Blue, Yellow and Red All Over--That’s A’s La Russa

For Oakland A’s manager Tony La Russa, the mistake was as simple as mixing up a blue lineup card and a yellow lineup card.

La Russa found himself in an embarrassing position Thursday when he realized that the A’s Tony Phillips had batted out of order in the second inning in the team’s season finale against the Chicago White Sox.

The error, however, was not discovered until Phillips also had led off the third, drawing a walk from the White Sox starter, Steve Rosenberg.

The lineup presented to the umpires listed Ron Hassey as hitting ahead of Phillips.

The result was that Phillips batted twice, once in the second, grounding out, and again in the third, drawing a leadoff walk.

La Russa noted the error and told the umpires, but the A’s were not penalized.

The reason is that under baseball rules, if the opposing team does not appeal the mistake, whatever happened at the plate cannot be ruled illegal.

Hassey did not think that it was funny because he was the one who got charged with a time at bat, and the groundout, in the second inning.

That’s according to the official statistician in New York City, the Elias News Bureau.

“I didn’t want (Hassey) to know that,” La Russa said. “I told the umpire not to tell Hassey anything.”

La Russa said the mix-up occurred because “I had one lineup on a blue card and another on the yellow card and I gave the umpire the blue card, which was correct. And I relied on the yellow card, which I had in the dugout.”