They Called Me God

by Doug Harvey

  Nothing was going on, and from the first twenty rows of spectators and in both dugouts, everyone turned and looked at me. I was never so embarrassed in my life.

  Though I hated him, Al Barlick taught me so much about my craft, and I shall forever be indebted to him for it. Al was old-school. He had a fear of nobody. He hollered and screamed. And he taught me an important lesson: If you make a call, hang with it. And that’s the way I umpired.

  Al taught me that to get the respect you needed to command as a great umpire, you had to be creative.

  When Leo Durocher was a coach for Walter Alston on the Dodgers, Leo would come out of the dugout, holler something obscene at us, and get ejected about the sixth inning. Then we realized that five minutes after Leo left, a little, cute tootsie sitting in the box seats wearing a Dodger jacket also left. We asked a few questions and learned that yeah, she was Durocher’s honey.

  Not very long after we learned this, Leo hollered something at us, and Al Barlick walked over and told him, “Let me tell you something, Leo. I have to work here, and you’re going to stay as well. You’re not leaving. We’ve had all we’re going to take of you walking out with your honey. So sit down and shut up.”

  Al called us together and said, “We’re not to eject him.”

  Later Durocher managed the Cubs, and for the first year and a half he sat on the bench and kept his mouth shut. By the middle of the second season he saw he had some players—Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins—and it was then that he started running his mouth. I tossed Leo a couple of times. He was fun to toss. He’d come out and put on a big show.

  “Get the hell away from me,” I’d tell him. “Get out of my face.”

  I didn’t need his crap.

  Al also taught me practical lessons to follow away from the diamond as well.

  “Don’t ever take a drink from a ballplayer, Harv,” he said. “Don’t do anything with ballplayers.”

  I paid close attention to what he had to say, though I must say I did it with clenched teeth. What drove me every year those first few years was my determination to be a better umpire than Al Barlick.

  — 5 —

  I hated him—until I understood where his enmity came from. I didn’t know any of this until a half dozen years later, when umpire Tony Venzon and I were having dinner at Johnny’s Café and Steakhouse in Chicago, and the topic of conversation got around to Barlick.

  Venzon had fought in World War II. He was part of a large group of American soldiers on reconnaissance in the woods. The commander sent him back to his jeep to get some papers he had forgotten. While he was away, the group was surrounded and captured by the Germans.

  When Tony returned he saw all these American soldiers lying down. He thought they were kidding. But then when he walked over and saw all the blood, he realized the Germans had lined them all up and shot them. They were all dead.

  Venzon was a fine umpire and a good friend.

  “I could never understand why Al treated me the way he did,” I said over dinner.

  “Don’t you know?” Venzon said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  He then proceeded to explain it to me.

  “When you came to spring training in 1962,” Tony said, “Al Barlick told everyone that Billy Williams was going to be the next umpire coming into the National League. The head of officials was Fred Fleig, and Fred went against the King’s orders. He hired you instead.”

  The King had wanted Billy Williams, who had been on option to the National League for several years, and Al thought he should have been the next one to be brought up.

  “Fleig said, ‘No, I’m taking Harvey.’ ”

  Barlick was called the King of Umpires, and Fleig had crossed him and chosen me instead. And then Fleig assigned me to Barlick’s crew. And Al did everything he could to drive me out of the league.

  That was the story behind it.

  When Al retired in 1971, he called me on the phone. I was in a St. Louis hotel.

  “Harvey,” he said, “I’m at home, and I just want you to know all the problems we had, fifty percent of it was my fault. And I apologize to you and hope you will forgive me for having realized too late that you’re a great umpire.”

  I was flabbergasted.

  “Al, it’s all water over the dam,” I told him. “I forgave you many years ago.”

  I wasn’t a man to hold a grudge. It’s part of the reason I was a good umpire, though I have to wonder why Fleig assigned me to Barlick’s crew. It confounds me to this day. What was Fred thinking?

  Al also said to me, “Harvey, you’re going to the Hall of Fame one day, and when you get there, I’ll be with you.”

  Unfortunately, Al didn’t live to see me get in. He passed away in 1995 at the age of eighty, and I wasn’t inducted until 2010. Had he been alive, he’d have certainly been with me.

  — 6 —

  In addition to never socializing with ballplayers, managers, or coaches, I also made it a practice never to accept a drink from a team president, a general manager, or even someone from the league or commissioner’s office. I felt it wasn’t my job—but more to the point, I felt it wasn’t right. My job was to be neutral, and I never wanted to put myself in a position where I might be accused of favoritism because I had accepted something—anything—from a ballplayer or a team official.

  One night fellow umpire Jocko Conlan and I were in a bar in Milwaukee after a ball game having a beer, and a guy came over to my bar stool and bumped me. I turned around, and it was Dodger pitcher Sandy Koufax.

  “Harv, you want a cigar?” Sandy asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t accept gifts from ballplayers.”

  “Okay,” he said, and he left me and walked over to a table with a group of Dodger ballplayers.

  That taught me a lesson. I never again sat on a stool at a bar. I always went to a table, because no one can invite himself to a table.

