Download or read book The Umpire Is Out written by Dale Scott and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dale Scott's career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players, from future Hall of Famers to one-game wonders. Scott has enough stories about his career on the field to fill a dozen books, and there are plenty of those stories here. He's not interested in settling scores, but throughout the book he's honest about managers and players, some of whom weren't always perfect gentlemen. But what makes Scott's book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career. Granted, that was after decades of remaining in the closet, and Scott writes vividly and movingly about having to "play the game": maintaining a facade of straightness while privately becoming his true self and building a lasting relationship with his future husband. He navigated this obstacle course at a time when his MLB career was just taking off--and when North America was consumed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Scott's story isn't only about his leading a sort of double life, then opening himself up to the world and discovering a new generosity of spirit. It's also a baseball story, filled with insights and memorable anecdotes that come so naturally from someone who spent decades among the world's greatest baseball players, managers, and games. Scott's story is fascinating both for his umpiring career and for his being a pioneer for LGBTQ people within baseball and across sports.
Download or read book Planet of the Umps written by Ken Kaiser and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-04-19 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For twenty-five years, Ken Kaiser was the most colorful umpire in the major leagues. Planet of the Umps is his sidesplitting tale of life behind the plate. "Two things nobody wants to grow up to be are an umpire and broke. Thanks to my career in baseball, I got both." After calling balls, strikes, and outs for thirty-six baseball seasons and more than three thousand major-league games, umpire Ken Kaiser finally called it a career. From the first day he hit a minor-league catcher with a pool table to the fateful day baseball called him out on a strike, Kaiser was one of the game's most popular and colorful characters. And in this autobiography--written with the coauthor of Ron Luciano's classic bestseller The Umpire Strikes Back--Kaiser brings to life his wild adventures from the pro-wrestling arena to the baseball diamond. This is the hysterically true story of four decades of baseball as lived and loved on the playing field, from Ted Williams and Billy Martin to Derek Jeter and Mark McGwire, from one-eyed umpires to space-age technology. As he did throughout his long and sometimes controversial career, the larger-than-his-chest-protector Kaiser calls 'em as he saw 'em.
Download or read book Called Out But Safe written by Al Clark and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If an umpire could steal the show in a Major League game, Al Clark might well have been the one to do it. Tough but fair, in his thirty years as a professional umpire he took on some of baseball’s great umpire baiters, such as Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, and Dick Williams, while ejecting any number of the game’s elite—once tearing a hamstring in the process. He was the first Jewish umpire in American League history, and probably the first to eject his own father from the officials’ dressing room. But whatever Clark was doing—officiating at Nolan Ryan’s three hundredth win, Cal Ripken’s record breaker, or the “earthquake” World Series of 1989, or braving a labor dispute, an anti-Semitic tirade by a Cy Young Award winner, or a legal imbroglio—it makes for a good story. Called Out but Safe is Clark’s outspoken and often hilarious account of his life in baseball from umpire school through the highlights to the inglorious end of his stellar career. Not just a source of baseball history and lore, Clark’s book also affords a rare look at what life is like for someone who works for the Major Leagues’ other team.
Download or read book Umpires written by John C. Skipper and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They are known by a variety of names, many of them unprintable. Like the big league players, they are the very best in their profession and spend years honing their craft, yet some fans pretend to believe they are incompetent boobs. They are the men in blue on the baseball diamond, major league umpires. In this work, nineteen umps provide their unique insight on some of the most important and pivotal moments in baseball history. Don Denkinger recounts his call that turned the 1985 World Series. "Red" Flaherty and Bill Kinnamon recall the excitement of Roger Maris' 61st homer. From these men and Bill Jackowski, Bill Haller, John Rice, Dutch Rennert, John Kibler, Bill Valentine, Terry Cooney, Andy Olsen, Marty Springstead, Doug Harvey, Ken Burkhart, Ed Runge, Hank Morgenweck, Art Frantz, Jerry Neudecker, and Steamboat Johnson, we get a different view of the game and a new appreciation for the job the umpires do on a daily basis.
