Judge: Baseball Must Rehire Umpires

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Baseball will have to make room for nine of 22 umpires who lost their jobs in 1999 following a failed mass resignation.

U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, in an opinion released Thursday, upheld most of the decision made by an arbitrator in May.

Unless the decision is reversed by a higher court, which is unlikely, all will get back pay of up to about $400,000 annually plus benefits. The decision is likely to cost baseball at least $5 million.

Pat Campbell, a lawyer for the umpires, was delighted by the opinion, which also could lead to three other umpires getting their jobs back. Bartle ordered that their cases be reheard by a different arbitrator.

``Baseball is being held accountable, just like they've been held accountable in every other court they've been to these days,'' Campbell said, alluding to a Minnesota injunction that has prevented baseball from eliminating the Twins.

Baseball's chief labor lawyer, Rob Manfred, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Bartle agreed with nearly all of a decision made May 11 by arbitrator Alan Symonette.

Bartle ordered baseball to rehire Drew Coble, Gary Darling, Bill Hohn, Greg Kosc, Larry Poncino, Larry Vanover and Joe West. Bartle also upheld Symonette's decision that baseball must take back two umpires who intended to retire: Frank Pulli and Terry Tata.

In a pun-filled opinion, Bartle ordered new arbitration hearings for Paul Nauert, Bruce Dreckman and Sam Holbrook. Bartle upheld the termination of 10 umpires - Bob Davidson, Tom Hallion, Jim Evans, Dale Ford, Richie Garcia, Eric Gregg, Ed Hickox, Mark Johnson, Ken Kaiser and Larry McCoy. Campbell said umpires can ask the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review that part of Bartle's decision. Each side has 30 days to file an appeal.

In a 24-page opinion, Bartle wrote it was his job to determine whether Symonette's decision ``missed the ball.''

``Each party to these two lawsuits makes a pitch that all or part of the arbitrator's ruling should be scored as an error and set aside,'' the judge added. Bartle agreed with Symonette that there was no written evidence that Coble ever resigned. He also decided Kosc withdrew his resignation before he was replaced.

The judge declined to reinstate the other seven AL umpires because ``by the time they had rescinded their resignations on July 27, the American League had already filled its staff complement on 22 umpires. No vacancies then existed.''

Bartle upheld Symonette's decision not to reinstate Davidson, Gregg and Hallion, ``because they did not satisfy the merit and skill standard.''

The judge ordered a new hearing before a different arbitrator for Nauert, Dreckman and Holbrook, saying Symonette's decision wrongly concluded that umpires with less than five years of major league service could be dismissed at the will of the league president.

Bartle also rejected baseball's argument that the case was not subject to arbitration.

The Major League Umpires Association, lead by Richie Phillips, called for the mass resignation in July 1999 as a way of pressuring baseball to start bargaining early for a labor deal to replace the one that had six months remaining.

But the move backfired when baseball accepted the resignations and hired new umpires to replace them. The MLUA then filed a grievance to regain the jobs.

Gregg still serving 'em up at the Vet

By Chris Colston, USA TODAY Baseball Weekly 11-30-01

PHILADELPHIA — Former umpire Eric Gregg, one of 22 umpires to resign in September 1999 in a failed negotiating tactic, still goes to work in a big-league ballpark.

As a bartender.

A Philadelphia native, Gregg pours beer at Chickie's and Pete's, a bar/restaurant located behind Section 249 at Veterans Stadium. Even though he's not calling balls and strikes right now, he's fighting to get his old job back.

Twenty-five members of Congress are urging Commissioner Bud Selig to reinstate Gregg, who was ranked among the majors' five worst umpires in a 1998 Baseball Weekly players' survey.

Gregg was making $190,000 at the time, but according to the congressmen, he is now "destitute and near bankruptcy" and might soon be evicted from his home. Hence the bartending job, we assume.

Gregg became one of baseball's youngest umpires when he joined the league in 1978 at 26. He fought weight problems throughout his career and took a leave of absence in 1996 after close friend John McSherry collapsed and died of a heart attack while calling a game Opening Day.

Gregg often came under fire for his generous strike zone, particularly during the 1997 NLCS. During Game 5, with Gregg working the plate, Florida rookie Livan Hernandez struck out 15 Atlanta batters, six on called third strikes.

Gregg couldn't talk about his situation with the commissioner, but he appeared in good spirits as he stood behind the bar last week, chatting with umpire Brian Gorman (the first to visit him at his new job, by the way).

