by Doug Harvey
“ ‘Okay.’
“And then you explain yourself.
“ ‘I was in perfect position. I was right there. I saw the ball come in. I saw the tag. There’s no doubt in my mind he missed the tag, and I have to call him safe, and safe he’s going to stay.’
“ ‘Goddamn it,’ he might start in again.
“ ‘No no no,’ I would say. ‘You don’t understand. I listened to you, and you listened to me, and now this conversation is over.’
“ ‘What do you mean?’
“ ‘I mean if you don’t get away from me, I’m going to jerk your ass out of this ball game.’ ”
Now it’s in his lap. He has a choice. He can stay out there and get tossed. Or he can return to the dugout.
Finally, I instruct young umpires, “If you can get rid of the screaming and hollering, you got them by the balls.”
Many can’t do it. I told this to Jerry Crawford when he first came up, and he said to me, “Chief, I know what you’re trying to tell me. I understand. But I just can’t umpire that way.”
Years later he came back to me and said, “It took me a long time, but I finally understand that yours is the easier way to umpire.”
— 5 —
Two years after our screaming match, Gene Mauch was the manager of the Phillies when they made their infamous dive, losing most of their games at the end of the 1964 season to lose the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals. That year Jocko Conlan was my crew chief, and Jocko was going to retire at the end of the year. Ordinarily, the league assigned our umpiring crew to many of the Phillies games, but because everyone thought the race was over and was sure the Phillies were going to win it, the league sent us to the West Coast to umpire a series between Houston and the Dodgers. Meanwhile, the Phillies kept losing, and by the end of the season Mauch and the Phillies had blown it.
It was such a surprise. Mauch screwed around with the pitching staff, pitching Jim Bunning and Chris Short almost every game it seemed. He panicked and pitched guys out of turn, and Gene just caught hell from everybody. But it was Gene Mauch who taught me that important lesson: It takes two to make a fight.
— 6 —
I had an incident involving Herman Franks, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, that taught me another lesson I never forgot. I was behind the plate and he said something about the strike zone, and I told him, “Just sit still and leave me alone. I know what I’m doing.” And I punched the batter out. Strike three. And he hollered, “Well, you’ve fucked up everything. Now you’re screwing up the strike zone.”
Boom, bam, boom. “Get the hell out,” and I tossed him. Herman just sat there and looked at me. I said, “Let’s go. Let’s go.” He reached into his back pocket very calmly, took his lineup out, and handed it to Peanuts Lowrey. They were sitting and talking, and I finally got peeved, walked down the third-base line, and got near the bag.
“Let’s go, Herman,” I said.
He walked to the top step of the dugout, continued across to the third-base area, and we were talking.
“Doug, I didn’t curse you.”
“Don’t give me that, Herman. I was looking right at you when you did it.”
He said, “What did you think I called you?”
Translating his words, I said, “You called me a fucking asshole.”
“Oh no,” he said, “I was saying that was an asshole call.” He was improvising.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I know you think I’m a dingbat, but get the hell out of here—now.”
“But, Doug—” he said, and he turned and started walking toward home plate, talking to me. Only I didn’t follow him. I was standing at third base and I let him walk. And there Herman was, walking all the way to home plate, thinking he was talking to me. I had crossed my arms and was standing at third base, and now the people were starting to giggle. It was funny. Herman was walking to home plate talking to me, and I wasn’t there.
Finally, Franks turned around to have his last say, when to his chagrin he realized that I wasn’t there. When he looked back at third, I turned my head and looked out to center field with my arms crossed, like I didn’t know he was gone. Oh, jeez. He got so goddamn mad. He came running back, charging me like a wounded buffalo. That day I learned that when you eject a man, you never stand on any dirt. You always stand on grass. They can’t kick dirt on you if you’re not on dirt. Herman Franks was the only man during my career who ever kicked dirt on me. When he did that, of course, I got him the hell out of the ball game.
The next day, the phone rang in the umpires’ dressing room, and Jerry Crawford answered it.
“Chief,” he said, “it’s Herman.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No.”
“Give me the goddamn phone.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Oh, Doug—you of all people,” said Herman. “How could I ever have done that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Could you see it in your heart to forgive me?” he asked with real contrition.
“Fuck no,” I said, feigning anger, “and I’ll tell you something else. If you fuck around with me, I’ll nail you every time I see you.”
Bam. I hung up.
I told the guys in my crew, “Don’t forget what I’ve always said. You never hold a grudge.”
That was the way I umpired. I never held a grudge. But I got Herman thinking: Will he eject me every time he sees me?
That’s the way I worked.
— 7 —
Ted Simmons, the St. Louis Cardinals’ catcher, is the only player I should have tossed but didn’t. There was a riot going on, and I was working the plate. Ted was behind the plate, and when the melee broke out, he jumped up and tossed his mask toward the dugout, signaling his intention to get involved.
I turned around to him.
“Let me tell you something, Ted,” I said. “If you get in that dugout, you’ll stay in the game. If I see you out on that field, I’m going to eject you.”
As I started heading toward the pile of bodies near the mound, Simmons said to me, “What the fuck do you know, asshole?”