Download or read book Baseball Umpires Manual written by Texas Association Of Sports Officials and published by . This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written BY Umpires...FOR Umpires. This is the definitive book for baseball umpires at the High School level and below. A complete manual covering Umpire Mechanics for 2, 3, and 4 umpires with illustrations and explanations for virtually every play and runner configuration.
Download or read book Lion of the League written by Larry R. Gerlach and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2024-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Dean Emslie (1859–1943) spent fifty-six of his eighty-four years in professional baseball—eight as a player and forty-nine as an umpire. When arm problems ended his career as a Major League pitcher, he turned to umpiring, serving in that capacity for thirty-five seasons, then as an umpire supervisor for thirteen years. His longevity is all the more remarkable considering he toiled during the three most contentious and difficult decades umpires ever faced: the years from 1890 to 1920, when baseball transitioned from amateur to professional sport and from regional business to commercial entertainment industry. Emslie endured the rough-and-tumble umpire-baiting 1890s, the Deadball era, injuries from thrown and batted balls, physical and verbal assaults from players and fans, and criticism in the press. Among his most notable games, he called four no-hitters and worked as the base umpire in the famous Merkle’s Boner game between the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs at the Polo Grounds in 1908. He often clashed with Giants manager John McGraw, who nicknamed him “Blind Bob.” Yet he was widely praised by players and his peers. Honus Wagner, the great Pittsburgh shortstop, ranked Emslie the best National League umpire he had seen during his twenty-year career. Umpires Bill McGowan and Billy Evans respectively regarded him as “the greatest base umpire of all time” and “one of the greatest umpires the game ever produced.” Emslie was also the acknowledged master of baseball’s rules such that National League presidents regularly consulted with him on controversial calls and protests. Emslie accepted a position as the chief of National League umpires, serving as an adviser to the National League president. Lion of the League is the biography of an umpire whose career spanned the formative years of modern baseball.
Download or read book They Called Me God written by Doug Harvey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible memoir from the man voted one of the “Best Umpires of All Time” by the Society of American Baseball Research—filled with more than three decades of fascinating baseball stories. Doug Harvey was a California farm boy, a high school athlete who nevertheless knew that what he really wanted was to become an unsung hero—a major league umpire. Working his way through the minor leagues, earning three hundred dollars a month, he survived just about everything, even riots in stadiums in Puerto Rico. And while players and other umps hit the bars at night, Harvey memorized the rule book. In 1962, he broke into the big leagues and was soon listening to rookie Pete Rose worrying that he would be cut by the Reds and laying down the law with managers such as Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre. This colorful memoir takes you behind the plate for some of baseball’s most memorable moments, including Roberto Clemente’s three thousandth and final hit; the heroic three-and-two pinch-hit home run by Kirk Gibson in the ’88 World Series; and the nail-biting excitement of the ’68 World Series. But beyond the drama, Harvey turned umpiring into an art. He was a man so respected, whose calls were so feared and infallible, that the players called him “God.” And through it all, he lived by three rules: never take anything from a player, never back down from a call, and never carry a grudge. A book for anyone who loves baseball, They Called Me God is a funny and fascinating tale of on- and off-the-field action, peopled by unforgettable characters from Bob Gibson to Nolan Ryan, and a treatise on good umpiring techniques. In a memoir that transcends the sport, Doug Harvey tells a gripping story of responsibility, fairness, and honesty.
