They Called Me God

by Doug Harvey

  “Wait a minute, Your Honor,” I said. “Can I show you something?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I reached into my pocket, walked up to the judge, and pulled out all of my receipts.

  “There’s not one missing, is there, Your Honor?” I said.

  “No, there isn’t.”

  After I laid out the receipts, he pounded his gavel a couple of times and said, “From now on, he will pay half as much.”

  I went back to school, and darned if she didn’t do this to me three more times. She didn’t even show up herself. But each time the judge cut my child support until I was paying only $50 a month. By trying to hurt me, she hurt herself.

  The saddest part of the whole affair was that my son was the greatest kid in the world. After she took him back, she did nothing but bad-mouth me, and before long she made a hard-nose red-ass out of him. After that, no matter what I did, he thought I was wrong, and she thought I was wrong. Finally I said, “Fuck them both,” and we had a real falling-out.

  When he was in his twenties, Douglas Lee Harvey got into trouble with drugs and alcohol. He was lost for the next thirty years. It broke my heart. He was so far gone that he wanted nothing more to do with his mother or me. At various times during his addiction Joy and I tried the best we could to get help for him, but he wasn’t at all interested in getting help. He didn’t care, and after a while, we didn’t either. We knew we could only help him if he wanted to help himself.

  Only after he got cancer and was in the hospital did I go see him. My wife talked me into going, and we settled things. That was the good part of it. And then, sadly, Doug died. It was heartbreaking. God rest his troubled soul.

  CHAPTER 4

  A PERFECT INSPIRATION

  — 1 —

  I was sitting in the Playhouse Bar waiting for the World Series to come on TV. It was October 8, 1956, and the New York Yankees were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, so I stuck around the bar to watch game 5 with a few of the shot-and-beer regulars I knew. The game was played during the day, as were all the World Series games back then. Because of the three-hour time difference, the World Series games usually started at ten in the morning in California. The regulars had been drinking; I’d had a few myself, and I was sitting there wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

  I was twenty-six years old, going nowhere.

  Yankee pitcher Don Larsen was making short shrift of the Dodgers. He was holding them without a hit. As the game moved into the late innings, I began to focus on Babe Pinelli, the umpire behind the plate. I began thinking to myself: I’ve worked a lot of jobs, but none gives me the satisfaction that umpiring does. I had umpired high school and college games in El Centro since I was sixteen, but I had never considered it as a profession before then.

  As I watched Don Larsen and his perfect game unfold, I had an epiphany.

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. I know what I want to be,” I said out loud to my buddies sitting with me at the bar.

  “What’s that?” they asked.

  “I’m going to be a major league umpire.”

  “Hey,” said the guy sitting next to me, “Harvey here says he’s going to be a major league umpire.”

  “Yeah, right, Harv,” came the response. “Sure you are.”

  The bunch of them started laughing at me, and I became so upset, so angry at their reaction—their making sport of me—that I got up and left.

  Don Larsen pitched his perfect game, of course, and six years later those same guys who were with me at the bar would watch me work my first major league game. Two years after that, I was working in Jocko Conlan’s crew.

  Those guys should’ve known better. Never tell me I can’t do something, because I’ll prove you wrong every time.

  — 2 —

  I couldn’t afford umpire school, the usual way men make it to the big leagues as umpires. I began writing letters to the presidents of all the minor leagues, from the International League and the American Association on down to the D leagues. I must have written fifty letters trying to break into the pros as an umpire. I received no replies. Meanwhile, I kept working as many amateur and semipro games as I could.

  I was umpiring in San Diego, doing a semipro game. I had just arrived for the game and was assigned to work the bases. We were using a two-man system. The other fellow, a local San Diego schoolteacher, was supposed to work home plate. He slapped his shin guards on and went, “Uh-oh . . . my God.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  “It’s just a stitch,” he said.

  “Can you stand up?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but it hurts when I bend over.”

  “You work the bases and I’ll work the plate,” I said.

  It was no big deal. I went to my little DeSoto, slapped on my shin guards, got out there, and called balls and strikes.

  About the third inning, the catcher said, “Hey, kid, you’re doing a pretty good job.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said.

  “Especially for an important game,” he added.

  “What do you mean, an important game?”

  “You don’t know, do you?” he said. “This is the final game of the five-game series between Los Angeles County and San Diego County for the Southern California baseball championship.”

  “Swell; that’s nice,” I said. To me there are no important games, because every game is an important game.

  I guess it was big to him. We went back to work, and in the next half inning the catcher said, “By the way, was the umpire at first base supposed to work the plate?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “He was supposed to work the final game for three straight years, and he hasn’t worked the plate yet,” he said.

  “No kidding?”

  We finished the game, no problems. I wasn’t in too good of a mood and walked over to the other umpire.

  The guy said, “Hey, Harv, thanks.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  I started taking off my gear. I didn’t feel like talking to him, I was so mad. But in my life, the important moments have often come when least expected. It turned out that the other umpire did me one of the biggest favors I ever received. Had he not changed places with me that day, it’s very possible I would never have become a major league umpire. Because after the game, a guy wearing a straw hat came up to me and said, “Young fella, you worked a pretty good game.”

