They Called Me God

by Doug Harvey

  He wasn’t quite so funny when it came to getting the game started on time. Jocko was a stickler for making sure that if the game was supposed to start at 1:05, it didn’t start a minute later.

  A music group was scheduled to play between games of a doubleheader in Milwaukee, and as a group of roadies came out onto the field and began setting up the instruments, Jocko went over to the general manager and warned him he better get the band off the field by the time the second game was supposed to start.

  “Don’t worry,” said the GM. “We’ll be out of here.”

  The umpires went back to our dressing room, and when the time came for us to start the second game, the group was still playing their World War II songs.

  “Hey,” said Jocko to the general manager, “I told you I wanted these guys out of here when I came out.”

  “Jocko,” the GM said, “this is their last song.”

  “They just did their last song,” said Jocko, and he took his foot and kicked down the front row of stands on which the band was playing.

  “Now get the hell off the stage,” he said.

  — 2 —

  Toward the end of his career, Jocko developed a serious drinking problem. He liked his toddies. He’d buy me a drink and I’d buy him two drinks. One year I had to work three plate jobs for him because he came down from his hotel room drunk, and we left him back at the hotel. I didn’t hold that against him. He was in his last year in the league, and it was hotter’n hell, so what was wrong with giving the old man a day off? That’s just the way I felt about him. Tony Venzon wasn’t quite so generous.

  “I’m not working your fucking plate,” was what Tony told him. “You either show up, or it’s not going to get worked.”

  After he said that, I had a talk with Lee Weyer, and Lee was also willing to work the plate in Jocko’s absence. Lee didn’t mind either.

  His last year in the league, Jocko went out singing. Jocko and I would go to a bar—in Chicago there was a bar one block directly behind our hotel—and if it was a day game, he’d spend the evening drinking.

  Jocko and I would sing a lot together. We had a lot of fun.

  Jocko, who died in 1989, was very ill and in the hospital. Joy and I went and saw him. He had his gown on and we were walking down the aisle singing, “When your old wedding ring was new / and the love in your heart was true / I remember with pride as we stood side by side /what a beautiful picture you made as my bride.”

  — 3 —

  After Jocko retired, I became a member of Shag Crawford’s umpiring crew. I was with Shag for the next twelve years. Shag and I had similar upbringings. We came from poor backgrounds. Before he became an umpire, he drove a milk truck. He was a catcher in the Philadelphia A’s farm system but hurt his arm and wasn’t able to play, and he began umpiring in the sandlots. Johnny Stevens, an umpire from the Philadelphia area, saw him and recommended him. Like me, he never went to umpire school.

  Shag was the best umpire I ever worked with. He had a great feel for the game and for his fellow umpires.

  Shag was a real man and all Irish. He was a tough guy. A newspaperman would come into our locker room after a game and ask Shag a question like, “You’re the one who ejected him? Why did you do it?”

  Shag would blow his Irish stack and call the guy every motherfucker in the world.

  “Get the fuck out of here before I kill you,” he’d say.

  This was when newspaper writers were electing the members of the Hall of Fame, and I do think it’s what kept him out.

  Over the years, Shag and I had some hellacious arguments. I can recall a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. I don’t sleep on night flights, so I was talking to another member of our crew, Johnny Kibler, all the way to Chicago.

  We were talking about umpiring. Shag was sitting there on the plane, drinking, until it finally put him to sleep.

  When we got off the plane Shag was still a bit buzzed, and John and I were still talking baseball.

  Shag attacked me, really jumped on my ass.

  “What the fuck are you trying to do, take over my crew?” he asked.

  “No, Shag,” I said. “God almighty, I would never do that.”

  “I hear you talking to him,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing. You better not be trying it anymore, because I’ll send you to help someone else. I don’t need you on my crew.”

  “Okay, Shag.”