Download or read book As They See Em written by Bruce Weber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named One of the Best Baseball Books Ever Written by Esquire An insider’s look at the largely unknown world of professional umpires, the small group of men (and the very occasional woman) who make sure America’s favorite pastime is conducted in a manner that is clean, crisp, and true. Millions of American baseball fans know, with absolute certainty, that umpires are simply overpaid galoots who are doing an easy job badly. Millions of American baseball fans are wrong. Bruce Weber, a New York Times reporter, not only interviewed dozens of professional umpires but entered their world, trained to become an umpire, then spent a season working games from Little League to big league spring training. As They See ’Em is Weber’s entertaining account of this experience as well as a lively exploration of what amounts to an eccentric secret society, with its own customs, its own rituals, its own colorful vocabulary. Writing with deep knowledge of and affection for baseball, he delves into such questions as: Why isn’t every strike created equal? Is the ump part of the game or outside of it? Why doesn’t a tie go to the runner? And what do umps and managers say to each other during an argument, really? Packed with fascinating reportage that reveals the game as never before and answers the kinds of questions that fans, exasperated by the clichés of conventional sports commentary, pose to themselves around the television set, Bruce Weber’s As They See ’Em is a towering grand slam.
Download or read book The Umpire Strikes Back written by Ron Luciano and published by Permuted Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is Ron Luciano, the funniest ump ever to call balls and strikes. A huge and awesome legend who leaps and spins and shoots players with an index finger while screaming OUTOUTOUT!!! Now baseball's flamboyant fan-on-the-field comes out from behind the mask to call the game as he really sees it. There’s the day the automatic umpire debuted at home plate—and struck out. The time Rod Carew stole home twice in one inning, and Earl Weaver stole second base—and took it back to the dugout. The pitch Tommy John dropped on the mound, which Luciano called a strike. And there’s the fantastic phantom double play, the impossible frozen ice-ball theory, and, another first, Luciano picking Harmon Killebrew off second base. From brawls to catcalls, from dugout jokes to on-the-field pratfalls to one-of-a-kind conversations with baseball’s greats, Ron Luciano, the only umpire who confessed to missing calls, takes a few grand slam swings of his own. It is baseball at its best.
Download or read book The Best Seat in Baseball But You Have to Stand written by Lee Gutkind and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVDIVA fascinating and revealing look inside the lives of umpires, from the godfather of creative nonfiction/divDIV In 1974, Lee Gutkind walked into Shea Stadium, then home of the New York Mets, with an unusual proposal. He wanted to chronicle one of the least celebrated cadres in professional baseball: the umpires. Gutkind spent one exhilarating season traveling with the officiating crew he found that day—Doug Harvey, Nick Colosi, Harry Wendelstedt, and Art Williams, the first African American umpire in National League history. Gutkind’s narrative reveals much about the peculiarities of the men charged with the “thankless and impossible task of invoking order”—their work ethic, fallibility, and perhaps most strikingly, their pride./divDIV As resonant today as when it was first published, The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand! is an engrossing story of the men who work on one of the nation’s biggest stages, their victories and their failures, and their inner worlds that are rarely—if ever—explored./divDIV/div/div
Download or read book Planet of the Umps written by Ken Kaiser and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-04-19 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this hysterical autobiography, Major League Baseball umpire Ken Kaiser brings to life his twenty-five years on the baseball diamond.
Download or read book How to Umpire Baseball and Softball written by Steve Boga and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2009-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to Umpire Baseball and Softball is an insider's guide to the basic skills necessary to excel as an umpire. It is the product of Boga's countless discussions with partners, hours of field time, and much reflection. The book is designed to help both individual umpires and those charged with training umpires at all levels of baseball and softball.
Download or read book The Umpire Was Blind written by Jonathan Weeks and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the words of former American League umpire Nestor Chylak, umpires are expected to "be perfect on the first day of the season and then get better every day." Forced to deal with sullen managers and explosive players, they often take the blame for the failures of both. But let's face it--umpires are only human. For well over a century, the fortunes of Major League teams--and the fabric of baseball history itself--have been dramatically affected by the flawed decisions of officials. While the use of video replay in recent decades has reduced the number of bitter disputes, many situations remain exempt from review and are subject to swirling controversy. In the heat of the moment mistakes are often made, sometimes with monumental consequences. This book details some of these more controversial calls and the men who made them.
