My career let me work alongside some of the greatest ballplayers ever. As for pitchers, if I had to fight the devil in a game for every soul, I’d take Sandy Koufax. If I knew Sandy was going to be pitching, I couldn’t wait to get to the ballpark. You knew he was going to be around the plate. Scientists will tell you that it is impossible for a pitched ball to rise. Well, if Koufax’s fastball didn’t rise, then I have to say it came in at one angle and changed angles upward. Because just as the batter started to swing, that ball went up. Sandy threw his fastball dead overhand from a high mound, and it just exploded up.
Sandy was also a gentleman. One day he had two strikes on a batter and threw a curveball. I called it a ball. He took the ball back from the catcher, and he looked in at me, and he took his left hand and put it flat against his chest as if to ask, Was it too high?
I nodded yes. He threw the next pitch six inches lower. Bingo. I nailed him. Strike three. That’s how good he was.
Shag Crawford was umpiring behind the plate in the 1963 World Series, and he told me that Sandy had two strikes on Mickey Mantle and threw a fastball around his chin. He said the next one came the same way, chin high, and catcher John Roseboro caught it just below the knees. The pitch had a dynamite break on it, and it just left Mantle standing at home plate, strike three. And Mantle couldn’t believe it.
I flew into New York after a game in Chicago and was watching the Yankees play the Washington Senators on TV. They were interviewing Mantle, and the color guy was saying to him that in his opinion Carlos Pascual had to have the absolute best curveball in baseball.
Mickey smiled and said, “Have you ever heard of a pitcher by the name of Koufax?”
Until the day Koufax retired, no one knew how much pain he had to endure when he pitched. I had a bad back that I had injured in junior college. It would constantly go out of place, and Bill Buhler, the trainer for the Dodgers, was the only one—I tried several—who knew what he was doing and could put it back in place for me. Because of that, I would go see him when the ball club was out on the field taking infield and batting practice before the game.
I walked in one day and Bill, who was wearing rubber gloves, was rubbing down Koufax, and I could smell something really foul.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“It’s Capsolin,” Bill said.
Capsolin is an ugly bloodred before the air gets to it, and he was rubbing this stuff across Sandy’s chest and on his shoulder clear down to his left arm, almost to the elbow. I couldn’t believe Sandy was putting himself through that type of torture just so he could pitch. When Sandy finally quit at age thirty after winning twenty-seven games in the 1966 season, it really didn’t surprise me. Sandy was suffering tremendously. I know, because when I was in high school I was elected to the letterman’s club, and as part of their hazing they would rub this Capsolin on your balls. It hurt so much I didn’t sleep all night. I had to put ice on my balls, and that’s how I spent the whole night, and the pain didn’t ease until the next day. I would never want anyone to have to go through that.
Sandy Koufax was the best pitcher I ever saw. I’d pitch him against any pitcher in the world, against any pitcher in history. That’s how good he was. I just thank God he gave me the opportunity to umpire on the days Sandy Koufax pitched. In all of baseball, I’m not sure we’ll ever see the likes of him again.
Another great pitcher who was a gentleman was St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Steve Carlton. Steve was very, very quiet.
Great ballplayers don’t say anything. They don’t worry to themselves, Gee, it’s a 3-and-2 pitch. I thought I had it. They don’t scream at the umpire. They figure, If it’s 3-and-2 and the umpire called ball four, it must have been outside. There’s another batter up there. Let’s go get him.
Man, Carlton could pitch. A left-hander, he’d take that hard slider and break it in on a right-handed batter. It broke hard and caught the plate. The batters would start swinging and from behind the plate I could see they were missing because the ball had such great movement. They were swinging over the damned thing. Hell, they were fortunate to get a foul ball off of him, never mind a base hit. Carlton was one of the greatest pitchers of our time.
We knew that Nolan Ryan had a special arm. When he first came up with the New York Mets I wondered whether he’d ever be able to capture the strike zone. He had problems. He couldn’t throw strikes. And then the Mets traded him over to the American League for Jim Fregosi of the Angels. The Mets never could find a decent third baseman, and they were hoping Fregosi could do the job. Unfortunately, Jim didn’t play much, and Nolan went into the Hall of Fame.
