Baseball made me a crew chief in 1977, choosing me over two other umpires with more seniority, Paul Pryor and John McSherry. The league in the past had always assigned crew chiefs according to how much time they had served. Not this time. And Paul and John were both assigned to my crew, which I thought was an unfairness. It was as though the executives in charge of the umpires wanted to make my life as difficult as possible.
I took each of them aside.
“It was none of my doing,” I said. “I’m not an ass-kisser. I didn’t ask to be crew chief. It was handed to me, and I’m going to take it. If you want to be on my crew, that’s fine. If you don’t, I’m sure I can arrange to have you transferred.”
Both Paul and John accepted it, and we had a fine year. There wasn’t a single problem that we couldn’t handle.
Paul was a fine fellow and a very decent umpire. He did have one problem. Like so many others, he drank too much. His favorite drink was whiskey.
Paul’s problem surfaced in Pittsburgh. I was staying at a different hotel from my crew members. They liked to stay downtown, where the action was. I preferred quiet. I stayed at the Holiday Inn, about eight blocks from Forbes Field. I liked to stay there because I could walk to the park.
On this day I arrived early. The equipment man was in the locker room. He was hanging up our clothes for the game.
“Harvey, can I have a word with you?” he asked.
“Certainly.”
“Paul Pryor’s drinking so much,” he said, “that after a game when he’s working home plate, his uniform is soaked with sweat and it stinks something terrible. I’d wash it, but I can’t do that. It has to be dry-cleaned. Can you talk to him?”
I went to Paul and told him, “It stinks to high heaven.”
“Okay, Harv,” Paul said, “I’ll quit drinking whiskey.”
And he did, though he did switch to vodka, which wasn’t quite so bad.
- - -
John McSherry, a large man who weighed more than three hundred pounds, was a good fellow and a very good umpire. He not only had a drinking problem, he had an eating problem. On an off day during spring training I went to see him in his hotel room. When I walked in, he was lying in bed watching TV. Beside him was a case of Pepsi-Cola and an ice bucket. He was eating a full meal. It was ten o’clock in the morning. It was clear to me he had an eating habit he just couldn’t break.
Later John was promoted to crew chief. He was umpiring behind the plate on opening day in Cincinnati in 1996. He started to walk off, took a few steps, and collapsed and died.
Eric Gregg, who was on my crew and was the best of the African American umpires, also had a terrible problem with food. I was forever on Eric about it. Had he listened to me, he’d still be alive.
Eric was an outstanding umpire, but his weight became a problem. He could hardly move. There are pictures of him trying to work behind home plate. He had his legs spread out as far as he could get them because he couldn’t bend down.
One time Frank Pulli and Jerry Crawford, the other members of my crew, came to me and asked if on a certain play where Eric was supposed to run out to the outfield, one of them could come out instead and cover for him.
I told them no. I was hoping to force Eric to fix his eating problem.
One time after a night game our crew was invited out to dinner. Eric said he couldn’t go, he had something to do. The three of us went out to dinner and stayed out late, returning at about one thirty in the morning. We were walking to our hotel rooms when we saw the bellman pushing a big tray.
“Hold it, partner,” I said to him. We looked under the tray, and there was a slab of ribs, a whole chicken, and four beers.
“Are you going to Eric Gregg’s room?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said.
I gave the guy ten bucks and took one of my cards and wrote Eric a note.
Enjoy your snack, I wrote, and I put it on the tray.
We stood out by Eric’s door. The bellman left the tray and exited, tossing a baseball up and down. Eric had given it to him as a tip.
Two minutes later the door opened and the tray came flying out. Eric, caught red-handed stuffing his face at one thirty in the morning, had thrown everything on the tray out the hotel window into the parking lot.
I loved Eric. I thought the world of him. He was fun. Eric was sure he was bulletproof as far as his job security.
“Because of my color,” he told me, “I’ll always be here. I’ll be the one they keep.”
He was wrong. After the umpires went on strike in 1992, they kept Charlie Williams, the other African American umpire, and they let Eric go. It broke his heart. Broke mine too.
Another of the umpires who worked on my crew was Dick Stello, a really terrific guy. Everyone loved him. Dick was a lot of fun, a good guy. He was married to Lillian, who at one time had worked as an exotic dancer under the name of Chesty Morgan. We called her Zsa Zsa; a nice lady. He would tell us about some of the things she’d do, and we’d laugh. When they were married, Dick was her manager. After they divorced, they still remained close. He loved bling. He had a big watch and chain and always had jewelry around his neck.
Dick was killed in a freak car accident in November 1987. He and Lillian lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, and after buying a classic car at a car auction he needed to put a license plate on it. He pulled over to the side of the road and was putting on the tag when a car came out of nowhere and hit him and crushed him. It was awful.
Dick is really missed. It was a shame.
In all, I was crew chief between 1974 and 1992, and I wouldn’t have traded a minute of it.
- - -
The Cincinnati Reds, featuring Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Bernie Carbo, Bobby Tolan, and Tony Pérez, among others, won 102 ball games in 1970. The Reds’ manager was Sparky Anderson.