  When Sandy left the bar, he absentmindedly left his silver cigarette lighter in front of me. I picked it up and carried it around for two months before I could return it to him. Before a game at Dodger Stadium I caught him coming off an elevator heading for the Dodger dressing room and gave it back to him.

  “Hey, Sandy,” I said. “Here. I don’t want your lighter. I don’t want anything of yours.”

  I never wanted a player to think he got something special from me. I figured he was entitled to only one thing from me, and that was a fair strike zone.

  I was working the ’92 All-Star Game in San Diego, and President George H. W. Bush was going to throw out the first ball. They needed a place to hide him before the game, and so they asked if he could hang out with us in the umpires’ dressing room. He came in with all his security people and it was crowded as hell. There was a knock on the door.

  “Someone important wants to see you,” the clubhouse man said to me.

  “Mr. President,” I asked, “I’ve got to ask you a favor. Could you get rid of your security people? There’s someone outside I really want you to meet, and we’ve got too big a crowd in here.”

  “Just stay outside,” the president told his security people. “Who the hell’s going to come in here?”

  I went outside and brought in Ted Williams. Ted and the president started talking fishing, and after a while I said, “Gentlemen, it’s about time for you to head out there, and I have to get ready so I can work home plate.”

  Before Ted walked out, he said to me, “Harvey, I have to ask you something. They say they consider you the epitome of umpires. Let me ask you: What’s your strike zone?”

  “Ted,” I said, “my strike zone starts at the front of home plate; it’s from the knee to the breastbone, where it comes together according to how the man crouches. And if you’re standing back in the box, the ball will pass you right there. That’s why they always said that Doug Harvey has a terrible strike zone, because that’s where the strike zone is.”

  “Is that right?” said Ted.
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  “Yes,” I said.

  “Shit,” said Ted, “you’d have made a .320 hitter out of me.”

  And he left.

  — 7 —

  That first year on our first trip to Philadelphia I ran into Al Widmar, the scout from Philadelphia who told me I’d never make it to the big leagues because I had gray hair and chewed tobacco. Widmar, then the pitching coach of the Phillies, was sitting in the dugout.

  I had the plate that day, and moments before the game Al was minding his own business when I walked over and put my foot on the first step.

  “I’m here, partner, and I’m going to be here for a while,” I told him.

  Then I spit tobacco juice at his shoes and walked away.

  — 8 —

  When I came to the National League I thought I was the best base umpire there was. But I still had a lot to learn about the art of umpiring. Especially behind the plate. Early in my rookie year I learned an important lesson.

  I even remember the date: It was May 11, 1962. The Dodgers and Cardinals were playing in the bottom of the second, the Cardinals batting, the Dodgers up 1–0. Stan Williams was pitching for the Dodgers. They called Stan “Big Daddy.” He was six foot five and every bit of 230 pounds. The Cardinals’ batter stepped in. The count was one ball and two strikes.

  A fastball came in like two others before it. When it was about twenty feet out, I threw up my hand and yelled out “Hrrrriiiiiikkkke!” Then the ball cut six inches like nothing I’d ever seen. The pitch crossed the plate outside the strike zone. What could I do? I couldn’t change the call. I’d already called strike three. It was the third out. The Dodgers trotted off the field.

  The batter, waiting for someone to bring him his glove, turned his back to me. I figured I was in a shithouse of trouble. I was sure he was going to unload on me and get the crowd on my ass. But he never turned to face me. Over his shoulder he calmly said, “Young fella, I don’t know what league you came from, but home plate is seventeen inches wide, same as it is here. If you want to stay up here, wait until the ball crosses the plate before you call it.”

  The batter was Stan Musial.

  From then on, I never called a pitch until after it hit the catcher’s mitt. That’s the timing you try to set, and you do it beginning with the very first pitch of the ball game. The pitcher throws, the ball hits the catcher’s glove, and you count to yourself “one thousand one,” and during that time you try to see the pitch again in your mind’s eye, and then you make the call. In a way you’re seeing the pitch twice. But you must wait until a second or even two after the ball hits the glove to make the call. The one exception to this rule is if there’s a runner on first base, in which case you have to make the call sooner. If the runner runs, the catcher has to know early whether it’s a ball or a strike so he can decide whether or not to throw to second.

  — 9 —

  Another of the good guys was Milwaukee Braves catcher Del Crandall. It was early in my first season and I had the plate. Warren Spahn was pitching and Crandall was catching. Warren threw the first pitch of the game, and I said, “Ball.”

  Warren, who was the winningest left-hander of all time, walked down from the mound and said, “What?”

  “The man said ball,” said Crandall.

  “Jesus Christ, I can’t throw a better pitch than that,” said Spahn.

  “I guess you’re in a heap of trouble,” Crandall said.

  Spahn turned around and walked back up onto the mound, and he kept his mouth shut the rest of the day. Crandall was a very fair person. Spahn, like most pitchers, just wanted anything close he could get, and guys like him liked to test the new umpires. Yeah, they would test you badly. That first year they would test me every minute of the day.

  — 10 —

  With every game I learned something. The most difficult manager I ever had to face was Freddie Hutchinson of the Cincinnati Reds. Back in those days, Hutchinson was a real beauty.