The reason he became a sudden star with the California Angels was that the American League gave the high strike because the umpires wore the outside chest protector, and it didn’t matter that everything he threw was up. He blew through the league. Once he was given the high strike, the batters had to swing at anything within six inches of it. And when he finally learned to control his pitches, he came back to the National League and did just fine.
Another pitcher who was outstanding when he came up to the majors was Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I never had any arguments with Fernando, because he didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. When he pitched he never looked at the catcher. He was interesting. He could spin that ball in the opposite direction as good as any screwball pitcher I ever saw.
He became a star and a hero, and then suddenly after he became a hero in Mexico, he quit working at it during the off-season, because when he came back, suddenly his screwball didn’t break as much as it did before, and the batters started to hit him.
Before that, Fernando was really great.
Dwight Gooden was 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA in 1985. He had a dynamite fastball and slider. He could hum it. He knew how to pitch up and down, in close, away. He was outstanding.
With a guy like that, there were very few arguments. When a guy wins that many games, what the hell is there to argue about? An occasional pitch, maybe. Is he going to get mad and blow the game? Come on. You’re not going to do that. That’s when the manager tells the pitcher, “If the umpire needs his ass chewed, I’ll come out and do it. Don’t you say a word.”
Dwight knew how to pitch and he knew how to act. He was a pleasure. I enjoyed working with him that year. He was so on. He was like Sandy Koufax.
Greg Maddux was another guy who got the absolute most out of what he had. Here’s a guy who wasn’t overpowering, but he could put the ball exactly where it belonged. I got such a kick because everyone said, “The umpires give him extra on the plate.” Not so. Not so at all. The man was good enough that he could put that sucker there and move it just enough that the batter would think, “That’s off the plate,” and it would be strike one.
The next one he’d say, “There’s the same pitch,” and he’d swing at it, and the damn thing would break inside and they’d foul it off for strike two.
He’d throw one up and tight to back the batter off the plate, then throw a little slider on the other side of the plate, strike three.
It was really something to sit back and watch. He was another of the pitchers like Koufax and so many others who didn’t complain. He worked his job. He wasn’t overpowering and yet he got people out. He kept his mouth shut. The umpires just adored looking out to the bullpen and seeing him warming up. It was wonderful when you had a pitcher like Koufax or Maddux, who never said anything and just threw strikes. It makes it so much easier on the umpire.
You get through and you feel, I’ve had some kind of a day. But you haven’t had a day. You just reported the fact that the pitcher had a hell of a day.
The umpire is there for one reason and one reason only: To make sure one team doesn’t gain an unfair advantage. It’s that simple. For the game to have meaning it has to be fair, and the only thing standing between fairness and chaos is the umpiring crew.
You’ll be shocked and maybe disappointed when I expose the horseshit players who tried and got caught cheating, using everything from phantom tags and corked bats to scuffed baseballs. I’ll even shine a light on umpires who compromised their integrity. You think managers wouldn’t cheat if they could win a few more games? You think pitchers don’t cheat? Man, you have to watch those bastards every minute.
I used to get a kick out of Tommy Lasorda. He’d come waddling out. He could be nasty but I always kind of liked him. In this game, Don Sutton, who was a hell of a pitcher when he wasn’t cheating, was pitching for the Dodgers, and he was pitching a brand-new ball. He rubbed it up, and there was a fly out and Jerry Crawford got the ball and looked at it, and he called me over.
“Chief, look at this,” Jerry said. And he showed the ball to me, and it had a scab right on the league president’s signature. I didn’t think it was an accident that the mark had been put on that spot.
When a ball is marked in a specific place, the pitcher knows right where to grip it to make it more than slide. He can make it drop. What a major league pitcher can do with a marked ball is magic. And it’s cheating.
Sutton pitched another brand-new ball, and on his first pitch Ken Reitz hit a fly out to Rick Monday in center field. Monday flipped the ball to Jerry coming in, and Jerry called me over again. That ball had been scuffed in the same spot as the other one.
“Lasorda, come out here,” I said.
Tommy came out.