You had to be careful with Sparky. Sparky always tried to put the hat on you. He’d try to get you to say something he could use against you. If you got flustered and got to talking too fast, you might say something where he’d say, “Wait a minute. You said . . .” And you couldn’t deny it, because you said it.
And Sparky, unlike most managers, prided himself on knowing the rules. Well, Sparky didn’t know them compared to Doug Harvey. There were times I would listen to Sparky talk, then I’d tell him, “You’re wrong, Sparky.”
“What you’re trying to spout is rule so-and-so, and you’re spouting it wrong.”
I would put him down, and he’d just stomp off upset.
Sparky was a good manager. He enjoyed a good argument, but many times he didn’t heed my rule about calling me sir or Mr. Umpire or Mr. Harvey, and Sparky’d get ejected for being disrespectful.
Sparky’s Reds were playing the San Francisco Giants. I was at second base and Jerry Crawford was at first. Bill Plummer, the Reds’ catcher, was at bat. He had two strikes on him and he checked his swing. The plate umpire, Andy Olsen, nodded to Jerry, and he rang Plummer up.
Plummer raised his arms and yelled at Jerry, and Jerry threw him out.
Sparky came out of the dugout on a dead run.
“Son, I don’t think you like Bill Plummer,” he said to Jerry. “It’s the second time you’ve ejected him this year.”
Sparky had his finger out, pointing, giving Jerry a lecture.
“Sparky,” said Jerry, “I don’t have anything against Plummer. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut, and everything would have been all right.”
The Reds took the field. A Giant base runner went to steal second. The throw from the catcher went to Reds shortstop Dave Concepción, who caught the ball, brought it down, and tagged the runner. I called him safe. He had slid under the tag.
Here comes Sparky on a dead run. We argued pretty good, though I never raised my voice. One of the things Sparky said to me was, “The reason you called him safe was to get the team off Crawford’s ass.”
I was furious. That he would think I would cheat just to get the crowd off another umpire’s butt was insulting and infuriating.
When Sparky walked away he turned to Dave Concepción and patted his belly.
“No guts,” he said, pointing, talking about me.
Sparky was better than halfway to the dugout, and I took to running after him. He was in the habit of jumping over the foul line, and I caught him in the middle of his jump. I nailed him in the shoulder and almost knocked him down.
“Get the fuck out of here, and don’t you say one word,” I said. “I’ll show you guts. One way or another I’ll pick everyone off your ball club and throw them out. Now get out of here.”
And he did.
About six weeks later we were in Cincinnati, and Dave Concepción came into our dressing room to inform me that the Reds ball club had voted it the ejection of the century.
“That was the greatest ejection we ever saw,” he said.
I laughed like hell over that.
I was involved in two World Series between the Dodgers and Oakland. I was behind the plate in 1988 when Kirk Gibson hit his dramatic home run off Dennis Eckersley. As a baseball purist who always hated it when the game wasn’t played right, I was upset because Mike Davis, who got on before Kirk, stole second to put the tying run in scoring position, and the A’s didn’t even try to make a play on him. Now a bloop single would score him. I understand the fielders had a lot of confidence in Eckersley, but damn, I was mad at that. And then the big guy, Gibson, came up to bat.
Oh no, not him, everyone rooting for the Dodgers was moaning. Gibson was badly hurt. He wasn’t expected to play. How could he even swing the bat? But then he swung, letting loose of the bat with his back hand. It’s why I was watching the ball wondering, My God, can that get out?
When I saw the ball go up in the air, my impression was that it would either be a home run or it would be caught. It landed in the seats—one of the greatest home runs in World Series history, especially after Gibson gimped around the bases pumping his arm. As he limped around the diamond I was wondering, Is he going to fall down on the base paths?
The Los Angeles media voted it the most exciting sports event ever to take place there.
Earlier in the Kirk Gibson home-run game there was a man on first when Dave Parker hit a ball that went straight into the ground. He took off running. Mike Scioscia, the Dodgers’ catcher, came out, picked it up, and threw to first, hitting Parker. The ball rolled into right field, and as Parker barreled around first and into second base, I was yelling, “Time-out. Time-out.” But nobody saw or heard me.
Parker wasn’t in the first-base running lane, and if a runner is hit by a throw while running outside the lane, he’s out. I went over to Parker to explain that he was out, and I told the runner who had been on first that he had to go back.
The A’s manager, Tony La Russa, came out to ask what had happened. I explained that the ball had just touched the top of Parker’s head, and that when I looked down, he was running inside the first-base lane.
“Now, Harv, that’s not true,” said La Russa. “Let me say something.”
“Go right ahead,” I replied.
“I was sitting over there. And I was watching that ball when it was thrown. And I could see it. It didn’t hit him.”
It dawned on me that I was talking to a lawyer. La Russa, a pretty bright guy, has a law degree. So I decided to put things in legal terms that he could understand.
“Let me present my case,” I said.
He looked at me funny, then said, “All right.”
“If I really thought I could see those plays better from over there,” I said, “I’d sit right next to you.”