"I'm having a blast," Gregg said, smiling widely. "Everybody has been really great. The fans come in here and tell me they never booed my calls. I say: 'Wait a minute, you're lying! I recognize your voice!' "

Even though the pay isn't the same, there are advantages to his new ballpark assignment. "I get to leave at the bottom of the seventh inning every night," he said, "which is great."

That's last call at the Vet, and you just know what Gregg tells lingering patrons.

"Yer outta here!"

Well, aside from the fact that Richie Phillips as a labour negotiator makes Donald Fehr and the owners' Player Relations Committee people resemble virtuoso diplomats, I cannot help thinking the umpires blissfully ignorant of a certain irony in play: the umpires, so often guilty of it themselves, have now become somewhat benefit to a small slice of what some might call judicial tyranny. (I mean, for once in their lives the owners were right: Phillips was dumb enough to go for the mass resignations to try forcing an early renegotiation? What did he think the owners were going to do, grovel? Hate to break it to you, Richie, but people don't pay their twenty bucks a pop to go out to the ballpark to see the umpires - not unless Eric Gregg and John McSherry were going on a hunger strike, that is...)

As it is, I'm not exactly inclined to sympathise with the umps until they pull their heads out of their asses, learn the goddamned rule book, and start enforcing the proper strike zone. This bullshit of different zones for different umps must cease. The rule book, like the Constitution, means what it says and says what it means. The zone is the width of the plate plus the height from the batter's knees to a point between the armpit and the shoulders. Start enforcing the real strike zone. Then watch the numbers begin to even out between the big bombers and the pitchers. (Don't get me wrong: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds would still have been going yard for the record books - those guys, as George Will memorably put it once, could hit rice pudding 500 feet - but I'd bet you an awful lot of other hitters wouldn't be hitting 40-something home runs a season if the strike zone was being called properly.)

And I haven't exactly been in the umpires corner because they're becoming as much like DEA or ABC or INS agents hunting down alleged druggies, alleged druggie suppliers, or six-year-old Cuban kids looking not to go back to that hellhole. Consider:

* - I didn't know this for years, but Joaquin Andujar may actually have had a real reason to explode in Game Seven, 1985 World Series. Granted he wasn't known as the Human Time Bomb for nothing. But Andujar did pay a penalty for the arbitrary strike zone, not to mention a stubborn umpire's ego. Let's not misunderstand: no one told the Cardinals to go in the tank for Game Seven after the Don Denkinger blown call in the ninth in Game Six, but guess who turned up as the home plate umpire for Game Seven: Don Denkinger. That was like appointing John Dillinger as Secretary of the Treasury, folks. And guess who was out to stick it to the Cardinals because Whitey Herzog bitched about the blown call at first the night before? (I don't want to beat a dead horse to death, and no one told the Cardinals not to think about going after the last out regardless, of course, but the Royals were out at first on that play.)

Want to know the real reason Andujar blew what was left of his cork? All he did (you can see the replay, when they show the game on ESPN Classic) was, when Denkinger called his first pitch high for a ball, was raise his hand to his eyebrow as if to ask if the pitch was high. Because Bret Saberhagen, the Kansas City pitcher, was getting the same pitch called for strikes, which Andujar could see well enough from the St. Louis bullpen before he came into the game. And Denkinger began barking at Andujar. Herzog came out and joined in to protect his pitcher (though, admittedly, it was a risk to bring Andujar in to relieve John Tudor after Tudor got slapped around like a fordor for a 7-0 deficit). Herzog was run from the game after reminding Denkinger that if he hadn't blown it the night before, there wouldn't have been a seventh game (the Cardinals would have had the third out and the Series in their pocket). Herzog was barely in the clubhouse when Andujar joined him; Denkinger ran him out after calling a similar pitch - a strike if Saberhagen was throwing it - a ball, and Andujar apparently knew when he was being had and didn't like it. Knowing this now (I didn't know this at the time), who can blame even the Human Time Bomb? Umpire prejudice - calling a strike on one pitcher (who happens to pitch in the umpire's regular league; Denkinger was an American League ump) a ball when thrown by the other pitcher is the sort of judgment which usually puts people on Federal court benches. And someone inevitably gets screwed. (The irrepressible White Rat, looking back: About five minutes later (after he was run from the game - BD), I'm sitting in the clubhouse minding my own business, having a nice cold Michelob, when who should come huffing and puffing in the door but Goombah (his nickname for Andujar - BD) himself. Denkinger threw him out too! That was the only time I ever had a beer with one of my pitchers before the game was over. Tasted pretty good, too, if I recall.)