“Look at this ball.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Do you see this scuff right here?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, someone on your ball club is marring the ball”—I didn’t even say that Sutton was the one marring it—“and I have to think Sutton is pitching the marred ball knowing it’s marred, and I’m telling you, if he does it again, I’m going to toss him.”
“Jesus Christ, Harvey,” Lasorda said. “What are you trying to be, God? You can’t do that.”
“Yes I can,” I said, “and I will.”
Sure enough, in the bottom of the sixth Sutton pitched another brand-new ball, and the batter hit another fly out to Monday in center.
“Rick, give me that ball,” I ordered him.
I’ll never forget the look on Monday’s face. He had a silly, shit-eating grin. There was a scar on the ball in the same spot as the others, and as Sutton was walking off the field, I told him, “Keep going.” Right then and there I threw him out of the ball game.
Out came Lasorda, ready to do battle.
Sutton, meanwhile, went into the dressing room, and when he came out he was holding a legal form letter.
“My lawyer will be in touch with you,” he said.
He laid the letter on my arm. I should have folded it up and kept it for posterity. Instead I tore it into a million pieces. If he wasn’t cheating, why was he carrying around the piece of paper?
“Fuck you, and your lawyer too,” I told Sutton.
“Harvey,” said Lasorda, “what are you trying to do?”
“Tommy,” I said, “I’m trying to clean up this game a little bit.”
“The last guy I ever saw who tried to clean up a town,” said Lasorda, “was Wyatt fucking Earp.”
It was a great line, and it took all of my power to keep from breaking out laughing. But this was serious, and I had to carry out what I was doing.
I had told the other umpires on my crew, “Don’t get mad. Get even. Wait your turn. There will come a time.”
Six years later, I got my chance with Lasorda.
I was in Pittsburgh and the Pirates were playing Lasorda’s Dodgers. Rick Rhoden, who once was a Dodger pitcher and a teammate of Don Sutton, was pitching for the Pirates, and he was sticking it to the Dodgers.
In the middle of the game between innings, Lasorda whistled at me to get my attention.
“Harv,” he said.
“Come on over here.”
“I don’t go to dugouts,” I said. “If you want to see me, you come out here.”
Lasorda came out, and he was carrying five balls with him.
“Look at these balls,” he said.
I picked one up and looked at it. I looked at a couple more and pretended I didn’t see the scuffs that Rhoden had apparently put on them.
“Those are National League balls,” I said. “That’s what we’re using.”
“No, no,” said Tommy. “That’s not what I’m saying. Here, look at this. Look!”
He was showing me where the balls were scuffed.
“Now, Tommy,” I said with utmost sincerity, “where do you think Rhoden learned that?”
“I don’t give a damn where he learned that,” Tommy said. “I want you to clean it up.”
“Well, Tommy,” I said, “the last guy I ever saw clean up a town was Wyatt fucking Earp.”
Tommy dropped the five balls on home plate and walked back to the dugout without saying another word, and he didn’t come out again during the rest of the ball game.
It’s exactly what I always tried to tell the young umpires. I’d say, “Don’t get all pissed off. Just listen and eject them if they have to be ejected, and if they really put your ass to the wall, just wait. There will come a day when justice will be yours.”
That’s why I respected Hall of Fame pitchers like Don Drysdale and Steve Carlton so much. They did it without cheating. They didn’t have to cheat.
I never told anyone, but I almost quit after the first Sutton incident. Clearly Sutton was cheating. Why would he be carrying a letter like that if he wasn’t cheating? I reported to the league office that there was one smudge on each of three league balls, and the balls never hit the ground. They had been hit and caught by a fielder. Sutton was caught red-handed.
There was a hearing. Sutton took his lawyer, his manager, and his general manager, and they all went and hammered Chub Feeney, the president of the National League, and Feeney decided they must have been scuffed by the ground or maybe before they left the ball bag. They gave all kinds of excuses. Feeney let Sutton off with a slap on the wrist.
My next game was in Montreal, and as I stood there at third base I was so upset that Sutton wasn’t suspended or fined that I couldn’t keep the tears from coming to my eyes. I was talking to myself, telling myself that I ought to quit and go home. That’s how upset I was.