I was already on the dead run to see if I could break up forty players, so I missed him. I didn’t eject him.
After that, I kept my eye out for him, but I never did get him.
Which also showed I never carried a grudge. I may never have forgotten when someone said something to me, but that didn’t necessarily mean I acted on it. A grudge eats at you. I never allowed that.
— 8 —
When I came up, I was a little bit of a wiseacre. One of the many lessons I learned early was that I had to watch myself.
I was behind the plate in Chicago. The Cubs were playing the Phillies. The Cubs’ pitcher was a big guy, a right-hander named Larry Jackson. Wes Covington was the batter; a great big guy, a strong son of a bitch. He came up with the bases stacked. Jackson got two strikes on Covington, and I told myself, He’ll either try to backdoor with a hard slider, or he’ll try to cut it inside.
But he reversed it. He threw the pitch on the inside corner, but missed it. Covington jerked his leg out of there and I said, “Ball.”
The Cubs’ catcher was Dick Bertell. So here came the next pitch and sure enough, he threw a goddamned slider, and bam, the pitch hit the catcher’s glove. But it missed.
“Ball,” I said.
And I heard, “Oh, Jesus Christ, Harvey.”
“Whoa, big fella,” I said to Bertell. “We’re going the wrong way. Don’t be doing that.”
Jackson threw another close fastball. I said, “Ball.” And Bertell dropped down on his knees and said, “Oh, why?”
I leaned forward and said, “I wanted to see how high the pitcher could jump after I made that call.”
“You cocksucker!” said Bertell.
Here we go. The catcher, the pitcher, the manager, the third-base coach: I threw them all out of there. That night, I went out and got drunk.
T
he next day, at seven o’clock in the morning, the phone rang. It was the head of umpires, Fred Fleig, the man who gave me my job.
“Doug,” he said, “I want you to meet me at the hotel.”
“Okay,” I said groggily, “but you better have some sweet rolls and some coffee, because I’ll need them.”
I grabbed a cab and headed over to his hotel. We were having coffee and sweet rolls, and he said, “Bertell said you told him you wanted to see how high the pitcher could jump.”
“That’s right, Mr. Fleig,” I said. “That’s what I told him.”
“Well, I respect you for telling me the truth,” he said. “You’re kind of a wise kid, and I’m telling you: Get rid of it.”
“I’ll try,” I said. And I did try.
After that, every time Fred would come into a dressing room, he would tell the young umpires, “You listen to what Harv says. He’s an honest man, and he won’t get you in trouble.”
The fact that I always told the truth worked out for me.
— 9 —
My first year in the major leagues was memorable for so many reasons. I entered baseball the same year as Casey Stengel and the Amazin’ Mets. They were called the Amazin’ Mets as something of a joke. The 1962 Mets may well have been the worst team to come along in quite a while. When the league expanded, the powers that be allowed the existing teams to protect almost all of their decent players, making only over-the-hill veterans and fringe ballplayers available to the two new teams, the Mets and the Houston Colt .45’s.
During a game at the Polo Grounds, there was a play at second base. I called the runner safe when the Mets second baseman was late with a tag. Casey came trotting out to protest. In that deep voice of his, he said, “Young man, it appeared to me that the second baseman had the ball and tagged the man coming in, and therefore I feel he should be out.”
“Casey, let me tell you something,” I said. “Your fielder caught the ball, but he was reaching forward instead of catching it coming backward, so it took time for him to reach forward and catch the ball, and then he put a slow tag on him.”
“A slow tag?” said Casey.
“Yeah, Casey, that’s right. A slow tag.”
Casey turned around and started to walk off, and I could hear him muttering under his breath. Both his hands were up in the air, and he was saying, “Slow tag. Slow bats. Slow arms.”
Casey was a wonderful gentleman. I loved him.
— 10 —
As great as Casey was, that’s how opposite-of-great his successor, Wes Westrum, was. Wes was a pain in the ass. He would get pissed off at me all the time. He was always trying to prove me wrong. One time he told me, “Harvey, I’m going to be watching the replay on the TV.”
One game he came out to argue with me four times.
He kept saying to me, “I’m going to check the TV.”
“Westrum,” I told him, “I’m better than any fuckin’ TV you got.”
Finally, I ran him. I couldn’t take it any longer.
— 11 —
We used to have to work old-timers’ day games. Whoever wasn’t working the plate that day would umpire for three innings for the old-timers. We were in New York at the new Shea Stadium. Roger Craig was on the mound and Joe DiMaggio was the batter, and Roger came over and said to me, “Harvey, if you strike Joe DiMaggio out, I’ll kill you. Pull it in.”
“For Christ’s sake, you think I have no sense at all,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, the gentleman gets eight strikes.”
They announced Joe’s name, and we waited and waited, and we could see him standing around in the dugout. Finally he came out and said, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t find a bat.”
“No problem, Joe.”
Later Felipe Alou told me, “Joe couldn’t find a bat, so he took mine. It was the heaviest bat in the rack.”