* The Curse of the @#$#@!! Bambino, 1990 American League Championship Series - Roger Clemens isn't always a good boy on the mound (Mike Piazza can tell you that much, of course), but here was one time when the Rocket had a right to flash his red glare. He took the ball for Game Four of that series against Oakland. Behind 1-0 in the second inning and with Willie Randolph, the former Yankee star on second, Clemens threw a pitch (I forget who the hitter was) for a ball. He shook his head after the pitch, but home plate umpire Terry Cooney snapped at Clemens, "I hope you're not shaking your head at me." Bright move, Terry: The Rocket exploded, which may have been precisely what Cooney wanted, and got run from the game, triggering a Boston meltdown: relief pitcher Larry Andersen hustled in from the bullpen to restrain Clemens, who had shoved umpire Jim Evans out of the way of the confrontation and was about ready to tear Cooney's head off; manager Joe Morgan (not to be confused with the Hall of Fame infielder turned broadcaster) also got run. The Boston newspapers, apparently unaware of what really triggered the hoopla, lanced Clemens mercilessly, including a nasty cartoon showing an infant on the pitcher's mound in a Red Sox uniform with Clemens's number on it, holding a baby bottle in one hand, yelling Bleep!. The cartoon was called "The Curse of the Bambino". And all Clemens did was shake his head after a ball call, and he wasn't even looking at Terry Cooney when he did it. Anyone who says umps don't look for confrontations is full of it.

* - Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har Dept.: Want to know a key reason why the Cubs blew the 1969 pennant? Look at their manager, then look at umps whose egoes are bigger than their work habits. Leo Durocher was a notorious ump baiter. (He was also such a sleazebag in search of the side action that he may have influenced a lot of Cub players that way, too; I've seen some stories about the Cubs having agents in the clubhouse looking to negotiate them some hot endorsement deals during the season, to the point where a lot of those guys may have been thinking as much about their side action as they were about nailing the pennant, which they looked like they might take running away for awhile, until the Mets got red-hot midsummer.) But the umps in the National League didn't have any legitimate reason to come as close as they did to conspiring against Durocher and the Cubs when it came to close calls. Damn near every close call was called against the Cubs down the stretch, including the infamous play against the Mets when Tommie Agee was called safe at home on a play where he was clearly enough out by several inches. The 1969 Cubs themselves to this day refuse to blame anyone for that one, and they often enough credit the surprising Mets for playing good ball down the stretch and to the wire ("Where did they come from?" asked catcher Randy Hundley. "They had good pitching we never heard of before and guys were playing the field like no one played the field before."), but you can make a case that the umps cost the Cubs the pennant, all because they were looking to stick it to Leo Durocher. Which is an easy sentiment - Durocher was certainly not a good boy - but also an unprofessional one. (Billy Martin experienced something like this one season: remember the infamous Martin Watch? The American League umps were gunning for the Yankee martinet over his ump baiting and switching. Granted that Martin was a sleazeball close enough to Durocher's league - and if you wanted to win enduringly, Martin was about the worst manager you could hire; short-range, he was as good as it got - but this is supposed to be professionals here, folks. You don't just decide you're going to get one guy no matter what. And that season, Yankee pitchers were practically having to buy strikes from the corner grocery to have any kind of chance, until, I think, the American League office put a stop to it.)

* The Arbiter and the Armbrister - Cincinnati pinch hitter Ed Armbrister clearly interfered with Boston catcher Carlton Fisk in the 1975 World Series. Umpire Larry Barnett never ruled interference. Even if Fisk could still make a reasonable throw to second (the throw went a little wide), Armbrister should have been called out. It may or may not have helped Boston lose that Series, but that's only too easy a call to make.

* Jim Bouton, in Ball Four (and this may also have been a key reason why official baseball put him at the top of the enemies list over that book), acknowledged that there were enough umpires who were only too willing to call the pitches based on whether or not a player had questioned even one call - even and especially rookies. A Yankee rookie named Steve Whittaker was a victim of this; he'd questioned (not argued) one pitch, and the word apparently got to the Yankee dugout and around the American League that when Whittaker was hitting, the strikes didn't have to be real strikes, until Mickey Mantle pressed the kid to apologise. And the kid hadn't even argued with the ump - just something like, "You sure that wasn't a little outside?"