In the tenth inning, the Expos had a runner on third and two outs. I was still crying when the Philadelphia pitcher balked. It should have won the game for Montreal. Gary Carter, who was on third base, screamed at me, “Harvey, he balked.”
But I had tears in my eyes, and I was so choked up I never saw it. When he balked, I was at the point where I was going to break out crying, because the decision had been so disrespectful to the game of baseball.
After the game, I told Joy that I was going to quit, but she talked me out of it.
“Stay with it a couple of days and see if you still feel that way,” she said.
I held a meeting with my umpiring crew and told them what Feeney had decided. They were almost as despondent as I was.
“Let me tell you something,” I said. “I don’t want you looking at any ball. If anyone shows you, throw it out, because we tried—we did our job—and they didn’t back us up, so screw it. We’re not going to throw any balls out.”
And that’s what we did the rest of the year.
I went back to umpiring, but, man, that hurt me. To think I had done it properly, and because Sutton had a lawyer and a manager and his general manager, he got off. Nah, that was no good. I mean, it hurt me clear to my heart. I knew the guy was cheating and they refused to back me.
Then there was Gaylord Perry, a Hall of Famer and the cleverest motherfucker I ever saw. He threw a spitter, which is illegal. He could load that thing up. We knew he was putting some kind of shit on the ball. We just couldn’t catch him. We were in San Francisco and Gaylord was pitching. Shag Crawford said to me, “All right, keep your eye on me. When I see him turn his back to me to rub up a new ball, you come running, and we’re going to catch that son of a bitch.”
I ran in and he still had his head down, rubbing up the ball, and I took the ball. I rubbed my hands on his shirt and we found—absolutely nothing. I don’t know what he did.
A few years ago, I saw him at the Hall of Fame ceremonies. I had to find out.
“Gaylord,” I said. “Tell me, how did you do it? Where did you hide that shit?”
“What shit, Harv?”
“C’mon. I have to know before I die.”
“Magic, Harv, magic.”
“Gaylord.”
“Well, maybe we’ll sit down one day and have a talk.”
I’m still waiting.
Chub Feeney, who had been the Giants’ general manager and was Giant owner Horace Stoneham’s nephew, became the president of the National League in 1970. When he took over, he announced, “We’re going to chase all the spitballers out of our league.”
He told the umpires, “If a ball acts like a spitball, if it’s a strike, I want you to call it a ball. If the batter hits it for an out, you bring the batter back.”
And that’s what we did in spring training, and all of them who were using the spitter jumped over to the American League. And then within two years the American League did the same thing. They were chased right out of baseball.
Gaylord Perry came out with his own solution to the problem. He was pitching for the San Diego Padres, and the son of a bitch invented the puffball. He had the grounds crew put a huge resin bag on the mound in San Diego. It was dry resin, and he would take it and bounce it in his hand, and then he’d take the ball and put it in his hand, and when he pitched it, the ball would come out of a puff of white smoke so the batter couldn’t pick it up right away. It was distracting to the batter, but what was funny about it was that the batters never said a word about it. They figured he was just using resin.
I always said, “Gaylord Perry is the cleverest son of a bitch I ever saw.”
I saw some wonderful hitters as well. As far as I’m concerned, Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw. I came up when he was still in his prime. What an amazing athlete. It’s just a shame that he had to play so many games in Candlestick Park. Anywhere else, he would’ve broken Babe Ruth’s home-run record.
I can recall a game in which Willie slid into third base trying to beat the throw, and Jocko Conlan called him out. After Willie slid in, he leaped up and put both his hands on Jocko’s chest. Very slowly, Jocko looked down at his chest, and let me tell you, I never saw a player run so fast in all his life. Willie took off for the bench—which was on the first-base line—and didn’t stop until he reached the dugout. He did that because he knew if he had waited around any longer, Jocko would have run him. Jocko didn’t give a shit who he ran.
People think umpires have favorites. I’ll tell you who our favorites are: The ones who can keep their mouths shut and play the game. And Willie played the game. I’m telling you, if Willie had stood there another second, he’d have been gone.
