by David Nemec
At the turn of the twentieth century, among the few weapons an umpire had—apart from his fists—was the authority to fine players. In 1895 a rule was created allowing umpires to assess fines of $25 to $100 for specified misconduct. The following year, the sanction was broadened so that umpires could also fine players $25 for vulgar or indecent language; but even this power could not help an umpire when an entire team got on his case.
In a doubleheader at Louisville on July 16, 1897, the aforementioned umpire Tom Lynch heaved two New York Giants players, shortstop George Davis and first baseman Bill Clark, out of the first game and then refused to work the second contest after the opener ended in a near brawl. Jimmy Wolf, a Louisville native and an ex-Falls City outfielder, volunteered to sub in the nightcap. With New York up, 7–2, in the ninth, Giants starter Mike Sullivan hit a wild streak—or so judged Wolf—and reliever Amos Rusie was no improvement. Ball after ball was called by Wolf until Tom McCreery walked to force in the tying run. The Giants then surrounded Wolf, and the crowd surged onto the field to protect one of Louisville’s favorite sons. The police eventually had to haul several Giants players off the field so that the game could continue, with Louisville winning, 8–7.
During the nineteenth century, there were also numerous occasions when the police had to escort umpires to safety after a game. In an American Association contest between Cincinnati and Washington on May 31, 1884, umpire Terry Connell forfeited the game to Cincinnati when Washington manager Holly Hollingshead, wearied of watching every decision Connell made go against his men, pulled them off the field with the Ohio club ahead, 6–0. Connell no sooner announced the forfeit than the crowd in the nation’s capital swarmed onto the diamond to vent their wrath.
Finding himself surrounded, Connell backpedaled toward the outfield. To help him escape with his life, the Cincinnati club concealed its carriage behind a gate in the ballpark fence. At a prearranged signal, the gate was flung open and several policemen pushed the terrified umpire through it and lifted him into the carriage. With the crowd in mad pursuit and the driver frantically whipping the horses, Connell fled down the street in a cloud of dust.
What finally gave an umpire enough protection to make his job tolerable was not so much a change in the rules as a change in a custom. Prior to the 1898 season, the National League conceded the possibility that the traditional one-umpire system might no longer be adequate by outlining the responsibilities each umpire would have in a game where two officials were assigned, but most games still had only one man in blue. Toward the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, largely upon the lead of the American League, both major leagues permanently began appointing two umpires to work almost every game, thereby providing more protection (as well as better coverage of the action). Three became the norm by the 1920s, and beginning in 1952 fans grew accustomed to seeing four umpires on the field for every game.
Why did major-league owners wait so long to begin using two umpires in each game? The obvious answer is to save money, but an equally important reason was that the owners of the stronger teams for a long time preferred the way games could be manipulated into victories with only one umpire officiating to improving the quality of their product. The players knew better. A players’ rebellion when salary restrictions were imposed after the 1889 season ended in the players forming their own league, called fittingly the Players’ League. Among the innovations the players introduced was to schedule two umpires to work every game, one behind the plate and the other on the bases. Unfortunately, the lesson was lost on the owners once the Players League rebellion was suppressed.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS TO UMPIRES
Among the 13 General Instructions given to umpires these two somewhat ironically follow one another.
Do not allow criticism to keep you from studying out bad situations that may lead to protested games. Carry your rule book. It is better to consult the rules and hold up the game ten minutes to decide a knotty problem than to have a game thrown out on protest and replayed.
Keep the game moving. A ball game is often helped by energetic and earnest work of the umpires.