  The next day I was walking around downtown Chicago before we were to leave for the ballpark. It was about ten in the morning. I had had breakfast, and I heard “Yo.” I looked across the street and it was Shag. He was waving for me to come over. I didn’t know whether he was still pissed; whether he wanted to take a swing at me.

  But don’t get me wrong. I loved the guy. I dearly loved him. And here’s the reason: He called me over and so I went, still on the alert, and walked over to him.

  He pointed to a pair of shoes in the window of a shoe store.

  “What do you think of those?” he asked. “Are those me?”

  “No,” I said, “not unless you’re going gay.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go, kid.”

  And that was the end of the argument.

  The great thing with Shag was when it was over, it was over. He never held a grudge as far as we were concerned. Shag could get mad at me, but we could always settle it.

  — 4 —

  Another aspect of Shag’s personality that I greatly admired was that he was always fair. I would find out that wasn’t necessarily true of all crew chiefs. During the time I was working under Shag, I was asked to join Tom Gorman’s crew for one three-game series. They were down a man and they decided to send me to Gorman, because they had umpired a tough series and they wanted to send a young umpire to go on Shag Crawford’s crew for a few days.

  When I arrived in Atlanta, Gorman asked me, “Where did you work last night?” I told him I had worked the plate. Ordinarily when you leave one crew and go to another, you are assigned third base. It’s what Al Barlick or Shag Crawford would have done. Had Gorman done that, I wouldn’t have had to work home plate during the three-game series. But Tom told me to go to second base, and so for game three I had the plate.

  After I returned to Shag’s crew, Shag said to me, “Harv, I watched the game on TV. Did that son of a bitch put you at second base?”

  “Yeah, he did, Shag,” I said.

  “That Irish cocksucker,” said Shag.

  Here was one Irishman calling another one a cocksucker, and that was all right.

  During that series I lost a lot of respect for Tom Gorman for another reason. Al Forman was behind the plate on this day, and he and Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh began arguing. Gorman and I walked over so we could be witnesses to whatever was going on.

  As Gorman was walking toward him, Murtaugh turned around and said to him, “You get your fat ass back where you belong. I don’t want to fucking talk to you at all.”

  “Calm down, Danny,” Gorman said to him.

  Gorman not only didn’t eject Murtaugh, he took it and kept quiet.

  I turned and walked away. I could only shake my head when he didn’t eject Murtaugh. Al Barlick taught me that they were to call us sir or Mr. Umpire, and if they called us anything else, we were to eject them.

  — 5 —

  In my early years of umpiring all three of my crew chiefs—Al Barlick, Jocko Conlan, and Shag Crawford—drank heavily. And I would drink along with them, though I was a terrible drinker.

  When I was a boy, I was the batboy for the El Centro Imperials, and I can remember making deliveries to the umpires at their hotel. They were staying in a second-rate hotel in town, and the rooms didn’t have air-conditioning. All they had was a fan at the end of the hallway. You could open the transom to your room and the fan would blow some air around to cool you off a little, but not much. It was usually over 100 degrees in the summer. The fan was just moving the air. It was so hot the umpires couldn’t stay
in their rooms during the evening. There was nothing to do and they had to get out of their rooms, so they went to the hotel bar and drank. You sat in the bar and sipped cold beer. And if you left the bartender a couple of tickets, many times he would pick up the tab. That’s where it came from. The guys all learned to drink in the minor leagues.

  When I became an umpire in the minor leagues, there wasn’t a whole lot to do except go to the hotel bar, bullshit the evening away, and drink. It’s what you did. You got trapped into it.

  About five years into my career, one day I realized that I had become a drunken bum. I finally realized that when you’re drinking and drinking hard, no one is going to stop you but yourself. I’d go out and get loaded with the guys, and half the time I’d wake up in the morning with my clothes still on. I finally said to myself, God almighty, what am I doing?

  I finally said, This is freaking ridiculous.