Stan Musial was the best hitter I ever saw. And Hank Aaron and Billy Williams were the only two hitters I saw who could make that bat sing. Roberto Clemente was very quiet. He never said much, but when he was at bat—if he didn’t like a call—he could turn and give you a look, and everybody in the crowd immediately knew that Roberto was accusing you of kicking the call. Though he was the quietest of ballplayers, Roberto could get you in the outhouse just by looking at you.
I was there the day he got his three thousandth hit. The Pirates were playing the New York Mets at Three Rivers Stadium on September 30, 1972. Jon Matlack was pitching for the Mets, and I was the second-base umpire. After Clemente hit the ball, it went toward center field.
I was standing near second when the throw came in to the shortstop.
“Let’s see it, son,” I said.
He gave me the ball.
“Roberto, congratulations,” I said. And I handed him the ball and shook his hand.
- - -
If I had to take a hustler, it’d be Pete Rose.
One of the joys of umpiring is getting to watch the new kids come up from the minor leagues. Sometimes a kid will come along who just impresses the hell out of you, and in spring training in 1963, Pete Rose was one of those kids.
Before a game I walked up to him and said, “Hi, pardner, how are you doing?”
“I’m Pete Rose,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Doug Harvey,” I said, “and you can call me umpire or you can call me sir.”
“Okay,” he said. “I understand you.”
The kid was happy-go-lucky, and he knocked our socks off the first time he walked, because on ball four he sprinted to first base. I knew then that Pete was different. Later, toward the end of spring training, I was umpiring his game and suddenly this kid, who had been talking his head off every minute, was standing at second base not saying a word.
“Pete, what’s bothering you?” I asked him.
“Well, I don’t think I’m going to make this ball club,” he said. “They have so many good players.”
“Shit, Pete, let me tell you something,” I said. “You’re not only going to make this ball club, you’re going to be around for a long time.”
Little did I know. I was just trying to pump the kid up, to let him know he had a chance.
“You think so?” he asked.
“I really do,” I said.
Boy, he came alive, and when he hit the league he was like a breath of fresh air. He played the game the way children play the game. He played it with everything he had and put his heart into it. Pete was good for baseball, and he was good for baseball for many years.
Late in his career, Pete was playing with Montreal. My umpire crew flew there and I was bringing our bags from the airport to the ballpark, because when we went to Canada, we had to haul them ourselves. It was an off day and the other guys went home, and here it was the middle of August, hotter than hell, and I was bringing the bags in. I got the equipment man to get me a hand cart, and as I was hauling the bags out of the car I could hear this crack, crack, crack, crack. I couldn’t understand what I was hearing. It sounded like someone was taking batting practice, even though it was an off day.
I walked into the ballpark, and on the field one of the batboys was feeding Rose pitches, and he was taking batting practice all by himself. No one worked harder at his game than Pete.
That pretty much tells you what you need to know about Pete Rose. At the time he was leading the league in hitting. He was intense, perhaps the most intense player I ever saw.
As a batter, Pete wasn’t above questioning a call. And I wasn’t above using my years of experience to shut him up.
Pete was playing with Philadelphia, and the Phils were playing the Mets in Philadelphia. Doc Gooden was pitching for New York. Pete came up to bat and Gooden threw a pitch, and I called a strike. Pete stepped out of the box and made a face, and suddenly sixty thousand of Philadelphia’s finest were giving me the razz.
“Harv,” Pete said to me, “he doesn’t need any help.”
I just looked at him and crossed my arms. I didn’t even take my mask off.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re better than that. Don’t let him fool you.”
As Pete stepped into the box, I said to him in a low voice, “I know it missed home plate.”
Pete leaped out of the box, and again the Philly throng made their feelings known.
“How come you called it a strike?” he asked.
“Well,” I said, “I’m not as young as I used to be, Pete. I have a little trouble seeing now. And I guess from now on I’m going to have to call anything that’s close a strike. So why don’t you get back in there, and we’ll see what we can do.”
I wasn’t above having a little fun on my own.
Doc threw another pitch, and Pete liked to have taken Gooden’s head off. He ripped a single right over his right shoulder. Pete got to first base, and I took a glance over there. He had both his hands out with his palms up, explaining to the first-base coach that the pitch was this high.