Heavy as the pressure now is to keep games moving as rapidly as humanly possible, there is no limit to the amount of time an umpiring crew can take to “decide a knotty problem.” Long before the rule book stated that the first requisite for an umpire is to get decisions right, arbiters regarded it as an unwritten principle of their profession. In a May 20, 1922, game between the St. Louis Browns and New York Yankees that in the long run would have considerable bearing on the American League pennant race, an umpires’ conference resulted in a decision change that forced play to continue well after everyone present thought the contest was over. With St. Louis trailing, 2–1, with two out in the top of the ninth, two Browns pinch-hitters in succession, Chick Shorten and Pat Collins, singled to bring leadoff batter Jack Tobin to the plate. Tobin hit a dribbler to Yankees first sacker Wally Pipp, who tossed the ball to pitcher Sam Jones, racing to cover. When Jones crossed the bag ahead of Tobin, base umpire Ollie Chill gave the out signal and the Yankees left the field. Shorten rounded third base, however, and kept running until he crossed the plate as Browns manager Lee Fohl, coaching at first, began arguing with Chill that Jones was juggling the ball when he first tagged the bag. Because his view was obstructed by Jones’s back, Chill missed seeing that the ball was not securely in Jones’s possession, but when Fohl appealed to plate umpire Brick Owens, Owens agreed that Tobin should have been ruled safe.
Before the dispute ran its course, many of the 49,152 in attendance left the Polo Grounds—then the home the Yankees shared with the New York Giants—and most of the players had adjourned to their respective clubhouses. Finally, after a 20-minute delay, Chill reversed his call and both teams were ordered to return to the field and resume play. After Jones’s game-ending putout was turned into an error, allowing Shorten to tally the tying run, the Browns proceeded to notch six more unearned runs in their time at bat and win, 8–2, but nevertheless ended the season in second place, one game behind the Yankees.
Each umpire team should work out a simple set of signals, so the proper umpire can always right a manifestly wrong decision when convinced he has made an error. If sure you got the play correctly, do not be stampeded by players’ appeals to “ask the other man.” If not sure, ask one of your associates. Do not carry this to extremes, be alert and get your own plays. But remember! The first requisite is to get decisions correctly. If in doubt don’t hesitate to consult your associate. Umpire dignity is important but never as important as “being right.”
This general instruction explains why an umpire will often refuse to confer with the other members of his crew even when every player, fan, and TV camera at the stadium is morally certain that he blew a critical judgment call. Its general tone dissuades an umpire from consulting with his colleagues unless he is willing to admit he is not sure of his decision. An umpire who admits this too often is not long for his job.
Whitey Herzog managed the Kansas City Royals in 1976 when they made their first postseason appearance, facing the New York Yankees in the ALCS. The Royals lost, but nine years later, under Dick Howser, won their first world championship when a famous disputed call enabled them to go on to prevail over the St. Louis Cardinals, then managed by Herzog.
On October 26, 1985, at Royals Stadium, in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Six of the 1985 World Series, Kansas City pinch-hitter Jorge Orta led off by hitting a bouncing ball to Cardinals first baseman Jack Clark. Probably no one in the country watching on TV or in person except first-base umpire Don Denkinger and rabid Kansas City fans believed that Orta beat Clark’s toss to reliever Todd Worrell, covering the bag. St. Louis manager Whitey Herzog begged Denkinger to get help, but the ump adamantly refused, maintaining it was his play to call and he had gotten it right. Later, Denkinger insisted that Worrell had pulled his foot off the bag an instant before Clark’s throw reached him. Worrell was not charged with an error, however,
as the miscue eluded everyone else in Royals Stadium, as well as several dozen TV cameras. When the Royals posted two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win, 2–1, and then blew the Cards away, 11–0, the following night, many Mound City fans still feel they were robbed of the 1985 world championship by an umpire’s bad call. But unbiased observers also remember the pop foul Clark missed later in the inning and Darrell Porter’s passed ball, either of which could have taken much of the onus off Denkinger if it had not occurred.
As a rookie shortstop with the Kansas City Athletics in 1961, Dick Howser won The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award. Seven years earlier, in 1954, Howser had batted .196 as a second baseman, lacking the arm strength to play shortstop in his senior year of high school at Palm Beach High in West Palm Beach, Florida. He received no college scholarship offers and went out for the Florida State team as a walk-on, wearing cutoff jeans and a sleeveless sweat shirt. But today, the annual college baseball MVP Award is named in his honor.
