Dusty Baker in: 'Out of Order' - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

It's one of those things that you don't often see in baseball, but the Reds attempted the old "batting out of turn" trick in their game against the Mets this afternoon. The mistake came from, as these things usually do, out of players being confused after a late game double switch. In this case, David Ross led off the bottom of the ninth with a fly out to right field. But there was one problem, Corey Patterson was due up lead off in the ninth, with Ross batting behind him. So Mets manager Willie Randolph informed the umpires of the mistake, which meant that the out was charged to Patterson, and Ross had to bat again, this time in his correct spot. Ross then singled.

Reds manager Dusty Baker said the batting order was correct on the dugout board and on his scorecard.

"The guys hit out of order, and it's my job to catch that," Baker said. "So I take full responsibility."

Baker said his only other experience with a team batting out of order came when he was a player and he was the one who hit when he wasn't supposed to. When he came up the second time, he hit a three-run homer.

That indeed happened to Baker, as you can see in this boxscore. But Dusty obviously has a short memory, because Baker was actually involved in two other incidents as a manager. Dusty probably doesn't remember the first one, because nobody called him out on it when it happened back in 1998 between Rich Aurilia and Joe Carter. But when Dusty was managing the Cubs back in 2004, there was a pretty intense incident regarding batting out of turn. And oddly enough, it happened against the Reds:

In the top of the seventh inning, Cubs manager Dusty Baker intended to place two new players in the lineup with a double switch but failed to tell Umpire C.B. Bucknor. When the Cubs batted in the bottom of the inning, shortstop Ramon Martinez came to the plate in the ninth spot in the order and doubled. The Reds protested that the Cubs were batting out of order. Pitcher Kent Mercker, the proper batter, was called out. Baker argued with the umpires but was told that the call stood. Yelling & screaming, he tossed his lineup card on the ground and was ejected by Bucknor. Baker threw his hat, walked away and returned; he tossed his hat again, stomped to the dugout and kicked some items in the on deck circle before finally leaving the field. The Cubs won in the bottom of the ninth, 11-10, when Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou hit back-to-back homers to end the game. When Baker arrived home that day, his son called him "Mad Dog."

Perhaps Baker, who wasn't proud of his antics during that game, purposely blocked it out of his mind. But how do you forget getting called "Mad Dog" by your son? I guess the same way you forget who's supposed to bat.