The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand!: The Game as Umpires See It (Writing Baseball)

by Lee Gutkind

“Sure he’s first on the goddamn player poll of umpires,” said Froemming, who began to parade around the room in his stocking feet, waving. “‘Well, hello John Bench, how’s your wife and family? How you hitting the curve ball, Johnny old buddy, old pal?’

  “‘Oh well, I guess that pitch was a little too low,’” Froemming mimicked, gliding the little finger of his right hand over his eyebrow and puckering up his lips. “‘Well yessir, nossir …’

  “FUCK HIM!” Froemming suddenly yelled, jumping up and down. “FUCK THAT SUCK-IN BASTARD. WHAT’S HE EXPECT US TO DO? TAKE A PUBLIC RELATIONS COURSE? I’M AN UMPIRE! I’M A MAN! I’M NO SUCK-IN GLAD-HANDER!”

  “Now Bruce,” Olsen said, laughing, “don’t get so upset. It isn’t that serious.”

  Wendelstedt shook his head and turned to Froemming. “Can you imagine this? Listen to that guy. That Andy is so nice, he’d give the benefit of the doubt to a rat.”

  “He’s so nice, he’d let somebody shoot his mother in the ass with a cannon,” said Froemming.

  “He’s so nice,” said Wendelstedt, “if somebody shit on his head, he’d say, ‘Pardon me, sir, but did you mean to do that?’”

  Now Olsen stood up, whirled around, and kicked the table. “I would not! I would not, goddamn it!” he yelled.

  Wendelstedt waved him down. “Andy, you’re the nicest guy in the world.”

  “I AM NOT! I AM NOT! I’M AN UMPIRE!”

  “Andy’s baseball’s Joan of Arc,” Froemming did a little dancing two-step. “Everybody loves Andy Olsen,” Froemming said.

  “Even his worst enemy,” said Wendelstedt.

  Olsen, his shiny black hair now tumbling over his eyes, again jumped from the bed, this time sticking up his fists. “THEY DO NOT! THEY DO NOT, GODDAMN IT. I’M AN UMPIRE! I’M AN UMPIRE! I’M AN UMPIRE, GODDAMN IT,” he cried, stomping his foot.

  Froemming suddenly leaned forward and began to cackle. His laughter sputtered into the room, then erupted. Listening to Froemming, Wendelstedt leaned back and began to pound the side of his chair. First he choked, then he giggled, and finally, he emitted an ear-piercing howl. “Wooooeeee, wooooeeeee,” he heard himself yelling. He saw Froemming point his finger at him and kick the desk with his foot. He saw Olsen explode in a spray of spit, roll on the bed, and heard him start hooting. The three men hooted and cackled and shrieked, pounded their fists and rolled on the floor for what seemed like hours, till Wendelstedt felt he could no longer continue to breathe. Then for a while they drank silently and somberly, periodically erupting into shivers of laughter, until finally they steadied one another enough to calm themselves down.

  “Well, shit,” said Froemming after a while, smiling and giggling.

  “That was really something,” said Wendelstedt.

  “You guys,” Oslen grinned wryly and shook his head. “Always putting somebody on.”

  “That’s because you’re so nice.”

  “Now come on, Harry,” Olsen shouted.

  “OK. OK.”

  “Seriously, Andy,” said Froemming, drawing himself up in his chair and tipping his glass to his lips. “You have to admit that it doesn’t pay to be nice in this business. It just doesn’t pay. The players take advantage of you, the league takes advantage of you, the owners and managers take advantage of you. Wherever you go in baseball, umpires are always on the bottom of the heap.”

  “Andy,” said Froemming, shaking his head and waving emphatically over at Wendelstedt. “Harry, Andy, I love baseball. You know I do. It’s the greatest fucking game in the world and umpiring is the greatest goddamn profession that ever lived. I’ve dedicated my life to it, and I’d do it all over again if I got the chance. But Jesus Christ, Harry, Jesus Christ, Andy, the umpires are getting screwed in every goddamn different direction.”

  “You ain’t telling me anything I don’t know,” said Wendelstedt.

  “It’s such a goddamn shame,” said Froemming. “Sure, the minor league umpire’s salaries are higher than ten years ago, but so is the cost of living. Umpires, good kids, are getting five thousand dollars a year for seven months work, work away from their family, work with no rewards, for just a bare chance at a major league future. Five years ago I got forty dollars a day to work major league spring training. That forty dollars included expenses and travel and everything else. And do you know what those poor kids are getting now?”