End of argument.
After the game Oakland general manager Sandy Alderson was bitching and moaning because the batter before Kirk Gibson homered had walked on a 3-2 count, and Alderson made the statement, “If Harvey had called the last pitch a strike instead of a ball, Gibson never would have gotten up.”
I was really pissed, because he was accusing me of missing the pitch. I went back and reviewed the film, and the pitch was about six inches off the plate. It wasn’t even close. Alderson said it should have been called a strike. Screw him.
After Gibson hit that home run, the series was as good as over: Oakland wasn’t the same ball club, and Eckersley never got into another game. Orel Hershiser was masterful in game five. He just stuck Oakland’s bats right up their noses. They didn’t stand a chance.
It was announced before the end of the 1975 season that I would be one of the umpires for the World Series, which was between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. I was walking across the hotel lobby at one in the morning.
I heard someone say, “Mr. Harvey.”
I turned around and it was Carl Yastrzemski, the talented Red Sox outfielder.
We talked for a few minutes, and Carl said, “Oh, we’ve all heard about you. We’re all anxious when we get to the World Series that you might work the plate. The guys really know all about you and have a lot of respect for you.”
What is this American Leaguer telling me this for? I thought.
I found it interesting and I was touched.
The game in which I was given the nickname “God” was played in the evening in New York, and it was raining. The night before Frank Cashen, the Mets’ general manager, called down to our dressing room and said, “Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, and also the next day. Tomorrow we’ll be lucky to get the game in, and the next day no chance, and it’s their last trip here. It means we have to play a doubleheader in their ballpark in San Diego. I’d appreciate it if you could get the game in tonight.”
“I work hard to get every game in,” I told him. “If it can be played at all, I will get it in.”
“Thank you,” Cashen said. “That’s all I can ask.”
All the grounds crews had a certain affinity for us, because when they saw Harvey’s crew coming and there was a potential rain situation, they would tell all the members of the grounds crew, “You guys better get your rain gear on, because we’re going to work today. Harvey’s here, and he doesn’t give up games.”
I’d rather fight the rain in the cool weather than to lose the game and have a doubleheader in the hot weather.
The next day I had the plate. I was working my butt off and it was raining lightly. My rule always was that I would allow the game to continue until it became unsafe. Of course, I was also trying to get in four and a half innings so the game would be official and count.
I got in six innings. There was no score and there were two outs. Mookie Wilson hit a ground ball to Steve Garvey at first base. Before the slowly hit ball even got to him, Steve held up his hand to tell the pitcher he had the play under control. Garvey fielded the ball, then took one step and his legs flew out from under him. Wilson was safe at first.
Clearly it wasn’t safe to continue. I called time and ruled there would be a game delay. I ordered the grounds crew to repair the area around first base and cover the infield. After a while the rain let up, and I ordered the game to continue.
Mookie was on first base with two outs, and Darryl Strawberry, the big outfielder for the Mets, got up and hit the ball four miles. At the end of the sixth inning, the Mets had a 2–0 lead. We had just started the next inning when the rain began coming down hard. I had the grounds crew cover the infield.
I was soaked, and I told Joe West, who was part of my umpiring crew, “Stay out here. I’m going to go in and change my underwear. Let me know if it stops raining.”
Not too long afterward Joe came into our dressing room, laughing. You have to hear his country-boy laugh. He’s got a wide-open laugh, and I love him. So Joe was laughing, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
“What’s so funny, Joe?” I asked.
He was laughing so hard he could barely tell me.
“I went over and sat in the San Diego dugout,” he said.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked. “They’re losing, and they’re the ones who are going to be upset.”
“Aw, hell,” he said, “I figured I’d do that. Anyway, Garvey comes in, and he said to me, ‘Didn’t anybody check the infield?’
“ ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Chief checked it.’
“And down at the other end of the dugout Terry Kennedy was taking off his catcher’s gear, and he slammed his shin guards down on the bench and said, ‘Well, that does it. Because that son of a bitch walks on water.’ ”
West thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and he told the story to Chicago Tribune sportswriter Jerome Holtzman. I liked Jerry. We trusted him. He wrote what you told him.
The next trip to Chicago, I checked the field to make sure it was all right, which I did every time, and I came into our dressing room. One of my crew said, “Jerry Holtzman was here.”
“I’m sorry I missed him,” I said.
The next morning the headline of Jerry’s column was GOD VISITS CHICAGO.
He was talking about me.
That morning the other members of my crew and I got into a cab. We were headed for the ballpark, and Jerry Crawford said, “Hey, chief, we thought you’d like to see this.”
That’s how I learned of it.
“My God,” I said.
“No,” they said, “you’re the God.”
After that, everyone started referring to me as “God.”
Every time Lenny Dykstra, who was playing center field for the Philadelphia Phillies, would run into me—no matter where I was on the field, even if I was at third base and he was in the right-field dugout—he would come running by me on the way to his position and say, “Hello, God.” Lenny thought that was the greatest thing in the world.
How did I feel about that? Well, what was I going to say?