  “I’m glad you realized that,” I said, still pissed off because I felt the other umpire had suckered me into taking the plate that day.

  “I’m Johnny Moore, a scout for the Milwaukee Braves,” he said. “Did you ever think about turning professional?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve written about fifty letters, and I can’t get anybody to answer one. They want me to go to umpire school, and I can’t afford it. I broke my left leg playing football at San Diego State and was in a cast for twenty-seven weeks. Now I’m working to pay an eight-hundred-dollar gasoline bill that I ran up after Coach Governali took away my scholarship and job on campus.”

  “You’ve had it pretty bad,” he said. “If I can get you a job, do you want to work as an umpire in pro baseball?”

  “I certainly would,” I said. “In a heartbeat.”

  He handed me a card.

  “If you don’t hear from me in a week, call me at that number.”

  Had I been working the bases that day, I doubt he would have noticed me, even though I considered myself the best base umpire ever to walk out onto a ball field. At the time, I considered myself a mediocre plate umpire, but on the bases I was outstanding. I settled everything with a kind word.

  When the man in the straw hat said he was a scout for the Milwaukee Braves, I really wasn’t sure whether he was pulling my leg or not, but two weeks later I received a telegram informing me I was on the roster of umpires for the California League, Class C, at a salary of $250 a month.

  It was th
e greatest day of my life, so far.

  CHAPTER 5

  ROOTLESS IN THE MINORS

  — 1 —

  Class C was starting close to the bottom. Two umpires worked a game as a team. In the California League we umpired games all over the San Joaquin Valley. The first year, my partner owned a car, and he was paid five cents a mile to travel to the games. I lived out of my suitcase. I didn’t rent an apartment or go back to a place to live. There was no home base.

  After a game was over, we’d grab a couple of fifteen-cent hamburgers and then drive a couple hundred miles or more to small towns up and down central California, like Modesto, Visalia, and Bakersfield. During the summer it was hot as hell, and the fields were more like cow pastures—rough and unforgiving, like the fans who wanted your hide every night. For this punishment (I loved it), I was told I was getting $50 more than most of the California League umpires, because I had come so highly recommended. It was a good thing that I was single and had paid off almost all of my debts.

  My second year I was paired with another umpire, a young guy with a wife and daughter who one day broke down and confessed to me that he was so broke he didn’t have enough money to rent an apartment and feed his family. He was only making $200 a month and wasn’t making ends meet.

  As a child I was taught the importance of empathy, to picture yourself in the shoes of the other guy. After he spilled his tale of woe, I felt for him, and so I gave him almost half my salary so he could bring his wife and daughter on the road with us. I was single. My only living expense was my room, because I knew that after every game the home team would provide the umpires with a sandwich or a hamburger, and that was all I needed to get by. I was counting on the home team’s after-game sustenance for my survival.

  We were working a game in Visalia and there was a situation on the field where I ejected Visalia’s manager and one of their better players, and Visalia lost the ball game by a run. That night after the game, we arrived at our dressing room only to find that no food had been left for my partner and me.

  “Where’s our food?” I asked the batboy.

  “We were told not to bring it, Mr. Harvey,” the boy said.

  This was retaliation by the Visalia general manager for my calling a play against his team and ejecting the manager and one of his players.

  “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  I didn’t get mad. This was one trait that separated me from most of the other umpires I knew. Very early I learned that getting mad didn’t accomplish very much. We had to go into town to get a bite to eat at our own expense.

  Before the game the next day, my partner and I went to the office of the Visalia general manager to get the baseballs for the game. We always picked up two dozen balls: a dozen and a half new balls and a half dozen gently used balls from the game before.

  In front of the general manager, I picked up the used balls and put them aside.

  “Give me six more new ones,” I ordered.

  “Why?” he wanted to know.

  “Give me six new ones,” I repeated.

  “What are you doing, Harv?” he asked.

  “As long as you think I’m not worth a sandwich,” I said, “we’re going to do this every night. Give me six new balls.” I was going to make him pay. He got the message. After each game at Visalia, there were a couple of hamburgers, a hot dog, and a drink waiting for us. We ate like kings.

  It became one of my mantras: Don’t get mad. Get even.

  — 2 —

  When I started working in C Ball—and this was true throughout my umpiring career—I was often told, “If you want to make it in the major leagues, you have to have a pitcher’s strike zone.” In other words, you have to open up your strike zone a little bit. In theory, if you give the pitchers the close ones instead of calling balls, the pitchers will be less likely to bitch and moan, and the game will go faster.

  I categorically refused to do that. The rule book determined what was a strike and what was a ball, and I was determined that I would strictly go by what the rule book had to say.

  Screw it, I said to myself, I’ll take their arguments and stand on my own.

  During my entire career, I was a great believer in fairness. I absolutely was fair. Opening up the strike zone by definition means that you’re cheating for the pitcher, and I don’t know how to cheat in any direction. I absolutely made the ball touch the plate if I was going to call it a strike. And of course it had to be the right height.