  “Sure I know,” said Wendelstedt.

  “That same fucking forty dollars, that’s what,” said Froemming.

  “Well,” said Olsen. “Times are bad right now. Money’s tight.”

  “Listen to that,” said Froemming, grinning.

  “Andy, you’re so fucking nice,” said Wendelstedt, “you suck.”

  Perhaps if there had been time between that late night of bitterness with Olsen and Froemming after the game in San Diego and the subsequent contest between the Pirates and the Dodgers in Los Angeles on that fateful Friday, the following day, …Perhaps if there had been an off day for travel allowing Wendelstedt, still withdrawing from three weeks of drugs, to gather some badly needed sleep, …Perhaps if the Pirates hadn’t been so tight, having just hopped over the Cardinals and assumed undisputed possession of first place in the eastern division of the National League, …Perhaps if it weren’t for all these factors, then the final and most wicked confrontation between a still-fuming Harry Wendelstedt and the usually placid Art Williams would have never come to pass. But it did.

  “YOU LIAR!” shouted Harry Wendelstedt, his hands resting on his hips above the big bulky pockets of his blue jacket.

  “YOU COCKSUCKER,” he bellowed, his lips curled with scorn, his cheeks red with rage.

  “YOU BLACK MOTHERFUCKER. YOU BLACK MOTHERFUCKER!”

  Heaving up his shoulders, the big black man turned to Wendelstedt, regarding him with quiet, gray eyes.

  “That’s what he called you,” said Wendelstedt. “Half the players on the field heard it, and so did we. You let (Pirate third baseman) Richie Hebner call you that right to your face and you didn’t do a fucking thing about it. What are you going to say now? Are you going to deny it? I saw you mumbling at the son of a bitch. You should have run his ass.”

  “He didn’t,” said Williams, quietly, his soft voice edged with steel.

  “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! You can’t allow that,” said Harvey.

  “YOU’RE UNDERMINING OUR AUTHORITY! YOU’RE MAKING US SITTING DUCKS FOR ANY GODDAMN PLAYER WHO WANTS TO COME ALONG AND TAKE POTSHOTS AT US.”

  “We’re umpires,” said Harvey. “How many times have we told you what that means?”

  “WE’RE UMPIRES! UMPIRES! SYMBOLS OF LAW AND ORDER!”

  “You gotta be red-assed,” said Harvey. “You can’t afford to let them call you horseshit. You can’t afford to give them a break. We’re not supposed to be merciful. We’re the backbone and the lifeblood of baseball. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see it? Can’t you see it? We’re the conscience and the integrity of the entire game.”

  “YOU’RE A HORSESHIT UMPIRE. YOU’RE INCONSISTENT. YOU’RE FORGETFUL. YOU’RE SO FUCKING PROUD, YOU WON’T ADMIT TO A FUCKING MISTAKE.”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” said Williams, in a soft but steady voice. “He didn’t call me anything like that.”

  “We heard him,” said Harvey. “Everybody in that infield and half the players on the bench heard him.”

  “YOU’RE GUTLESS. YOU’RE A GUTLESS SON OF A BITCH. YOU DON’T HAVE A FUCKING GUT IN YOUR BODY!”

  Art Williams stepped forward and looked Harry Wendelstedt unblinkingly in the eye. “Now that’s just enough,” he said quietly. “That’s just plenty.”

  “Now wait a minute,” said Harvey. “We don’t want any of that kind of trouble.”

  “NO,” yelled Wendelstedt, pushing Harvey out of the way. “I WANT HIM TO GET MAD. GET MAD! GET MAD! I WANT YOU TO GET MAD! A GOOD UMPIRE HAS GOTTA BE MAD! YOU NEED A FIRE UP YOUR ASS! YOU COCKSUCKER! YOU BLACK MOTHERFUCKER!”

  Wendelstedt tapped his chin with t
he tip of his forefinger. “HIT ME, YOU BLACK MOTHERFUCKER, HIT ME, HIT ME, HIT ME!”

