They Called Me God

by Doug Harvey

  “You can’t call that an infield fly,” he said. “It was caught by an outfielder.”

  “No, he’s out,” I said. “The rule says an infield fly is any ball that can be caught with ease. It doesn’t say who can catch it. It’s a ball that can be handled with ease with runners at first and second or runners at first, second, and third.”

  Earl didn’t believe me.

  “I’ll bet your goddamn ass that you’re dead wrong,” he said.

  “You better talk to Joe DiMaggio,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. DiMaggio was the one who caused the change in the rule,” I said, “because he would come in with that gun of an arm. He would call the infielder off, let the ball bounce once, catch it and gun it to second, and then the second baseman would throw to third and get the man there for a double play.”

  I told him, “The rule says an infield fly is any ball that can be caught with ease. It doesn’t say who can catch it. It’s a ball that can be handled with ease with runners on first and second or runners on first, second, and third. Read the rule book, Earl.”

  The next day Earl came over and was a man about it.

  “By God, I have to apologize,” he said sheepishly. “You were right. It can be called if an outfielder catches it.”

  From then on Earl and I had a lot of respect for each other, even though I never umpired another game managed by him.

  Earl evidently wasn’t the only person noticing how right I was about the rules.

  At the end of the Instructional League season in Arizona a chubby little man walked over to my wife, who was sitting in the stands, and gave her his card. Joy thought he was old enough to be her grandfather.

  “Your husband is too good to be in C ball,” he said. “Tell him I can get him a better job.”

  He told her his name was Pants Rowland, a longtime baseball man. Rowland had managed the 1917 Chicago White Sox to a pennant and was fired the next year after a fight with owner Charlie Comiskey. His getting fired probably saved his reputation. He would have been the manager of the 1919 Black Sox had he not been fired. He then became a scout with the Chicago Cubs and then was an American League umpire for many years. In the mid-1940s Rowland became an executive with the Pacific Coast League. He was still with the league when he scouted me.

  Not knowing anything about him, I told my wife, “Don’t get too excited, dear. People promise a lot of things.”

  Within a week I received a telegram from Dewey Soriano, the president of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, offering me a contract.

  I was jumping from C ball over B ball, over A ball, over AA ball, all the way to Triple-A ball. It wasn’t supposed to be done that way. But that was my reward for all the hard work.

  CHAPTER 7

  NOTICED IN PUERTO RICO

  — 1 —

  My year in the Pacific Coast League was uneventful. I can’t remember one vicious argument or even a hiccup. A fellow by the name of Pat Orr was my crew chief. Pat had been in the league quite a while, and it didn’t take me long to discover that his eyesight was failing. During the first games we worked he was umpiring at third base, and I noticed when a batter hit a line drive down the third-base line, Pat didn’t turn to see if the ball was fair or foul. It was a sign he didn’t see it. If I was the home-plate umpire, I would cover for him, making the call from behind home plate.

  Pat sought to mentor me, which I appreciated greatly, but I didn’t need all that much mentoring. I was thirty-one years old and more mature than most guys coming into the league. At least Pat didn’t try to bury me, like others tried to do during my career. Pat was a fine, fine gentleman. I thought the world of him. I’d have done anything for him.

  One of the other umpires in the Pacific Coast League was Emmett Ashford, the first African American umpire to make it to the big leagues. Emmett had worked in El Centro, California, my hometown, so I had known him quite a while. He had been over at our house and had dinner with our family. When he made it to the big leagues, Life magazine did a story on him in which he told the reporter that my dad had taught him everything he knew. I don’t know where he got that idea. He saw my dad perhaps twice a year at most.