* - On the other hand, there have been umps willing to let a player or manager get away with a protest, especially if it was a creative one. I've read a story where one Philadelphia Athletics catcher had business cards printed up to hand an ump on a questionable call. Fans in one game couldn't understand why time was called because the home plate ump was in a fit of hysterics with a tiny card in his hand. The card was printed to resemble that of an optometrist, and the message said: Mr. Mack and I would like to know whether that pitch was truly in the strike zone.

* Thanks, Ken - Love, Don Drysdale - Big D should have taken Ken Burkhardt out for dinner for a month. Burkhardt's blown call helped the Dodger righthander keep his scoreless inning streak alive. Burkhardt called Giants catcher Dick Dietz out on a play which would have scored a run - when Dietz was clearly trying to get out of the way of a ball he batted off himself. There are umps who will let it slide when great records look like they're going to be set, and Drysdale was known to huff and puff at an ump now and then. (His teammate, Sandy Koufax, never huffed at an ump, though no one has ever suggested Koufax ever got any gifts from any umps, either.)

Before a Chautauqua of moral outrage begins, let it be said that cheating is baseball's oldest profession. - Thomas Boswell, after revealing Mike Flanagan, the Oriole pitcher, took him aside one day, held up a brand-new baseball, took a broken coat hanger to it, made four gashes in parallel lines on the meat of the cover, and held it up, saying, "Anytime I need five new pitches, I got 'em."

White line cheating as you mentioned reminded me of Ashburn's Ridge: The Shibe Park grounds crew, knowing Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Richie Ashburn was the best bunter in the National League, decided to help him a little bit by sculpting the third base line (where Ashburn was especially good at dropping dead bunts that stopped on the edge well before an enemy fielder could pick them up to throw him out) into a kind of little wall like those you see at airports to deflect jet exhaust up from the ground. They did the entire line between the plate and third base that way, and enemy infielders and pitchers had a hell of a time trying to figure out how Ashburn's bunts were dying on such straight paths - until someone figured out the ridging, and the Shibe crew was ordered to knock it off.

Then, there was Wills Swamp at Candlestick Park: the San Francisco Giants were so bent on keeping Dodger shortstop Maury Wills from stealing them blind that they had their grounds crew, when wetting down the infield dirt at the Stick, apply a little - well, a lot - of extra water to the dirt around first base, the better to keep Wills from getting his notorious fast jumps. Some people swear Wills at one point looked like he was beginning to sink at first.

* - No one accused Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bob Purkey (a key to their 1961 pennant win) of throwing anything weird on his pitches until a catcher, as a gag, went out to warm him up between innings wearing a bib instead of his chest protector.

* - Wet grounds helped Elston Howard help Whitey Ford throw a particularly nasty mud ball in his final years; Howard would catch the low pitches on the wetted dirt around home, and he'd throw the ball back to Ford without wiping the balls off. When the umps caught onto that trick (Ford, in his final years, had become especially adept at ball doctoring - and he's been known to do it in Old Timers Games for a laugh, too!), Howard took to scraping the ball on his shin guard buckles for Ford. "The buckle ball," said Jim Bouton, "sang about three choruses from Aida."

* - A Real Spitter - Brooklyn Dodger legend Preacher Roe got away with a spitball his entire career...by doing the one thing the umps weren't looking for. He really did spit on the ball, and in full view. Roe sensed the umps were looking too hard for too many tricks and sleights of hand, so much so that they'd never catch on if someone just spit right into his glove. He once said he chewed Beech-Nut gum for this purpose because it gave him the heaviest saliva for the job. Roe retired in 1954 and wrote an article for Life magazine, "The Outlaw Pitch was My Money Pitch," and described exactly how he threw the ball and loaded it up. (Carl Furillo, the Brooklyn right fielder with the rifle arm, swore to his grave that the Dodgers knew about the pitch: "When Preach touched his cap with two fingers, that was the signal - we knew it was coming. When he did it with one finger, we knew he was faking.") The home run prone Roe, though, was good-natured about his tendency to give up the long ball, which usually happens when hitters get a look at the spitter which doesn't break: "Don't see why they git on my about mah hitting," said the weak-hitting Roe. "I go the other way. I throw some of the longest balls in baseball history."

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