In any event, Denkinger’s handling of the situation was regarded by fellow umpires as exemplary, even if his decision may always cause him to be vilified in St. Louis.
Denkinger and almost all his colleagues worked in a time when an umpire’s faulty decision had never been overturned days, let alone years, after the fact. But in 2016, that all seemed about to change . . . briefly. Six years earlier, on June 2, 2010, in a game at Detroit’s Comerica Park between the Tigers and Cleveland Indians, Bengals pitcher Armando Galarraga had taken a perfect game into the ninth inning. He retired the first Tribe batter, Mark Grudzielanek, on a drive to deep center that Austin Jackson caught in spectacular fashion on the warning track. Catcher Mike Redmond grounded out to short, putting Gallaraga one out away from a perfect game—the first in Tigers history—as he faced rookie shortstop Jason Donald, batting in the ninth spot. The perfecto seemed a certainty when Donald hit a routine bouncer to first baseman Miguel Cabrera, who made a perfect throw to Galarraga, covering first. Donald was beaten by a step, but first-base umpire Jim Joyce inexplicably called him safe, ruining both the perfect game and a no-hitter. Galarraga managed to save his 3–0 shutout win by inducing center fielder Trevor Crowe to ground out, third to first, after Donald had wormed his way around to third base on defensive indifference. After the game, when Joyce saw the video replay, he immediately acknowledged he had been wrong in believing Donald beat the throw to first. Later he hugged Galarraga and apologized profusely. Meanwhile, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times wrote that no call had been “so important and so horribly botched” since Denkinger’s in the 1985 World Series and there was a clamor in 2010 and again in 2016 for, first, Bud Selig and then his successor as commissioner, Rob Manfred, to overrule Joyce’s blown call. For a time it appeared as if Manfred might actually do it as a parting gift since Galarraga was now out of the majors, but eventually the baseball tradition that a bell once rung can not be unrung prevailed.
Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga, the day after his ruined perfecto, stoically bringing the Tigers’ June 3, 2010, scorecard to the home plate umpire that day, a tearful Jim Joyce.
Nonetheless, these two palpably mistaken calls—arguably more than any other controversial umpiring decisions in recent memory—led to the adoption of instant replay review in two separate stages. The first commenced on August 28, 2008, at the behest of commissioner Bud Selig. “I believe that the extraordinary technology that we now have merits the use of instant replay on a very limited basis,” Selig said. “The system we have in place will ensure that the proper call is made on home run balls and will not cause a significant delay to the game.”
Unfortunately for Galarraga, “very limited” replay review applied only to questionable home runs until the 2014 season when Major League Baseball, after much dithering, announced that it would expand its video review process to allow challenges on most plays that occurred on the field with certain exceptions. Judgment calls including, but not limited to, pitches called a ball or a strike, obstruction, interference, the infield fly rule, and checked swings were not reviewable. Originally, managers were granted one challenge over the first six innings of games (two if the first challenge was successful) and two from the seventh inning until the end of the game, however many innings that took. In addition, beginning in the seventh inning, the umpire-in-chief was authorized to initiate a review if he felt one was warranted. Calls that were challenged were to be reviewed by a crew in MLB headquarters in New York City, who were to make the final ruling in a timely fashion.
Unhappily, the new wrinkle, while generally a popular one, has worked against almost every other new wrinkle MLB has adopted in the past decade to shorten the length of games. This was evidenced as early as 2008, less than a month after video review came into play on questionable home runs. On September 26 at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, in a game between the Giants and Dodgers, San Francisco catcher Bengie Molina smacked a long drive to right field off Dodgers reliever Scott Proctor that struck a few feet to the left of the park’s famous “Splash Hits” sign. Molina, a slow runner, managed to leg out only a single on the blow and was immediately replaced at first base by Emmanuel Burriss, who had been told in advance by Giants manager Bruce Bochy that he would pinch-run for Molina if the catcher reached base, and popped out of the dugout before anyone could intervene.