  There was another reason I was drinking so much in the major leagues. For the first time in my life, I had the money to do it. You have to remember: In the minor leagues you’re making so little money that you’re almost starving to death. Your wife has to work. You’re trying to pay your bills with what little money you’ve got.

  Then all of a sudden you go to the major leagues and you’ve got a decent per diem—which you never had before—and you have more money than you know what to do with. You always ride with your partners in the cabs, and even as a first-year umpire I could see that we always got a deal at the hotels. We’d leave tickets to the game with the hotel managers, and they’d give us a really good deal for the rooms. With the money you had left, you could get drunk every night.

  The first three and a half or four years, I drank too much. I realized it when I was going home. I was drunk calling my wife at home, and it couldn’t have been any fun. Later I asked her about it and she said it was terrible. So I did a good thing. I quit drinking, except once every two weeks or so, I’d have a glass of wine with my partners to let them know I still loved them.

  After that, I put all of that energy into my umpiring, because I’m not a chaser. I told my wife when I asked her to be my bride, “I’ve chased all the women I want to chase. You’re the woman I want to be married to.” And I kept my promise to her. It’ll be fifty-three years this year.

  CHAPTER 13

  MEMORABLE MOMENTS

  — 1 —

  Don’t let anybody tell you that baseball isn’t a violent game. I’ve seen players slide into a base trying to cut a player’s leg. And I was behind the plate when Dickie Thon was hit in the head with a pitch that almost blew out his eyeball.

  I was behind the plate that day in the Astrodome. Mike Torrez was pitching for the Mets, and he threw a pitch on the outside part of the plate and I called it a strike. Dickie had moved closer to the plate to be able to reach that pitch. The next pitch sailed right at his head and smashed into his face. It was terrible.

  Mike Torrez was broken up by it. He hadn’t meant to hit him. The ball just sailed, and I put that in my report. Dickie missed the entire season, and it took him a while before he could play again.

  I also saw some nasty street fights in front of home plate that made me sick to my stomach.

  — 2 —

  Juan Marichal, the San Francisco Giants’ Hall of Fame pitcher, gave me the worst moment of my career. Because of the way he pitched, Juan was very tough with umpires behind the plate. He threw the ball from four different places: overhand, three-quarters, side-arm, and underhand, and you never knew what was coming. He had a great changeup and a moving fastball that he could move six to eight inches from left to right. The whole time he was in the league I never had a run-in with him. With the great ones, you never do.

  - - -

  I was umpiring at third that day. Marichal was batting. The first pitch was a strike. When Roseboro threw the ball back to the mound, the throw grazed Marichal’s ear. I could see Marichal turn around and say something to Roseboro. Herman Franks, the Giants’ manager, said all Marichal said to Roseboro was, “Why did you do that?”

  Then after the next pitch, Roseboro started to get up out of his crouch and take a step toward Marichal, and before anyone could stop him, Marichal raised his bat with one hand and cracked Roseboro over the head with a sickening thud. Blood poured from an open wound in Roseboro’s head.

  Willie Mays, always a peacemaker, rushed over to Roseboro, perhaps his best friend in baseball, and cradled his head. Mays’s uniform was splattered with Roseboro’s blood. Mays placed his head on Roseboro’s chest and cried, “Johnny, Johnny, I’m so sorry.”

  Shag Crawford, who was umpiring behind the plate, tackled the crazed Marichal to keep him from doing further damage. When I saw this, I ran in as a peacemaker, and all of a sudden there was a mass of humanity all in a pile around home plate. Don Drysdale, a big man, was the first out of the Dodger dugout. He ran past me as I was running to try to protect Shag.

  I jumped on the pile, digging down, trying to get to Shag and hollering his name, and I could hear Dodger pitcher Howie Reed, who was down at the bottom, yelling, “I’ve got him. I’ve got him.”

  Reed had a hold of one of Marichal’s legs, and Marichal was ripping Reed’s uniform to shreds, kicking with his other cleat.

  “Turn him loose, you damn fool,” I said to Reed. “Get out of here. Look at your chest.”