  No one I can remember gave Emmett a hard time because he was black, except his umpiring partner Cece Carlucci, who umpired in the Pacific Coast League for many years. They were partners for twelve years, and no one knew it, but they hated each other. Cece was angry at Emmett because the NAACP lent Emmett a car, which he used to drive from town to town. He never once offered to give Cece a ride, so Cece had to pay for his own transportation out of his per diem. The NAACP gave Emmett the car in the hopes he would become the first one to make it in the major leagues—and he did. And Art Williams, the second African American to make it to the big leagues, came from Bakersfield.

  — 2 —

  By the time I was umpiring in the Pacific Coast League, I had learned a number of important lessons about the mechanics of umpiring that stood me in good stead all through my years in the major leagues.

  I have five rules. They’re simple, real easy, nothing to them. If you memorize them, I swear you’ll be better off than a lot of umpires I’ve seen in my time.

  First, when the ball comes in, listen for the ball to hit the glove. Bam. And if there are no runners on base, then count one thousand and one. Your mind will replay the pitch. If it’s a pitch that surprises you and makes you suck wind, which shivers you, then you call out “Strike.”

  Second, if you’re umpiring in the infield and a ball is hit to the outfield, you go running out there and set yourself. Don’t watch it come down into the glove. Watch it until it gets to within thirty feet of the fielder and then leave the ball and watch his glove. You’ll never miss that call again. When you run out there, your eyes are bouncing. If you don’t stop and watch the glove, you won’t see what happens correctly.

  Third, on a ball hit down the line, a shot over the bag either down the first- or third-base line, remember this: If you watch the ball, and it’s so close that you can’t really tell—a really difficult call—then you call it a fair ball. Why? Because the batter beat the pitcher.

  Fourth, you know how they say a tie goes to the runner? It’s true, but it’s not in the rule book. Here’s what the rule book says: The throw must beat the runner. So yes, I guess you can say a tie goes to the runner, but make sure it’s actually a tie before you call it that way.

  Fifth, I often get asked, “Is the black part of the plate a strike?”

  Hell, no. The black is strictly there for background. The plate is white, not black.

  Finally (and I’ll talk about this later in the book), you ought to go by Harvey’s Rule of Thumb: Any time a player or manager gets personal, he’s gone. You can tell me I made a horseshit call. Fine. That’s your opinion of my call. But the second you walk up and say, “Harvey, you’re horseshit,” you’re gone.

  Let me tell you something else about this wonderful game of baseball. If you as the manager don’t like my call on the base paths, you should be coming out. One of my compadres, umpire Nestor Chylak, didn’t believe in arguments. He would tell managers, “If you come out, I’ll bury you.”

  I don’t approve of that. Every man has a right to come out and talk to me. Any time there was a close play, I just assumed someone would come and argue. If they didn’t, I would say to myself, You’re an idiot. You should have come out and said something.

  So I expected it. And I was okay with it, so long as you didn’t get up in my face. Then I’d say, “Back off or get out,” and they would back off real quick.

  I also learned a lot about positioning myself behind the plate. Get yourself a stance that isn’t debilitating, because you’re going to be there all game long. Short umpires have it easier on their legs than tall umpires, because the tall umpires have to bend down.

  One question: How close to the catcher should you stand?

  One of the first things I learned as a young umpire was you don�
�t have to crowd the catcher. In fact, crowding the catcher is the worst thing you can do. And when they start out, most umpires crowd the catcher. They get on the catcher’s back and can’t see the other side of the plate. In fact, you really can’t see the strike zone at all. You think you can, but you can’t. Believe it or not, when you back off, you are better able to see the ball coming through the strike zone.

  I’ve backed umpires up as many as fifteen feet back and to the left or right to get them to see that what I’m saying is true. Usually I asked them to step three steps back and three steps to the right for a righty batter and three steps to the left for a lefty batter.

  The young umpires think I’m crazy, but after the first pitch they’re aware they can see the entire strike zone perfectly.

  I also tell my students to stand with the right leg behind the left. That way, if the ball hits you in the mask, it knocks you back and the back leg softens the blow. I have recommended this ever since I saw Eric Gregg, who weighed more than three hundred pounds, take a foul ball on his chin. His feet were side by side, and when the ball hit him, he toppled over on his back like a big oak tree. I wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone.