No sooner had Burriss reached the bag than shortstop Omar Vizquel told Bochy he thought the ball had struck the green metal awning along the right-field wall, which by park rule is an automatic home run. Bochy found a ball with green paint on it and showed it to the umpires. Crew chief Tim Welke then decided to hold a conference with his colleagues. After a few minutes they disappeared inside the stadium since the park did not as yet have field replay, leaving the crowd clueless as to what was transpiring. When the umpires returned to the field and Welke signaled Molina’s hit was a home run, Bochy immediately tried to put Molina back in the game since he had been replaced after the hit was initially ruled a single and timeout was called. However, the rule at the time stated that replay would not be allowed if play continued before it was requested, and the Giants’ insertion of Burriss could be construed as a continuation of play, disallowing a replay review even though the evidence presented indicated one was necessary. Bochy cut through the red tape by announcing the Giants were continuing the game under protest, but Selig was spared having to rule on it when the Giants won, 6–5, in 10 innings. Molina was credited with a home run, but Burriss was given the run that scored on it and the stoppage in action consumed well over 10 minutes.
What’s worse, video replay has made it glaring evident that there are some very weak umpires now working in the majors. In Game Three of the American League Division Series on October 7, 2018, at Yankee Stadium between the Yankees and Red Sox, four calls at first base alone were overturned by the TV replay crew.
Baseball remains the only major sport where too many of its officials bait and squabble with players and managers in keeping with their ambitions to be part of the show. There is ample technology to eliminate on-field umpires and replace them with video officials that would able to make correct decisions at a much higher percentage than what is currently yielded, but most authorities agree that the game would be irrevocably bastardized if umpires were no longer part and parcel of it.
Others argue that the technology is now in advanced enough to rule more accurately than umpires even on balls and strikes. PITCHf/x for some time now has been used to call balls and strikes in independent minor leagues. Since it has long since been acknowledged that every umpire has a slightly different strike zone and some have zones that vary from inning to inning and pitcher to pitcher, let alone from game to game, it soon may be that only the umpires’ union may stand between its members and PITCHf/x, or a device even more refined being adopted for major league play.
The rules governing the video review process are still not found in the standard baseball rule book but are readily available online along with the process’s complete history.
Anyone could be forgiven for believing this proper-looking, middle-aged woman was an educator. That was indeed Amanda Clement’s profession when she posed for this photo. But in her younger days, Clement had been the greatest distaff umpire of her time.
Note that masculine pronouns still are used throughout Rule 8.00 in every reference to an umpire or his duties. Although that has been the case ever since the first rule book was written, there has never been a time when female umpires have been expressly prohibited from serving in the major leagues. In 1972, Bernice Gera became the first woman to break the unwritten gender barrier in Organized Baseball when she was hired to officiate in the Class-A New York-Penn League, but distaff umpires have been working for pay in all-male games for over a century. One of the earliest and best at her trade was Amanda Clement, who once held the woman’s record of 275 feet for throwing a baseball.
A native of Hudson, Dakota Territory, Clement was born on March 28, 1888, a year before South Dakota became a state, and played first base for the Hudson town team in the early 1900s, gaining recognition not only for her playing prowess but also for her knowledge of the rules. As early as 1904, at age sixteen, she received her first assignment to officiate a local semi-pro game for pay when the scheduled umpire did not appear. After Clement received commendations for her work in the South Dakota semipro championship clash, invitations began appearing in her mailbox from neighboring North Dakota. Before she retired from the game to become a physical education director at Wyoming University, Clement called balls and strikes for some six seasons in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Because slacks were taboo for women a century ago, Clement umpired in a long, full skirt, white blouse, dark tie, and peaked cap. Clement, who never married according to women’s baseball historian Leslie Heaphy, died on July 20, 1971, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.