They didn’t miss by much.
When I first began umpiring, it was up to the home team’s general manager to decide whether the game should be called off. But there were abuses. Some general managers would cheat. We were in Philadelphia, and the Phils were scheduled to play a Sunday day game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. I was part of Shag Crawford’s crew.
The game was to be played at one, and Shag got a call at ten in the morning to say that the Philly GM had called off the game.
“They just called me and said the game was called off,” Shag told me.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “It’s barely raining outside.”
“I know it,” he said.
The reason they called it off, I’m sure, was that Sandy Koufax was supposed to pitch that day against them, and they didn’t think they could beat him. The game was played at a later date as part of a doubleheader. It was typical of the shenanigans that happened when you gave that kind of power to the general managers.
As a result, the league gave the power to call off the games back to the umpires.
Years later, we were in St. Louis for a game between the Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. They were playing an important three-game series. Before the first game, a scheduled two p.m. start, it was raining hard, and it kept raining hard all afternoon. I stayed at the ballpark, hoping the rain would let up.
I asked the head groundskeeper about the weather report, and he said to me, “It’s going to rain all night.”
By eight o’clock the infield was really muddy, and finally I called it. They were unable to reschedule the game, and as a result the Cardinals lost a pay date. The general manager was upset because it was going to cost him a lot of money.
When I returned to my hotel room, which overlooked the ballpark, I kept a diary. Every half hour I would write, Still raining hard. Still raining. And I sat there until one thirty in the morning, when I wrote Game called properly.
I then went to bed.
I sent my notes in to Chub Feeney with my report. Chub called to tell me he was taking away the right of calling the game and giving it back to the general managers. That was the dumbest thing in the world, but it was all part of what was turning into the corporatization of baseball.
I was watching the 2012 World Series on TV, and they called the game on account of rain. There was no way I wouldn’t have started that game and gotten in seven innings.
My first trip into a town, I would always spend twenty minutes with the grounds crew. I’d visit with them, because I knew I might need them. And I could get them to do anything for me. They knew I liked to work in the rain.
I played the safety factor. If I saw somebody’s foot slip just once, or my own foot, I would call time-out and order the infield covered. If the rain lightened up, I’d get the whole grounds crew out there and have them take off the tarp and put diamond dust all over the infield just like new. It would take them ten minutes.
One reason the grounds crew would do anything for me was that I’d bring a bottle of scotch to the head groundskeeper and have him deliver two cases of beer to the guys who were actually doing the work. They were the best. They were such hard workers.
When I retired, the New York Mets grounds crew gave me a Gore-Tex golf rain suit, acknowledging that I always worked in the rain.
If I had to pick one play that defines what it’s like to be an umpire, that play occurred when we were in Philadelphia in 1979. The Pirates were trying to win the pennant. Chuck Tanner was the Pirate manager.
Keith Moreland came up for Philadelphia, the first time I ever saw the kid. The bases were stacked, and Moreland hit a line drive right down the left-field line like a 1-iron in golf. I was down on my knee behind the plate, and all I see was this big, huge back and the back of his uniform, number 22. I jerked up my head real quick to see where the ball had gone. All I saw was a flash of white down by the fence. I thought to myself, Am I glad I’ve got a third-base umpire.
I looked down at Eric Gregg, who was umpiring at third. I had always told him, “Eric, when you get a line shot, don’t ever go down on one knee. You destroy your line of sight and you can’t see a thing in the lights.” But there was Eric, all three hundred pounds of him, down on one knee.
Eric put up his hand and slowly went into this circular motion to signal a home run. It told me he wasn’t sure whether it was fair or foul. I’m sure it told everyone else in the park the same thing. On a ball like that, you gotta sell it. Bam! You nail it! You turn your index finger round and round. That’s the way you sell that thing.
When Eric stood up, he looked like he was being attacked by wasps or yellow jackets, because back in those days the Pirates had those awful yellow-and-black uniforms. The Pirates players swarmed him.
Chuck Tanner came running up to me. “Harvey, Harvey!”
“Get away, Chuck!” I said.
I had no idea where the ball was. All I had seen was that flash of the white of the ball. I couldn’t tell anything. I was just not sure what happened. So, shit . . .
I started walking toward third, trying to get Eric away from all those players. Both teams were charging us. Tim Foli said, “Harvey, Harvey, you gotta change that goddamned call!”
“Get the fuck away from me or you’re going!” I said to him.
Then came the big fella for the Pirates, Willie Stargell, and he was going crazy.
“Willie, I’m ashamed of you,” I said. He had that shocked look on his face. “What makes you think I can’t settle this thing? Get your people away from us.”
Eric came up to me and he had a look of quiet desperation on his face.
“Chief, chief, you got that call?” he was yelling at me.
I just walked right past him. I went and talked to the other two umpires in our crew, Andy Olsen, who was at first, and whoever was my second-base umpire.
“Guys, did either of you see what happened to that ball?” I asked.
“Nah,” said Andy. “All I saw was a flash. I don’t know what happened.”
“Well, you have to admit, it was really close, wasn’t it?” I said.