Download or read book The Umpire s Bunkhouse written by Michael Marshall Brown and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-18 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are they? The men in blue have masks covering their faces and there's an undeniable, deep mystique about umpires. The Umpire's Bunkhouse, Baseball Stories from Cooperstown's Dreams Park, will give the real truth about umpires. They come from all over the nation. They are wise and kind people who believe integrity is everything. During an era of major league cheating scandals with cameras hidden in the outfield fences, and the threat of robots replacing human umpires, it is timely to read The Umpire's Bunkhouse. Baseball umpires survive if not thrive staying together in primitive bunkhouses, with no heat or air conditioning and thin mattresses. Read how a baseball bully is handled and ultimately overcome with a little help from the author's friends in blue. See how author Michael Marshall Brown recovered from triple bypass heart surgery barely a year prior. Flashback to the author's memories of Cooperstown, as the author was the Sports Editor of the Daily Star newspaper and covered the nearby Baseball Hall of Fame in the 1980s. Read about personal contacts with stars of the game including Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, Henry Aaron, and Cool Papa Bell.
Download or read book The Men in Blue written by Larry R. Gerlach and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosopher Jacques Barzun thought that "whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." And whoever wants to know baseball had better learn about umpires. As Larry Gerlach points out in The Men in Blue, these arbiters transform competitive chaos into organized sport. They make it possible to "play ball," but nobody loves them. Considering the abuse meted out by fans and players, why would any sane person want to be an umpire? Many reasons emerge in conversations with a dozen former major league arbiters. While nobody loves them, they love the game. Gerlach has elicited entertaining stories from these figures under fire--about their lonely travels, their dealings with umpire baiters, battles for unionization, breaking through the color line, and much more. From Beans Reardon, who came up to the National League in 1926, to Ed Sudol, who retired in 1977, here is a witty and telling portrait of baseball from the boisterous Golden Age to the Jet Age of Instant Replay.
Download or read book Center Field on Fire written by Dave Phillips and published by Triumph Books. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Former MLB umpire Dave Phillips was at the center of some of baseball's most unforgettable moments—Comiskey's infamous Disco Demolition Night, Gaylord Perry's spitball ejection, Albert Belle's confiscated corked bat and George Brett's pine tar bat debacle—and he shares with baseball fans the untold stories behind those incidents and many others, giving baseball fans a complete perspective on the life of an umpire.
Download or read book They Called Me God written by Doug Harvey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible memoir from the man voted one of the “Best Umpires of All Time” by the Society of American Baseball Research—filled with more than three decades of fascinating baseball stories. Doug Harvey was a California farm boy, a high school athlete who nevertheless knew that what he really wanted was to become an unsung hero—a major league umpire. Working his way through the minor leagues, earning three hundred dollars a month, he survived just about everything, even riots in stadiums in Puerto Rico. And while players and other umps hit the bars at night, Harvey memorized the rule book. In 1962, he broke into the big leagues and was soon listening to rookie Pete Rose worrying that he would be cut by the Reds and laying down the law with managers such as Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre. This colorful memoir takes you behind the plate for some of baseball’s most memorable moments, including Roberto Clemente’s three thousandth and final hit; the heroic three-and-two pinch-hit home run by Kirk Gibson in the ’88 World Series; and the nail-biting excitement of the ’68 World Series. But beyond the drama, Harvey turned umpiring into an art. He was a man so respected, whose calls were so feared and infallible, that the players called him “God.” And through it all, he lived by three rules: never take anything from a player, never back down from a call, and never carry a grudge. A book for anyone who loves baseball, They Called Me God is a funny and fascinating tale of on- and off-the-field action, peopled by unforgettable characters from Bob Gibson to Nolan Ryan, and a treatise on good umpiring techniques. In a memoir that transcends the sport, Doug Harvey tells a gripping story of responsibility, fairness, and honesty.