  He was on me the very first series I worked in the major leagues in 1962.

  By the third game of the season-opening series between the Reds and the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, I had rotated to first base. On a close play at first, Gordy Coleman, the Reds first baseman, pulled his foot from the bag an instant before the runner arrived. I called him safe. Fred came out and started in, ranting and raving.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” he demanded to know. He could no more hold a conversation without cursing than he could flap his arms and fly.

  This is where the creativity I learned from Al Barlick came in handy.

  “Didn’t you get the notice?” I said.

  “What notice?” he asked, a little puzzled.

  “The one that said this year we’re going to concentrate really hard on keeping the first baseman’s foot on the bag,” I said. “There’ll be no cheating.”

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. This guy’s here three days and he’s gonna change the whole goddamned way of umpiring,” he muttered as he left the field. Fred, a former pitcher, was about six foot four, and he was six foot four of hell on umpires—until I stood up to him one day. And when I did that, I could see he had a lot more respect for me. That was something I had to learn.

  It happened on a day when I was working the plate in another Reds–Dodgers game. Hutchinson was managing, Maury Wills was the first batter for the Dodgers, and Bob Purkey was pitching for the Reds. The first pitch came in and I called it a ball. I could hear a voice coming from the dugout. It was Fred.

  “Well, you’re oh-for-one,” he yelled out.

  The next pitch was fouled off, and Fred yelled, “Great, now you’re one-for-two.”

  The next pitch came in, and I heard, “Great, you’re one-for-three.”

  I took off my mask and looked over at Hutchinson.

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “I’m not going to be oh-for-four, ’cause I’m going to nail you.”

  I put my mask back on, and after the next pitch he kept up the same patter. I walked over to the Reds’ dugout and told him, “Get the hell out. I don’t need to listen to your shit.”

  “Well, I’ll go to the league office tomorrow and I’ll get your fucking job,” he said.

  “Well, if you, your brother, or your dad can get my job,” I said, “I don’t want the fucking thing. Now, get out of my face!”

  A few batters later, I thought I heard the same voice. I looked over at the Reds dugout. Fred wasn’t there anymore, but I could see everyone on the bench laughing like hell. And I was thinking, That’s a little odd, ’cause Fred’s got himself ejected and he’s not there anymore, so it can’t be him talking.

  Then I thought, When I tossed him, Hutch had water all over his chest. I wondered what he was doing all covered in water.

  After that, the next few Reds hitters who came up would dig in, look down, and start laughing. It started driving me nuts. I wondered what was going on. When Reds first baseman Gordy Coleman came to the plate, I decided to ask him. I trusted Gordy. He was a good guy—about the only good guy on their ball club.

  When the catcher went out to the mound, I asked, “Gordy, what the hell is going on?” He was bent over so it wouldn’t look like we were talking to each other.

  “Hutch was getting a drink of water at the end of the dugout when you ran him,” Gordy said.

  So after a couple more batters I got to thinking, Hold it a minute. How the hell could he be yelling at me when he was drinking water?

  I called time-out and approached one of the Reds coaches, Reggie Otero.

  “Reggie, was that you?” I asked.

  All the Reds’ players burst out laughing. They thought it was real funny because I had ejected Fred for something his coach had been doing. Turns out that Otero could do a great imitation of Hutchinson’s voice. His act impressed me, but as I returned to the plate to dust it off, all of a sudden it occurred to me to call time-out again. I walked back to the dugout.

  “Come to think of it,” I said to Otero, “
I caught you. So you get your ass out of here too!”

  Hutch, who could get nasty, taught me another important lesson. As an umpire you always turn the side of your body to the man you’re going to eject, because if you don’t, he’ll leap right in the way of your arm as you’re signaling his ejection and swear that you hit him. And that can get you in the deep shithouse with the president of the league. I learned that the hard way.

  “Get out of here,” I yelled at Hutchinson, tossing him out of the game. But I didn’t turn sideways when I made the motion to toss him, and I accidentally hit him with my hand.

  “You hit me,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  And that’s how I learned you have to turn your side to whomever you’re ejecting. Because a guy like Hutchinson will try to put you in the shithouse any way he can.

  He reported me to the league office, and I had to go there and explain. I caught hell from everybody. Sure I did.

  “Hutch said that you hit him.”

  What was I going to say? That I didn’t hit him? That he walked into my arm? It sounded too much like an excuse.

  “I’ll have to fine you.”

  “Do what you have to.”

  — 11 —

  Another thing I learned that first year was that if the manager was an asshole, his players probably would be as well, and that was certainly true of Freddie Hutchinson’s Cincinnati Reds.

  One of the Reds’ worst players to deal with was Frank Robinson, the Hall of Fame outfielder. He was the toughest player I had to face. Frank Robinson was always trouble, but of course Frank Robinson was playing for Freddie Hutchinson.

  We were playing a game in Cincinnati in the summer, one of those terribly hot days. Back then the umpires had to wear a coat, so I was out there in the heat with my coat on and I was miserable. The next batter was Frank, and he came up to home plate. He was squeezing the bat and talking to himself.