And Eric said, “Oh, man, it was really close.”
“Okay,” I said, “that’s good enough for me. That’s a foul fuckin’ ball.”
So out came Philly manager Dallas Green, snorting, hollering, and screaming. He got real close to my face, and I said to him, “Okay, Dallas, that’s close enough. I’m listening to you. What is it you’ve got to say? And don’t blow out my fucking eardrums. I’m listening to you. What is it you’ve got to say?”
Now, if you’ve ever talked to people about me, they’ll say they liked me because I’d listen. And so I listened to everyone, and then I called it a foul ball.
The shit hit the fan. I ran four of them that day. I think that was the only time I had a cross word with Mike Schmidt, one of my all-time favorite ballplayers. But everyone on the Phils was pissed at ol’ Doug Harvey that day.
Pittsburgh won the game, and we went into the dressing room. Everybody was sitting by themselves.
“Hey, get me a beer,” I told the clubhouse kid.
I sat down and started stripping my stuff off onto the floor, drinking my beer. My partners weren’t too sure whether I was pissed at them too, because they didn’t really help me out with that call. It was real quiet. Then there was a knock on the door.
“There’s a lot of writers out there,” Eric said.
“Well, just let them cool off for a while,” I said.
“Eric,” I said, “do you want to tell them what happened, or do you want me to tell them what happened?”
Eric wanted nothing to do with them, so I walked out there.
First I have to get them to calm down, I was thinking.
“Hi, fellas, what’s up?” I said.
“Harv, we were wondering why you made that call.”
“What call are you talking about?” I said.
“C’mon, Harv, you know, the ball you called a foul ball.”
“It was a foul ball.”
“Well, yeah . . . but, Harv, the ball just slid in there where the outer fence starts; there’s just an arc about that big. And that’s where that ball went.”
“It was foul, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but we wondered how you made that call.”
“Gentlemen, that’s my job. I’m supposed to see what happened and make the call. And that’s what I did.”
But I’d have to say, that’s the closest I’ve ever come to being stumped.
After a while, I became known as an umpire who didn’t toss many managers and players during the course of a season. There was a reason for this: My twenty-second rule had a lot to do with it. My stature had something to do with it, and my ability to make managers and players see the folly of their arguing also had something to do with it.
Montreal Expos manager Dick Williams, who was very intense, would really get into an argument. The game meant a lot to Dick. But Dick had a little bit of snake in him. He’d come at you really hard.
I don’t know why managers think you’re going to change what you called. I’m old-school. Al Barlick said, “If you call it, hang with it,” and that’s the way I umpired.
Dick would come out and say, “Harvey, what the fuck is going on here? For Christ’s sake, can’t you see that—”
“Just back up a step, Dick.”
“All right. I’ll back up. Is that better?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But will you stop screaming?”
That’s the way I handled it.
On the other hand, Al Barlick would say, “I don’t give a fuck what you think.” And he and the manager or player would stand there nose to nose until Barlick finally unloaded him.
As an umpire you are in charge, and anything that gets out of hand, you have to handle it. We had a rain situation in Chicago again, and Roger Craig, the manager of the San Francisco Giants, was upset because it had rained and I had allowed the game to continue. When it stopped raining, I could hear Roger hollering at me, so I went over to the Giants’ dugout to see if everything was all right.
When I went over to him, I could see that their dugout was absolutely flooded up to the gunnels, right to the top, and I said, “I’m sure we can—”
Roger started screaming at me.
“There’s no way we’re playing in this fucking shit, and there’s no way you can clean that out, and—” he was screaming.
They knew it was the last trip the Giants were making to Chicago, so they knew that ball game had to be made up in San Francisco, unless there was a day off around Chicago. And Roger started hollering at me because he wanted me to call the game, and I said, “Whoa, Rog, let me take a look at things.”
I turned to the grounds crew and said, “Any of you guys want to make ten bucks?”
“I sure do, Harv,” one of them said.
“Fine; you go down there,” I said. “There has to be a drain that’s plugged. Go down there and find out.”
He jumped in as Roger started in on me again.
“Harv, I’m telling you. I’m not playing this goddamn game.”
I let him holler.
The grounds-crew member dunked his head into the rainwater in the dugout, and he came up with a towel that had been covering the drain. As soon as he pulled it up, the water just gurgled out and disappeared.
I turned around to Roger and said, “Now, Roger, go inside, get your ball club, and get them out here. I’m giving you ten minutes.”
“I’m not bringing my club out here,” he said.
“You have ten minutes,” I said, “and then I’m going to unload you and anybody that’s around you. Now I’m going to go dry myself, and I’ll be back out in ten minutes.”
I came out, both ball clubs were there, and we finished the ball game.
I tried to teach my young umpires: You have to use your head instead of your mouth. Shut your mouth when they come at you. Don’t let them get up close to you. Don’t let them get face-to-face. Tell them, “Hold it. Hold it.” They will stop. “I’m listening to you, but back up.” That’s the way I did it. And if you refused to back up, then I’d turn away from you and unload you.
