fit the description.)

But, strictly speaking, only the current Orioles have had 3 names in 3
different cities.

Google search strategy:
?St. Louis Browns? history
?draft picks? MLB trades
MLB forfeit rules

So, now you have some good material for new baseball trivia!  ("In
what 1970s game did the home team outscore the visitors but lose?")

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Very good - thanks for your help.

As a side issue, two other MLB teams have played in three cities. The
Philadelphia Athletics moved to become the Kansas City A's and later
to become the Oakland A's.

Also, the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee to become the Milwaukee
Braves and then to Atlanta as the Atlanta Braves.

09/30/1971 - New York at Washington - AL - The last American League
game played in Washington ended in a forfeit win for the New York
Yankees. The Senators were leading 7-5 with two out in the ninth
inning when souvenir hunters stormed onto the field. The field could
not be cleared and the umpire had no choice except to call the game.
The fans had been unruly most of the night due to the fact that the
club was moving to Texas for the 1972 season and some had run onto the
field in the eighth inning delaying the game. - New York Times;
10/01/1971, p 49 (Yankees)

I feel compelled to point out that these questions are for a contest
to be a member of the San Francisco Giants Front Office on Yahoo
Fantasy Sports.  Maybe you should apply Omnivorous. :)

i believe the answer is actually 9-0 as in a forfeit, the forfeiting
team is awarded no runs, and the winning team is given a run for each
inning of the game (not in amature games sometimes only 7 innings are
to be played thus a forfeit score is 7-0 not 9-0)

draft picks, as commonly done in the NBA, can not be traded. players
rights obtained from such picks can be traded. but a blind, 1st
rounder for a 2nd rounder is unacceptable.

Actually, the Twins also played in three cities: Kansas City (as the
Blues), Washington D.C. (as the Nationals/Senators) and Minneapolis.

Rule 2.0 (Definition of Terms) of the MLB Rulebook:

"A FORFEITED GAME is a game declared ended by the umpire in chief in
favor of the offended team by the score of 9 to 0, for violation of
the rules."

Seems like this is the case regardless of who is leading or at what
point the game is forfeited.  Stats count if the game has passed the 5
inning mark, but the score is still 9-0.  So it seems as if it's
possible for a player to score in a game in which his team does not.

The Twins also played at Met Stadium in Bloomington, MN (where the
Mall of America now is), from 1961 until the Metrodome was built.