  The last thing I would tell a young umpire: Control your temper. But as you will see throughout this book, for a lot of umpires this is extremely difficult to do.

  — 3 —

  My only beef about my year in the Pacific Coast League was that Joy and I were living in San Diego—San Diego had a team in the league—and I told league president Dewey Soriano that I was newly married and wanted to be able to see my wife during the season. That son of a bitch assigned me to umpire games in San Diego exactly once. I was sent to Hawaii six times, but even though Joy was working full-time for a title company, it was still too expensive for her to join me there. We were making $500 a month, and from that we had to pay rent, utilities, and transportation. In fact, Joy couldn’t afford to drive the car to work and park it downtown, so she took the bus.

  “We got to share the same ocean, and that was about it,” was the way she put it.

  At the end of the season I kept my trap shut and applied with the league to work in the Puerto Rican winter league.

  “Is there any chance I can go?” I asked Soriano.

  Apparently there was.

  I was sitting at the dinner table at home in October when the phone rang.

  “Meester Harvey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Meester Gillees told me I call you. You come to Puerto Rico.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you been told?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I have Mr. Gillees give you a call.”

  And he hung up on me.

  Who the hell is Mr. Gillees? I wondered. And who was that calling me?

  The caller, it turned out, was the president of the Puerto Rican winter league.

  Five minutes later the phone rang again.

  “Doug Harvey?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Warren Giles.”

  Gillees. Giles. Oh, I thought to myself.

  Warren Giles was the president of the National League.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” I said.

  “They are interested in having you umpire in the Puerto Rican League,” Giles said.

  “I’d love to do that, sir,” I said.

  “Do you want us to send you a ticket for you and your wife, or would you like to fly and then send us a bill?”

  “No, send me the tickets,” I said.

  I didn’t have the money to fly us to Puerto Rico and then get reimbursed.

  There was only one problem with letting Mr. Giles buy the ticket for us: We went steerage class. We flew from San Diego to Fresno to Dallas to Miami to San Juan. It took us all day and all night, but when you’re in love and newly married and happy to be with your wonderful wife, what difference does it make, really?

  — 4 —

  Because Joy was able to go with me, the entire winter season was like a honeymoon. We loved Puerto Rico. The league provided us with a little car and a cute little fifth-floor apartment. Sometimes the elevator didn’t work, and we would have to drag our groceries up the stairs. I was assigned to the different cities and towns, and we got to tour the island a lot and had a wonderful time staying in little casas.

  I was the only umpire in our crew who wasn’t a major league umpire. I loved umpiring in Puerto Rico, even though the crowds could be rough. The fans were just that: fanatical. You knew as an umpire that you had to keep tight control, or a riot might break out at any moment.

  In my short stay there I was involved in two riots. The first was the final championship game between rivals Santurce and Caguas at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in Santurce, which is a suburb of San Juan.

  I had worked the plate the night before. My crewmates working the game were both local Puerto Rican umpires. The ballpark, Estadio Luis Rodríguez Olmo—named after the second Puerto Rican to play in the major leagues—was packed with fans of the Arecibo Lobos. Olmo, a legend in Puerto Rico, was managing the Lobos that day. The stadium had an odd shape: It was 545 feet down the right-field line and 490 feet down the left-field line. If you drew a straight line from foul pole to foul pole, you’d find that center field measured only about 204 feet.

  Arecibo and Santurce were tied. Arecibo, batting in the bottom of the eighth, had runners at first and second base with two outs when an Arecibo batter hit a fly ball to center field. The runners on first and second, sure the ball was going to be a home run, went halfway and held, as the center fielder went back, tapping his glove as though he was going to catch it. He jumped, but the ball was over his head, and it hit the top of the center-field wall and bounced halfway back to second base.

