Now Schaefer was known as a prankster. If he thought the game should be called due to darkness, he was known to carry a lantern out into the field to give the ump a not so subtle hint.
The first time Schaefer stole first from second occurred sometime in 1908. There is no official record of it, but his teammate Davy Jones talked to Larry Ritter about it in his book, The Glory of Their Times:
So now we had men on second and third. Well, on the next pitch Schaefer yelled, ‘Let’s try it again!’ And with a blood-curdling shout he took off like a wild Indian back to first base, and dove in headfirst in a cloud of dust. He figured the catcher might throw to first — since he evidently wouldn’t throw to second — and then I would come home same as before. But nothing happened. Nothing at all. Everybody just stood there and watched Schaefer, with their mouths open, not knowing what the devil was going on.
The umpires were just as confused as everybody else. However, it turned out that at that time there wasn’t any rule against a guy going from second back to first, if that’s the way he wanted to play baseball, so they had to let it stand. So there we were, back where we started, with Schaefer on first and me on third. And on the next pitch, darned if he didn’t let out another war whoop and take off again for second base. By this time the Cleveland catcher evidently had enough, because he finally threw to second to get Schaefer, and when he did I took off for home and both of us were safe.
This will never happen again in baseball, thanks to Rule 52, Section 2, which became Rule 7.08i and reads:
After he has acquired legal possession of a base, [if] he runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game… [the] umpire shall immediately call “Time” and declare the runner out…
This rule was written shortly after his death, probably due to Schaefer.
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