One of the lessons my years of experience taught me was that you always give the manager a choice whether he’s to be tossed or not.
We were in New York in 1987 and it was raining, and because it was the last trip to New York, I tried harder to get the games in. There was a very light rain falling. The St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher went out to warm up, and when his left foot landed, he slipped. Not big, just a little. He didn’t go down, but whenever I saw that type of thing, I either repaired whatever was wrong with it or I covered the infield.
Whitey Herzog came running out. Whitey was hot-tempered.
“Jesus Christ, Harvey, you’ve got to call it off. It’s raining.”
“Whoa, whoa, Whitey. Hang on a minute,” I said.
I called my grounds crew out and said, “Fellas, can you fix that spot where he’s landing?”
“Sure.”
The grounds-crew worker pulled a two-foot-by-three-foot piece of clay out of the ground, put new clay in, pounded it down, and covered it with Dry.
“There you go, Whitey,” I said.
“Oh no, that’s not good enough,” he said.
“Son, let me see you throw the ball,” I said, and the pitcher threw a ball and tried to slide his foot but couldn’t.
“That’s good enough, Whitey,” I said.
“Like hell it is,” said Whitey. “You’re not playing this goddamn game under these circumstances.”
“Whitey, we’re going to play it,” I said.
“Like fuck we are,” he said. “I’m not moving.”
“Whitey, you’re either moving or you’re gone. Now it’s up to you.”
I always put it in the manager’s lap. If he wanted to be ejected, I just told him, “It’s up to you.” I always ended it that way. When he refused to go, I unloaded him.
“I’m not moving,” he said after I tossed him.
“All right,” I said. “Do you see that player sitting right next to your dugout? That player. I’m going to unload him if you don’t leave.”
“What do you mean? You can’t do that,” Whitey said.
“Not only that,” I said, “I’ll unload him and then unload the guy next to him.” I was indicating one of the players in the game.
“Left to right, I will unload every one of them,” I said. “Now you can leave or not leave.”
Bingo.
“Aw, fuck it, Harvey,” Whitey said, and he left.
That was typical. You leave it up to them. There’s no sense for you to take all the heat. And you write in your report, I told him, “Either you leave or I’m going to have to eject you.”
That way I’m covered. If the manager calls in and says, “Jesus Christ, Harvey is always ejecting me. How the hell can I—”
The man in charge of umpires then can say to the guy, “It says in Harvey’s report that he told you if you didn’t leave, he would have to eject you. Is that true?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Well, then . . . why didn’t you leave?”
“Well, I was pissed.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
That was the end of it. He had no argument.
You’re in charge, and that means you are in charge of the whole ballpark. That doesn’t just mean on the field. You are in charge, and anything that gets out of hand, you have to handle it.
I was in Chicago, Wrigley Field, and the catcher for the Cardinals, Darrell Porter, had had to go through alcohol rehab. He hit a triple and slid into third. The stands aren’t too far from third base at Wrigley Field, and two fans started in on him, hammering him about being “a drunken asshole, you fucking idiot.” They were ripping him. These guys were sixty years old, and they were dressed to the nines. Each had a suit and tie on. I’m sure they had just come from work. I couldn’t believe such trash could come from two gentlemen’s mouths. They just ripped Porter up and down.
I walked toward them a little bit, put a finger up to my mouth, and said, “Gentlemen, shhhh.”
They said, “Fuck you too, Harvey, you cocksucker.”
I gave a nod to my usher friends—I’d made friends with all the ushers. I just walked back and as I watched, security came down, grabbed both of them, and jerked them out. I’ve ejected people from all sorts of situations. If I think they are wrong and acting wrong, there’s nothing in the rule book that says you have to take all that shit from anybody—and that includes the fans.
Sometimes a word to the wise is sufficient. I was behind the plate one day. About the fourth pitch I called a strike on one of the Dodger hitters, and the ballplayer stepped back to ask me a question. From the bench Tommy Lasorda hollered, “That ball’s low.”
I looked over to him and loudly said, “Lasorda, your pitchers can’t make a living if I don’t give that pitch.”
Tommy looked at me. He knew I meant it and he shut up.
I always had the feeling that if you had the proper answer, you could always get them off your back. It got to where during the last fifteen years of my career, I didn’t have any trouble.
One of my favorite stories occurred in 1990 when Lou Piniella was managing Cincinnati and took the Reds to the World Series, which they won. He had taken over the team, and they were going horseshit. Before the game, Lou knocked on the door of the umpires’ dressing room.
“So who’s that?” I asked Jerry Crawford.
“It’s Lou Piniella,” Jerry said.
“Tell him he has ten seconds. What’s he want?”
I figured he wanted to argue about something that happened in the game the day before.
Lou came in and said, “Harvey, will you just do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll come out and start a little argument with you,” he said. “Will you throw me out of the game?”
“You want us to throw you out of the game when you come out?” I asked with a certain skepticism.
“That’s right,” he said. “Because my ball club is going so horseshit that I can’t wake them up. So maybe my getting thrown out of a game will wake them up.”