My feeling was that Pete was good for baseball because the man loved the game. There’s no doubt in my mind. He was one of the few players I can really say had fun in the game. He had as much fun playing as I had umpiring.
When Pete was chasing the National League consecutive-game hit streak record, our umpiring crew lived with him. He was hitting shots. The night the streak ended, he hit two shots, one of them at the third baseman and the other back to the pitcher. And then the other team brought in a reliever who refused to throw anything close to a strike. Pete had to chase pitches he normally wouldn’t swing at, which I thought was really unfair to him. What was that pitcher going to be able to say? I stopped Pete Rose’s streak? Who cares? Pete Rose was who the fans cared about.
I was there for both Hank Aaron’s chase to beat Babe Ruth’s career home-run record of 714 and for Pete Rose’s chase to break Ty Cobb’s record of 4,191 hits. It seemed that more importance was placed on Pete Rose chasing his record than Hank Aaron chasing the Babe.
Hank had finished the 1973 season one home run short of the record. The Dodgers came into Atlanta early the next season to play the Braves. The ball was jumping out of the ballpark, and on April 8, 1974, Hank hit a home run off Dodger pitcher Al Downing to break Ruth’s record. He finished his career with 755 home runs.
Hank was like Clemente. They were both sullen. I understood it. Both had to fight the racism of the time. If Hank didn’t agree with a call, he would have a say, but it would be under his breath and not loud. He wouldn’t put on a big show. He’d just let me know that he disagreed, and that’s exactly the way Clemente was.
As I said, the American public seemed more excited about Pete breaking his record than Hank breaking his. Was it racism? I don’t know. I hate to think that. The game is much too big for that. To think it could be sullied because of something like that—even to kick it around, to wonder—turns my stomach a little bit.
- - -
It makes me ache me to see Pete Rose on the outside. From his play, he certainly belongs in the Hall of Fame, but he definitely broke the rules of baseball by betting on his own team. If you walk into any dressing room, you can see in red lettering the things you are forbidden from doing, and one of them is betting on baseball. Pete said he never bet against his team, but I don’t give a damn. You can’t bet.
Pete had a problem with gambling. He had an addiction to it. I was revulsed by the idea of it.
One of the great dangers of being a major league umpire is the possibility of putting yourself in a position where you can help someone win a bet on baseball. I was always very aware of that, and I made it a practice to avoid anyone who bet, who talked about betting, who wanted inside information, or anyone whom I felt might compromise my integrity. I only lost my focus one time.
In 1969 the New York Mets were scheduled to play the Atlanta Braves in the first play-off games. Everyone figured Atlanta was going to win it, because the Braves had sluggers Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda, and Rico Carty.
I was at home, having coffee with my folks, and my dad said to me, “I look for Atlanta to sweep the Mets.”
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“They have these boys hitting home runs,” he said.
“Dad,” I said, “let me give you a little hint: Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry, and Nolan Ryan. These guys are outstanding pitchers, and outstanding pitchers will always beat outstanding hitters.”
It’s the reason you often have low scores in the World Series. The teams in the series most often are the ones with good pitching.
“You really think those young guys have a chance?” he asked.
“Dad,” I said, “they have a real good chance.”
I finished my coffee and went on my way.
After the series was over—a series the Mets won in five games—my dad came up to me and said, “I can’t thank you enough.”
“What for?”
“I had bet a hundred dollars on Atlanta to win. And when you told me about the Mets pitchers, I went and bet five hundred on the Mets.”
I was horrified.
“Jesus Christ, Dad,” I said. “This is the way I make my living. Don’t ever ask me who’s going to win.”
And he never did again.
I made it clear: My job was not to tout people.
I have to tell myself that I understand what baseball did to Pete, because baseball had warned him what it was going to do if the betting rule was violated.
And so Pete Rose, in my opinion, was the best thing that ever happened to baseball—and the worst. He deserves what he got. But I thought the world of him. Pete may get elected to the Hall of Fame when he’s dead, because he has the numbers. He beat Ty Cobb’s hit record. He was one of the greats.