  Art Williams shifted his weight. His skin seemed momentarily to turn purple, yet when he spoke, his countenance and his voice seemed completely controlled. The words came slowly, evenly, rigidly …

  “He didn’t …call me what you said he did …and I’m trying as hard as I can … to do the right thing. Now I don’t want … to hear anything more …about it. I’m warning you … I don’t want to hear anything more … right now.”

  The two men watched each other for a few brief seconds that ticked like eternity on the clock on the wall.

  “OK, Art,” Wendelstedt said quietly, letting out the tension in one breath. “Never again. I just care, you know?”

  “I know,” said Williams.

  “I care what happens to you, and I care what happens to us—to umpires.”

  “I know,” Williams said. “I do the best I can. I have a lot to learn.”

  “We don’t say these things to embarrass you, Art,” said Harvey.

  “I know,” said Williams.

  “We want you to do right,” said Harvey. “We want everything right. We’re umpires … umpires.” He shrugged his shoulders and dropped his eyes to his hands.

  Umpire. Umpire. Doug Harvey had always wanted to be an umpire. Umpire. The sound of the word and the realization that he had made it provided continuous joy. Doug Harvey could never recall wanting to do anything else or be anything other than an umpire. He remembered the topaz ring he bought for himself with his savings on the day after his high school graduation and the vow he made never to remove that ring until it could be replaced by another given to him on the occasion of umpiring a world series. He had wanted to be an umpire that far back in time; from the moment he ventured into adolescence, he had that goal in mind. He trained himself to sleep during the day and to wake up as if he were working a night game. He might take a walk, then would rest in the afternoon; he might watch TV to kill some time but always took care not to stay out too late. Working for the El Centro baseball team, Class C California League, after high school, he had been a flag raiser, a bat boy, an iceman, and a ticket-taker. He had never done anything for any length of time that wasn’t associated with baseball. Baseball was his only world and he believed that umpiring was his God-given slot in life. Irrevocably. He had reached the pinnacle of his life. He was not just a man—he was an umpire—which required something more of a man. And he was not just an umpire, but a major league umpire—the best goddamn umpire in the world. Doug Harvey could ask nothing more than that.

  Harvey looked up at Wendelstedt and Williams, still uncomfortably watching each other, and said: “Not many more games to go.”

  Williams looked at Harvey, then moved back across the room. “Yeah, the season will be over soon,” he said.

  “Those Pirates are really something special,” said Harvey.

  “‘Specially stupid,” said Williams. “Particularly Hebner and (pitcher Ken) Brett.”

  “Hebner and Brett are quarter-wits,” Wendelstedt said.

  “Quarter-wits?”

  “Put them both together and all you’ve got is a half-wit.”

  Harvey and Williams smiled, then quietly chuckled.

  Wendelstedt shrugged, threw off his jacket, and sat down wearily in a chair. It was so frustrating to him, so painfully, terribly frustrating …losing control. Harry Wendelstedt truly believed that an umpire symbolized all that was right and decent about this country.

  There is no better judge of what is right and wrong than an umpire. There is no man more honest and impartial than an umpire. An umpire is a rock. On the field, he is unaffected by pleas for mercy, unaffected by heartbreak, by desire, by criticism, by danger. His entire being, 100 percent of himself is focused on the variances of a tiny white ball moving at anywhere from eighty-five to one hundred miles per hour over or around an eighteen inch slab of rubber approximately two hundred times in each three hour period. The ball was the all and the everything in baseball, the nucleus of an umpire’s universe, the cornerstone of his life.

  Harry Wendelstedt loved his four-year-old son Harry Hunter, and his wife Cheryl, but for the period of time he spent out on the field, the woman and the child were nothing more than distant mirages on a desert of memories. That was how much umpiring meant to him. How or when he had fully embraced this feeling and belief he didn’t really know. Nor did he know why—except that he realized that the game and the man were no longer separate entities, that once he stepped into that blue uniform he was no longer a man to whom the real world had any relation. He was an umpire and, as such, he was larger than life.

  No More Players’ Dirty Looks

  THE 1974 BASEBALL SEASON inched its way through the final three weeks of the year.