That was fine. It didn’t bother me. I didn’t know whether that was considered a favor or not, but at least he came in and let us know what he was going to do instead of just coming out and screaming and calling us cocksuckers.
Lou came out in the first inning and ran to second base to argue a call.
Dutch Rennert, who’s a card and a half, was a delight to have on your team, except that Dutch would just as soon get the game over with in a hurry and let’s go sit at a bar and have a drink. He was great, sociable, and I just loved him and loved being around him.
Anyway, Lou went charging out and stood there gesticulating, talking to Rennert and looking back at me. He then turned around and went back to the dugout. Between innings he came out to me and said, “Harv, what the hell is going on? I thought you guys were going to jerk me out.”
“Well, what happened?” I asked.
Said Lou: “I said, ‘Okay, Dutch,’ and Dutch just said, ‘Okay by me,’ and so I turned around and walked away.”
In truth, I know what happened, why Dutch didn’t run him. Dutch thought he’d have to write a report, and he didn’t want to have to do it.
“I’ll tell you what,” I told Lou. “Move your arms up and down and act like you’re pissed. I’m going to walk away, and you go kick dirt on my plate and I’ll unload you.”
“Okay,” he said, and we did just that. He kicked some dirt on my plate, and I unloaded him.
After the game I said to Dutch, “How come you didn’t unload him?”
“He didn’t call me anything.”
“Dutch,” I said, “he wasn’t going to call you anything. He just wanted to get unloaded.”
“The game’s not played that way,” said Dutch.
“Okay, Dutch.” And of course I wrote a report that Lou had wanted to jack up his ball club, that he had come in before the game and asked me to throw him out—so I threw him out. Lou didn’t get fined.
Another time Lou came roaring out to second base to my umpire—Dutch again—and I walked out partway to be a witness.
“Harvey, don’t come over here,” Lou said. “It’s his call. I want him to explain it to me.” And he started in again.
“Lou,” I said.
“I mean it, Harv,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
What Lou wanted was for us to call the runner out for taking out the shortstop on a double play. He was arguing about the fact that the runner went after the shortstop, after he took the throw from the second baseman and went to throw to first base, and you can’t do that. The runner must be able to reach the bag if he slides. But even though it was Lou’s runner who went out of his way to impede the fielder, Lou was arguing it should have been a double play, because you’re supposed to call the man out at first base if the runner makes an improper slide at second.
If Lou only would shut up, I thought, I’ll be able to straighten him out.
“Lou, give me five seconds,” I said.
“All right, Harvey, what is it?”
“Lou, what you’re arguing about is a double play, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. A double play,” he said. He was arguing, “You ought to call the guy out at first. If he interferes like that, goes out of the baseline—”
“That’s your man that slid out there,” I said. “You asked us to call a double play against your team.”
Lou looked around, looked down at the ground, looked at his shoes, and didn’t know what to do or say. Embarrassed (to say the least), he finally just walked off, because he realized he was asking us to call a double play against his own team.
Lou had the silliest look on his face. I always contended that umpiring for Lou was like umpiring for a high school kid.
During my years umpiring I got to watch some terrific managers at work. Among those wonderful managers were Davey Johnson, John McNamara, Bruce Bochy, and Jim Leyland.
Davey did as well with a good ball club as any manager I saw. With the New York Mets he had the horses, and he handled them well. He knew how to argue. He’d come at me, give me all sorts of hell, but when I told him it was over, he’d go back to the dugout and let us get on with the game.
McNamara, who led the Reds for several years, was one of the greatest people in baseball. I loved John. He’d ask a question, get an answer, and walk off.
Bochy has done the greatest job in the world, first in San Diego and then in San Francisco. Right now I think Bruce Bochy is the best manager in baseball. The Padres sold or traded so many key players out from under him, and he still put together a contending team. I think the world of the guy, and to watch him work was terrific. He was a guy who would come out and talk to you.
“Harvey, what the hell is going on out here? What happened?”
Jim Leyland was the same way.
I don’t mind when a manager is a little upset, wanting to know what’s happening. I can remember early in Leyland’s career when he came into the league, he came out to second base four different times.
“You know, Jim,” I said, “this is the fourth time you’ve been out to see me.”
“Is that too many, Harv?” he asked.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit much, Jim?” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Okay.”
And that was it. Leyland was a terrific guy.
One of the great joys I had as crew chief was training the young umpires who came under my wing. Two of my favorite were Jerry Crawford, Shag’s son, who was with me for eleven years, and Joe West, a great professional and a dear friend. Jerry was a lot like his dad. I would talk to Jerry constantly about his temper. He would acknowledge that mine was the better way of umpiring, but it wasn’t him.
I tried to protect Jerry from his temper, but it wasn’t easy because he was feisty like his dad. He wouldn’t take anyone’s shit. If Gene Mauch went after him, he gave as good as he got.
We had a situation in San Francisco between Jerry and Giants third-base coach Dave Bristol that could have turned disastrous for Jerry.