  He was covered with blood.

  I never did find Shag until the pile was broken up and order was restored.

  Marichal was escorted off the field, and Roseboro also had to leave, a red-stained towel pressed against his head.

  The police came down to the field, and the next afternoon when we came to the ballpark, Shag called the head of police and ripped him a new asshole for going onto the field.

  “Don’t you ever come out here,” Shag said. “This is our bailiwick. We’ll handle it. If I ever see you out here again, I’ll report you, and I’ll do everything I can to get your job.”

  Later there was a hearing. Marichal said under oath that when Roseboro threw the ball back, he threw it right next to his ear, and the second time, he said he actually ticked his ear. For that he clubbed him over the head with his bat.

  Roseboro was hurt badly. Marichal was fined and had to miss a turn.

  I was called on to testify the next season. When I was asked, “Who was pitching against Marichal?” I said, “I don’t know.” I didn’t remember. Turns out it was Sandy Koufax, in one of only three times Koufax and Marichal ever faced each other. I simply forgot, and I told them, “Let me get something straight with you. When I walk off the field, unless I have a report to write, what’s over and done with is over and done with. I wash it from my mind.”

  The only other time I saw a player throw a bat occurred in a game in which Bob Gibson pitched. Gibson drilled the batter deliberately because he had hit a home run, and the next time Gibson came to bat, the pitcher drilled him. Gibson was really pissed, so he threw his bat at the guy. I then ejected Gibson, and Gibson was mad at me. He was always mad at someone.

  — 3 —

  When a young catcher comes up to the big leagues, I tell him, “Young man, let me tell you something. My name is Mr. Harvey. My name is sir. My name is ump. You can call me by any of those three names, and we’ll get along just fine.

  “Remember one thing: Umpires are trying their best to get everything right, and it’s impossible.”

  Basically I tell them: “If you keep your mouth shut, you will get along with the umpires just fine.”

  As you can see, more than anything, umpires are looking for respect. We aren’t asking for it. We’re demanding it.

  I umpired my first World Series in 1968, and before the first game, commissioner William Eckert’s right-hand man, Joe Reichler, met with the umpiring crew. He wanted to let us know how the series was going to be run.

  “At no time will we have any ejections of ballplayers,” he said. “The people are here to see them play.”

  The other umpires
had more seniority than I did, and none of them said a word. I looked over at Bill Haller and he looked back at me. I was hoping Bill would speak up, but when he didn’t, I raised my hand.

  “Do you have something to add?” asked Reichler.

  “I sure do,” I said. “It’s taken me seven years to get here, and during that time I have been teaching the players what they can and cannot call me, and I’m telling you right now, if one of them calls me a son of a bitch or a cocksucker, I’m going to unload him. If you don’t like that, you better get somebody else to umpire these ball games for you, because I’m not going to be here.”

  That’s the way I looked at baseball, because that was the way I was taught by Al Barlick.

  He jumped right over it.

  “Well,” said Reichler, “let’s get on to the next order of business.”

  But that’s the way I felt. It took me long enough to teach the players that nobody calls me a son of a bitch and stays in a ball game, and I wasn’t going to let Joe Reichler, General Eckert, or anyone else take that away from me.

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to run anyone. It was the World Series, and the players were on their best behavior. You don’t get many complaints during the World Series.

  — 4 —

  Every umpire goes about his business believing he’s always right, even when he knows he isn’t. That’s part of being a good umpire. Being involved in controversial calls is also part of being an umpire. In my case, my most controversial call occurred in the fifth game of the 1968 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers when I called Lou Brock out at the plate on a very close play.

  One of the highlights of the day was the singing of the National Anthem, sung by that blind guy, José Feliciano. He accompanied himself on the guitar, and in his rendition he sang so slowly I didn’t think he’d ever finish. He also sang it as a dirge. When he was done, a lot of the fans booed him. But no one ever forgot it.