On the first pitch he hit a one-hopper off the center-field wall. It was a wonderful thing to see. He swung so smoothly, didn’t put any effort into it. But his legs were gone, and first base was as far as he could go. I thought to myself, For a guy to drive the ball that far with bad legs like that—what a shame he isn’t young. I would have loved to have seen him in his youth.
Joe DiMaggio used to play in our golf tournaments, and there’s never been a nicer gentleman in all the world. But he had to be comfortable around the people he was with.
In spring training, Joe was a coach with the Oakland A’s. I was umpiring at third base, and Joe was sitting on the edge of the home dugout by third base, and he let out a fart, a big one.
The lady sitting right above him said, “What was that?”
Her husband said, “What was what?”
She said, “Didn’t you hear it? There’s something wrong with this place.”
I looked over and Joe’s face was as red as a Cincinnati Reds uniform. He was blushing to high heaven.
— 12 —
When I came up in 1962, Alvin Dark was the manager of the San Francisco Giants. I was umpiring a game at third base in Milwaukee a couple years later, and Jim Ray Hart of the Giants hit a ball way out to left field. The bases were loaded and there were two outs in a close ball game.
The ball Hart hit was one of those balls I felt was going to be close as to whether it left the ballpark or not. I busted my ass, got halfway out there, and set myself—which you always have to do. Any umpire who tries to umpire on the run is a damn fool. You have to set yourself.
I set myself and watched the ball come down. And this is another Harvey theory: Don’t watch the ball when it’s on its way down—instead, when it’s still twenty feet high, watch the fielder’s glove; you’ll never miss whether it’s caught or not. The rule also goes for the fielder charging in and taking the ball off his shoe top. If you leave the ball when it’s twenty feet in the air and watch the fielder’s glove, you’ll never miss whether it’s a trap or not.
“You’ll always be able to make that call,” I tell all my young people.
This ball was coming down. Rico Carty, the left fielder, ran back to the fence and jumped up. If I had been following the ball, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with it. The ball always leads your eyes, so you don’t see what happens.
I left the ball and went to the glove, and goddamn if I didn’t see a fan in the stands holding a small, brown-colored stick of some sort—it could have been a piece of steel or it could have been a pencil—sticking out over the edge of the stands. The ball hit it just as Rico Carty leaped up trying to catch the ball.
I ran out and saw the fan pull back this stick. And I called Jim Ray Hart out, citing fan interference.
Al Dark came running out near third base, and he wanted to argue. Whitey Lockman was his third-base coach. Whitey came over and said, “Skip, I hate to tell you, but Harv’s right.”
That was the first time I ever had a ballplayer say something to save me. It happened two or three times later during my career.
I never did have any bad arguments with Al.
Another manager I rarely got into a bad argument with was Pittsburgh Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh. Danny was crusty but fair. He would come out and argue, but he was one of those managers who never wanted to come out of the ball game. He wanted to be on the field, so he kept his cool to keep from getting ejected.
Harry Craft of the Colt .45’s didn’t like to argue. He didn’t have the fire in his belly. He wanted things to go smoothly and didn’t argue at all.
Bobby Bragan, the Milwaukee manager, never argued with me, and there was a reason for it. Bobby managed in the Pacific Coast League when I was umpiring there. I had known him, so when he came in we respected each other. I also knew Bobby Cox from the minors. He had been a player in the California League in the early 1960s. He was at Reno playing second base. That’s how far back we went. I read that Bobby got tossed more than any other manager in the history of the National League. I couldn’t believe it. I never ran Bobby once.
One manager who could be nasty was the Cardinals�
� Johnny Keane. There was a to-do at third base involving Tony Venzon, and I walked over from second base to listen in. Keane had started the argument and then stood directly behind Venzon, listening to his every word, hoping to catch him saying something wrong.
“Hey, Tony,” I said, “it’s me, Harv. You won’t believe who’s standing right behind you.”
He turned around quickly, and when he saw Keane standing there he unloaded a string of expletives.
“If you want to argue with me,” said Tony, “you better get the hell over here in front where I can see you. Don’t you ever—” And on and on he went. Tony turned the argument around on Keane.
Most of the arguments I had came in my first few years. One of the reasons they eventually stopped was that the players saw that I demanded respect. They learned quickly that if you called me anything but sir, Mr. Umpire, or Doug, you’d be ejected.
The first player I ever ejected was Joe Torre, who was just breaking in as a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. They were playing the Pirates in St. Louis toward the end of the season. With two out, Joe hit a double, a runner was coming in to score, and it was going to be close. I was umpiring at second base. Joe rounded second, and I saw him touch the bag. He ran past it by about ten feet, then turned to look to home plate to see if there was going to be a tag play just as Pirate catcher Smoky Burgess—who had come halfway out to the mound—caught the ball and fired it back to second, catching Torre by surprise.
“You’re out,” I called.
“You’re full of shit,” Torre said.
“What?” I said.
“You son of a bitch,” he said.
“You’re out of here,” I said, making Joe Torre the first player I ever ejected.
After I ran Torre, the Cardinals’ third base coach came running out to second base.
“Why did you toss Torre?” he demanded.
“He called me a son of a bitch.”
