One of the most popular baseball players of the 1880s was a catcher-outfielder named Michael Joseph “King” Kelly, who played for Cincinnatti, Chicago, New York and Boston. Kelly was a good hitter and a great baserunner. When he tried to steal a base, his fans would shout, “Slide, Kelly, Slide!” This phrase was soon printed in the newspapers and made Kelly famous.
Kelly was also an alert ballplayer who was always looking for a way to get an advantage over the other team. One day, when he was sitting on the bench, and opposing batter hit a high foul ball that none of Kelly’s teammates would be able to catch. Kelly leaped off the bench and went after the ball. At the same time he was shouting to the umpire, “Kelly now catching!”
Kelly caught the ball, but the umpire refused to allow the catch. “It’s not against the rules,” Kelly declared. “It says in the book that substitutions can be made at any time.” The umpire still wouldn’t call the batter out. But Kelly was right. That winter, a new rule was written into the book. Because of Kelly’s alert play, the new rule said that a player could not enter the game while the ball was in play.
From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kelly#Casey_at_the_Bat
According to Wikipedia, this story is either attributed to Kelly in error, or it took place during an exhibition game. There is also some debate as to whether he was the inspiration for “Casey at the Bat.”
‘Member that game where Calvin Johnson caught that touchdown, I think it was in Chicago, and then the referees said it wasn’t a touchdown because he hadn’t controlled it all the way down, even though he clearly had it and was just celebrating? I’m still mad about that, and I don’t even like Detroit.