  When I first began umpiring in the minors, a couple of the other umpires asked me, “Who do you know in the major leagues?”

  “Nobody,” I said. Which was true. I had no contacts at all.

  “You might as well hang it up,” I was told. “You’re not going to make it. You don’t have a chance in hell.”

  I ignored them. I knew how good I was in this job. No, I hadn’t gone to umpire school, and no, I didn’t have any contacts to rely on. What I was sure of was that talent and hard work would overcome any of that. I was confident my chance would come. What I needed was the patience to wait for that chance to arrive.

  It wasn’t all that easy working in the low minors. A lot of guys who were pretty good umpires didn’t make it. It’s a tough grind, really tough. There were a lot of times when I said to myself, I don’t think I can do this anymore.

  The longest drive in the California League was Bakersfield to Reno. It was 411 miles, two-lane highways, one going each way. It was highway to Sacramento and then mountains all the way to Reno. We would leave at midnight and arrive in Reno when the sun was coming up.

  Say we finished a night game in Bakersfield. You showered and you stopped and got a sandwich or something to eat and then you left town at one o’clock in the morning for the long drive to Reno.

  These were dangerous two-lane highways all the way. You just drove as far as you could, and if the other guy was awake, he drove as far as he could. Sometimes I think back and really don’t know how any of us made it without falling asleep at the wheel and killing ourselves.

  One time we were in Bakersfield. It was 1959, and I had just finished working a doubleheader. We were changing clothes in the dressing room and there was a knock on the door.

  “You worked a helluva game,” this fella said.

  He introduced himself as Al Widmar of the Philadelphia Phillies. He said he was scouting for the Phillies and had noticed my talents.

  “Now I have two suggestions, if you want to make it to the majors,” he said. “You gotta dye your hair, and you gotta stop chewing tobacco.” My hair had started turning gray when I was fifteen. I’ve always been gray. And I had been chewing tobacco ever since I began farming in Imperial Valley, where it was so dry I needed the wet chewing tobacco to keep me lubricated.

  “Let me tell you something,” I said. “If they don’t want a gray-haired, tobacco-chewing umpire, they’re not getting me.”

  Whether I was capable of calling balls and strikes and outs seemed more relevant. So was knowing the game.

  I worked like hell. When I went into the California League, I was about six foot two, 170 pounds, good-looking fella, liked a few drinks, liked to toddle a few. My partners would always say after games, “Hey, let’s go down to the Kern River. There are women down there. C’mon, we’ll go down and chase the women for the afternoon.” I mean, it was hotter than hell in Bakersfield in the summertime.

  The guys would try to get me to carouse, but I’d always say, “Nah, I’ve got things I gotta do,” like laundry or call my mom.

  I was lying to them. They were probably the only lies I ever told in my life. More important than carousing and drinking, I felt, was studying the rule book one to two hours every day I was in the minor leagues. I figured by my doing that, more than any other thing, it would get me to the major leagues quicker—other than the fact that I was a good umpire. One to two hours every day I studied. I never missed a day. And that’s why I always knew what I was talking about when it came to the rules.

 
To me the rule book is the Bible of baseball. I would read that book in hot hotel rooms without air-conditioning and nothing but a small fan. I memorized every word. I knew if I was to be an umpire who was respected by the managers and players, I would have to know the game inside and out. My goal was to be more knowledgeable about the way the game was played than anyone on the field. And you know what? It paid off, though it made for a rather lonely, barren existence. After tutoring myself on the rule book, there was little else for me to do until game time. I didn’t have any money to go anyplace. I didn’t have transportation. My partner had the car. So what was I going to do? And that was tough. I was out there on a shoestring doing the best I could, and it wasn’t easy. But you have to know Doug Harvey. I had set my mind to make it, and I stubbornly refused to change. I just went at it, day after day.

  But it was my knowledge of the rules that helped get me noticed. In my second year in C ball in the California League there was a runner on second base. The runner on second broke for third. Everyone hollered, “There he goes,” and the pitcher quickly threw the ball to third base. The runner, seeing he was a dead duck, stopped, turned, and slid back into second base.

  The manager of the team at bat was Buddy Kerr, the former New York Giants shortstop. Buddy came running out.

  “Harvey, I’ve got you,” he said.

  “Oh really, Buddy,” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “That’s a balk.”

  “Beg your pardon?” I said.

  “That’s a balk,” Buddy repeated. “The rule says you cannot throw to an unoccupied base. It’s a balk.”

  “Buddy, I’m proud of you,” I said.

  He had the dumbest look on his face.

  “What the fuck do you mean, you’re proud of me?” he asked.

  “To think somebody in this godforsaken league besides me is reading the rule book,” I said. “I’m really proud of you, Buddy.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. “It’s a balk, Harvey. Move him over.”

  “Your biggest problem, Buddy,” I said, “is you don’t know which rule it is. It’s Rule 805. There are thirteen ways in which to balk: Rule 805, sections A through M. You should have kept reading, Buddy. There’s a comma there, and it says, Except for the express purpose of making a play. Now, Buddy, where was the runner going?”