  The National League, seemingly convinced that Harvey and Wendelstedt were the dynamic duo of umpiredom, mercilessly dispatched the crew to city after city in which the tight and tension-filled battles for the playoff race were being fought. Beginning on September 12, and stretching through twenty-one days, all the way down to the dwindling innings of the year, the crew officiated eighteen games involving the Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, or Reds. Certainly it is no secret, since now it is indelibly printed in our memories and on the pages of baseball history that the Dodgers withstood a stubborn but ill-fated charge by a partially anemic Cincinnati team and captured the western division title. And the Pirates, immersed in a season-long exercise of braggadocio and buffoonery, somehow survived the National League East by winning the final game of a rather pitiful year.

  But the pressure took its toll.

  In the umpires’ dressing room, before and after each and every game, Jerry Dale began announcing numbers. Without as much as clearing his throat for introduction, with nothing as articulate as a sigh in explanation, Dale would suddenly shout …

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Twelve.”

  … and it was to take Harvey, Wendelstedt, and Williams more than a little while before they came to realize that Dale was actually counting off the games separating him from the end of the campaign.

  No more baseballs, no more bats.

  No more players’ dirty hats.

  Dale was in his fourth season as a major league umpire. Under the agreement constituted in 1971 by the Major League Umpires Association and the National and American Leagues, Dale, were he permitted to work just one major league game during the 1975 baseball season, would be granted tenure and thus be virtually assured of permanent security in his position. Under normal circumstances Dale might be in much more serious trouble than he really was, but there were as many as three retirements expected at the end of the season: Chris Pelekoudas, fifty-five; Shag Crawford, fifty-five; Tom Gorman, fifty-four. The league seemed to be in no position, as witnessed by the dearth of available mid-season replacements, to deal with three openings, let alone four—or even five, if Satch Davidson were dropped. Davidson, incidentally, had tenure, and it had become apparent that the National League would be pitched into court if it tried to relieve him.

  Unfortunately, Dale was not a very good umpire. Not only did he lack the backbone to stand up against the fury and belligerence of players and coaches, but he was particularly weak behind the plate—especially when calling pitches against left-handed batters. Both Harvey and Wendelstedt recognized Dale’s problem soon after he joined the crew. He had somehow developed the habit of ducking his head away from the plate and around the catcher’s shoulder, thus losing sight of the pitch for an instant or viewing the ball as it crossed the plate from an entirely different angle. Such a tactic resulted in a number of bad calls and in a very low level of consistency.

  Dale had also been having a tough time on the bases. He missed a very simple call in Houston one night in mid-September that cost Cincinnati a run and perhaps the game. It had prompted tens of thousands of people in Cincinnati who had seen the replay on television to endorse a petition con
demning him for incompetence.

  Obviously, the pressure of officiating the most important games in two tight divisional contests was adversely affecting Jerry Dale. Previously Dale had been, either by design or by choice, placed with some of the weaker crews in the league for the final month of the season. Most of the games he had officiated in September, consequently, were of no major importance except, perhaps, in individual instances of player accomplishment.

  Now he was feeling the heat, so much so that his penchant for privacy seemed to edge into a state bordering paranoia. It increased to the point where he began registering in hotels under the assumed name of Palmer.

  Once in New York, on the last day in September, Harvey, Wendelstedt, and Williams, swaying on a clanging subway headed toward Shea Stadium, watched Dale climb aboard the same car, glance in both directions, then slip stealthily into a seat.

  “Hey, Phantom! Hey, Palmer the Phantom!” Wendelstedt called. “C’mon over here!”

  Dale turned and regarded his fellow crew members for a long time, without even a sign of recognition. Finally, as if his memory had just jarred him, he nodded almost imperceptibly, lifted up the collar of his trenchcoat around his neck, then turned away.

  For Jerry Dale, it had been a long, tough year.

  It had been a long, tough year for Doug Harvey, too, but as the grueling innings and rain-delayed double-headers followed one after another toward a final outcome, he could at last begin to see and feel the re-emergence of his physical and emotional health. The special insoles he had acquired in Houston had alleviated much of the pain in his legs, and the high protein diet with which he had been experimenting seemed to be firming him up. No longer was his belly bloated and his face puffed as it had been since his reaction to penicillin earlier in the year. The promises made by the many doctors he had consulted that his strength would gradually return were finally bearing fruit. He still spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping, but now, when he awoke, he felt rested and was able to maintain a good deal of strength through the balance of the day. This was a welcome turnabout, especially since he had been recently selected to work the World Series.