  A Santurce fielder picked up the ball and threw a dart into second. I was umpiring at first base and had run out to the outfield to see whether or not the ball was going to be caught. The umpire at third was supposed to cover second, but he was late getting there. The throw came to the second baseman, who slapped the runner with his glove. From where I stood I thought the runner was safe at second, but the third-base umpire, trailing the play, called him out. The runner from second base did not cross the plate until after the tag was made, and because the umpire called the runner at second out, the run does not score.

  When the other umpire called the runner out, the Arecibo fans began to holler and scream and carry on something awful. Then Santurce scored in the top of the ninth, Arecibo went down meekly in the bottom without scoring a run, Santurce won the championship, and all hell broke loose.

  The phalanx of Arecibo fans seated in the outfield, drunk and very angry, began tearing down the chain-link fencing, jumping over the five-foot-high fence and pouring onto the field. When I noticed this mayhem was building, I ran to grab the other two umpires in order to lead them to safety. At home plate one of the umpires was arguing with the Arecibo manager Olmo, and at second base the other umpire was arguing with a couple of the Arecibo players. I pulled on the arm of the second-base umpire, led him to home plate, and told both of them, “Fellas, grab my belt, and let’s get out of here.”

  We were pushing against the crazed, out-of-control fans, trying to get off the field, when one fan came at us swinging a two-by-four slab of wood. He swung it overhand in an attempt to separate my head from my body. I threw up my arm and when he hit it, the two-by-four split, and with my arm in front of my head, I drove him to the ground and started pounding him.

  Looking back, what I found most interesting about all of this was that I wasn’t nervous or intimidated in the least. I was very calm. When you’re young and in love and when you enjoy umpiring as much as I did, you just find it all very exciting.

  Anyway, this guy with the two-by-four was down on the ground moaning, and oh my God, those fans were furious, trying to tear my shirt off. I got up and started pushing my way past them, when from up above—as though it were coming from h
eaven—I could hear this voice command: “Get back. Get back.”

  The rowdies stopped what they were doing and stared.

  God almighty, I thought. He’s here to save me.

  I looked up, and it wasn’t God, but rather I was looking at the chin of big Frank Howard, an outfielder who, at six foot seven and 250 pounds, towered over me and the diminutive Puerto Ricans.

  “Get back,” he bellowed at the fans, as he led me and the other two umpires off the field and to relative safety. There wasn’t another punch thrown.

  We arrived at the dressing room, which didn’t have a ceiling. From outside the stadium, fans were pelting the dressing room with rocks, and I could hear thwacks as the rocks hit the walls of the dressing room. The players also used the dressing room, and someone was letting the fans outside know when the players were entering, and they stopped throwing rocks so the players could dress and get the hell out of there.

  “Harv, are you all right?” asked one of the Santurce players.

  It was Bob Uecker, their catcher.

  “My wife is in the stands, and she’s pregnant,” I said.

  “I’ll go find her,” said Uecker, “and I’ll take her out and send word back about where you can pick her up.”

  Uecker went and got her and dropped her off at a San Juan pizza joint. He got word back to me where she was waiting.

  It was two and a half hours before the police could get a squad car to us and take me to my automobile so I could go and get Joy.

  When I finally got to her, her eyes were as big as plates.

  “My God,” she said. “I was so afraid for you.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” I told her. “I was enjoying it.”

  — 5 —

  Later, there was a similar but less dangerous riot during a championship game between San Juan and Santurce. San Juan and Santurce are like the Yankees and the Red Sox. Every game was like a war, and I was surprised when I was chosen to be the umpire behind the plate. I figured that Mel Steiner, who had been in the big leagues for five years, would do it, because I had worked the plate the game before. But I also wasn’t surprised when he chose to work first base and make me umpire the plate again. Steiner would do that. Both Steiner and Paul Pryor were National League umpires, and I was a Pacific Coast umpire. There was nothing I could do but accept it.