John Montefusco was pitching for the Giants, and he was throwing a two-hitter and winning 1–0. The game was in the eighth inning and he had a 2–2 count. Jim Quick was the home-plate umpire. Jerry was at first base. I was at second.
The pitch came in to George Foster and he took a half swing. Quick signaled over to Jerry, who said, “No swing.”
The Giants hollered.
The next pitch that Montefusco threw George hit nine miles for a home run to tie the game at 1–1.
The next hitter made an out, and as the Giants came off the field, Montefusco hollered, “You suck,” at Jerry—and wham, Jerry ran him.
The first guy off the bench was Bristol, who made a beeline for Jerry.
“What the hell did you run him for?” Bristol wanted to know.
“Get your butt over to third base,” Jerry said.
“I asked you a question,” screamed Bristol.
“I don’t owe you an explanation for nothing,” said Jerry. “You’re not the manager of this team.”
With that, Bristol took his cap off and in his anger whacked Jerry across the face with the knob of his hat. Jerry’s head snapped back, because it really stung like hell.
Jerry balled his fists and was about to coldcock Bristol when I put my arms between his arms, held him back, and began to pull him backward.
“It’s all right, kid,” I said to him. “Calm down. Everything’s all right. We got it. We got it.”
I was talking to Jerry like he was an alligator. I saved his professional life that day. I guarantee you Jerry would have knocked Bristol’s ass down. I turned Jerry away from Bristol and told him, “No, no, no.”
We turned in a report to the league office, and Bristol was given a three-day suspension for striking an umpire. I thought the punishment was ridiculous. They could have struck a real blow for baseball if they had sat him down for the rest of the year. That’s what Bristol deserved, and they didn’t do that.
Baseball doesn’t have enough control. The owners and the commissioner are too afraid of the players.
How can you command respect if a manager strikes an umpire and only gets a slap on the wrist?
Joe West, who was working on my crew, also found himself in a little hot water one day. Don Zimmer was coaching third base. Joe was umpiring at third. As the throw was coming in from the outfield, Joe whipped around to see the play at third. If the play is between you and the throw, or if the throw is off to the left, you go to the right. If the throw is off to the right, you go to the left.
Joe got down behind the third baseman, the fielder receiving the ball. Zimmer came over and bodily checked him. Well, Joe took Zim and threw him—and I mean threw him. Joe West was all-everything when he was in college. He was a quarterback, and he’s strong as a bull. He whipped Don out of the way—I guess Don still has a plate in his head from a beaning a long time ago—and he said Joe tossed him right on the plate.
Joe made the call, and it went in Don’s favor. But here was Don screaming and hollering.
We couldn’t figure out what was going on.
I went running over, and Don said, “Get the fuck away from me.” Oh, shit.
Joe and I—because I was his crew chief—had to go to the league office and explain what Joe was doing throwing a coach on his head.
“He was in my way,” Joe said.
How can you make a call if a guy is standing right in your way? He threw him out of the way.
Joe was my guy. Joe and Jerry Crawford were special people. Shag, of course, and the guys who broke me in were in a class all their own.
I have more respect for Walter Alston than for any man I ever umpired for. Walter absolutely had common sense. One time he walked out and said, “Harv, this guy is balking.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Walter,” I told him, “but what makes you think he’s balking?”
“I’m watching him,” he said.
“Walter,” I said, “if I really thought I could see better from the dugout, I’d come and sit with you. But I’m watching him, and he’s not balking.”
“Keep an eye on him, Harv.”
He turned and walked back to the dugout.
If that had been Leo Durocher, he’d have come out—“Jesus Christ, can’t you tell a fucking balk when you see the fucking thing?” That was the difference.
One year I went through an entire season without tossing a single player or manager. I was afraid the league moguls would think I wasn’t tough enough, so in the last week of the season I tossed Walter Alston toward the end of a game in which the Dodgers were getting blown out just to show the brass I wasn’t a pushover.
The Dodgers were playing Montreal, and a little left-hander pitching for the Expos picked off three Dodgers at first base. Walter was upset about it. He kept coming out, wanting us to call a balk, and I kept telling him, “No, Walter. They’re all right.”
In the eighth inning Don Sutton of the Dodgers was on the mound. He jerked three different ways, and we called a balk. Walter came out to argue again.
The Dodgers were losing 8–2, and as he was walking back to the dugout, a lightbulb came on in my head. It was late in the season, and I hadn’t had an ejection all year long. I said to Alston, “The problem with you, Walter, is you’re a little balk crazy.”
Walter turned around. We were standing near home plate. He kicked a little dirt on the plate, and I ejected him.
After the game I was getting into the elevator leaving the umpires’ room, and I heard, “Hold it. Hold it.” I looked up and it was Walter and his wife.
We rode up in the elevator together.
“Walter,” I said, “I have to tell you. I set you up.” And I told him the story of how I ejected him and why, that I had needed someone to eject to keep from getting criticized by the baseball executives.
Walter laughed.
“Hell,” he said, “as bad as we’re going, I thought maybe it was good for us, that maybe it would pump the guys up a little bit. But it didn’t.”
Walter understood. I always liked him. He was a terrific guy.