They Called Me God

by Doug Harvey

  “Yeah,” I said. “But will you stop screaming?”

  That’s the way I handled it.

  On the other hand, Al Barlick would say, “I don’t give a fuck what you think.” And he and the manager or player would stand there nose to nose until Barlick finally unloaded him.

  — 10 —

  As an umpire you are in charge, and anything that gets out of hand, you have to handle it. We had a rain situation in Chicago again, and Roger Craig, the manager of the San Francisco Giants, was upset because it had rained and I had allowed the game to continue. When it stopped raining, I could hear Roger hollering at me, so I went over to the Giants’ dugout to see if everything was all right.

  When I went over to him, I could see that their dugout was absolutely flooded up to the gunnels, right to the top, and I said, “I’m sure we can—”

  Roger started screaming at me.

  “There’s no way we’re playing in this fucking shit, and there’s no way you can clean that out, and—” he was screaming.

  They knew it was the last trip the Giants were making to Chicago, so they knew that ball game had to be made up in San Francisco, unless there was a day off around Chicago. And Roger started hollering at me because he wanted me to call the game, and I said, “Whoa, Rog, let me take a look at things.”

  I turned to the grounds crew and said, “Any of you guys want to make ten bucks?”

  “I sure do, Harv,” one of them said.

  “Fine; you go down there,” I said. “There has to be a drain that’s plugged. Go down there and find out.”

  He jumped in as Roger started in on me again.

  “Harv, I’m telling you. I’m not playing this goddamn game.”

  I let him holler.

  The grounds-crew member dunked his head into the rainwater in the dugout, and he came up with a towel that had been covering the drain. As soon as he pulled it up, the water just gurgled out and disappeared.

  I turned around to Roger and said, “Now, Roger, go inside, get your ball club, and get them out here. I’m giving you ten minutes.”

  “I’m not bringing my club out here,” he said.

  “You have ten minutes,” I said, “and then I’m going to unload you and anybody that’s around you. Now I’m going to go dry myself, and I’ll be back out in ten minutes.”

  I came out, both ball clubs were there, and we finished the ball game.

  I tried to teach my young umpires: You have to use your head instead of your mouth. Shut your mouth when they come at you. Don’t let them get up close to you. Don’t let them get face-to-face. Tell them, “Hold it. Hold it.” They will stop. “I’m listening to you, but back up.” That’s the way I did it. And if you refused to back up, then I’d turn away from you and unload you.

  — 11 —

  One of the lessons my years of experience taught me was that you always give the manager a choice whether he’s to be tossed or not.

  We were in New York in 1987 and it was raining, and because it was the last trip to New York, I tried harder to get the games in. There was a very light rain falling. The St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher went out to warm up, and when his left foot landed, he slipped. Not big, just a little. He didn’t go down, but whenever I saw that type of thing, I either repaired whatever was wrong with it or I covered the infield.

  Whitey Herzog came running out. Whitey was hot-tempered.

  “Jesus Christ, Harvey, you’ve got to call it off. It’s raining.”

  “Whoa, whoa, Whitey. Hang on a minute,” I said.

  I called my grounds crew out and said, “Fellas, can you fix that spot where he’s landing?”

  “Sure.”

  The grounds-crew worker pulled a two-foot-by-three-foot piece of clay out of the ground, put new clay in, pounded it down, and covered it with Dry.

  “There you go, Whitey,” I said.

  “Oh no, that’s not good enough,” he said.

  “Son, let me see you throw the ball,” I said, and the pitcher threw a ball and tried to slide his foot but couldn’t.

  “That’s good enough, Whitey,” I said.

  “Like hell it is,” said Whitey. “You’re not playing this goddamn game under these circumstances.”

  “Whitey, we’re going to play it,” I said.

  “Like fuck we are,” he said. “I’m not moving.”

  “Whitey, you’re either moving or you’re gone. Now it’s up to you.”

  I always put it in the manager’s lap. If he wanted to be ejected, I just told him, “It’s up to you.” I always ended it that way. When he refused to go, I unloaded him.

  “I’m not moving,” he said after I tossed him.

  “All right,” I said. “Do you see that player sitting right next to your dugout? That player. I’m going to unload him if you don’t leave.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t do that,” Whitey said.

  “Not only that,” I said, “I’ll unload him and then unload the guy next to him.” I was indicating one of the players in the game.

  “Left to right, I will unload every one of them,” I said. “Now you can leave or not leave.”

  Bingo.

  “Aw, fuck it, Harvey,” Whitey said, and he left.

  That was typical. You leave it up to them. There’s no sense for you to take all the heat. And you write in your report, I told him, “Either you leave or I’m going to have to eject you.”

  That way I’m covered. If the manager calls in and says, “Jesus Christ, Harvey is always ejecting me. How the hell can I—”

  The man in charge of umpires then can say to the guy, “It says in Harvey’s report that he told you if you didn’t leave, he would have to eject you. Is that true?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Well, then . . . why didn’t you leave?”

  “Well, I was pissed.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  That was the end of it. He had no argument.

  — 12 —

  You’re in charge, and that means you are in charge of the whole ballpark. That doesn’t just mean on the field. You are in charge, and anything that gets out of hand, you have to handle it.

  I was in Chicago, Wrigley Field, and the catcher for the Cardinals, Darrell Porter, had had to go through alcohol rehab. He hit a triple and slid into third. The stands aren’t too far from third base at Wrigley Field, and two fans started in on him, hammering him about being “a drunken asshole, you fucking idiot.” They were ripping him. These guys were sixty years old, and they were dressed to the nines. Each had a suit and tie on. I’m sure they had just come from work. I couldn’t believe such trash could come from two gentlemen’s mouths. They just ripped Porter up and down.

  I walked toward them a little bit, put a finger up to my mouth, and said, “Gentlemen, shhhh.”

  They started on me.

  They said, “Fuck you too, Harvey, you cocksucker.”

  I gave a nod to my usher friends—I’d made friends with all the ushers. I just walked back and as I watched, security came down, grabbed both of them, and jerked them out. I’ve ejected people from all sorts of situations. If I think they are wrong and acting wrong, there’s nothing in the rule book that says you have to take all that shit from anybody—and that includes the fans.

  — 13 —

  Sometimes a word to the wise is sufficient. I was behind the plate one day. About the fourth pitch I called a strike on one of the Dodger hitters, and the ballplayer stepped back to ask me a question. From the bench Tommy Lasorda hollered, “That ball’s low.”

  I looked over to him and loudly said, “Lasorda, your pitchers can’t make a living if I don’t give that pitch.”

  Tommy looked at me. He knew I meant it and he shut up.

  I always had the feeling that if you had the proper answer, you could always get them off your back. It got to where during the last fifteen years of my career, I didn’t have any trouble.

  — 14 —

  One of my favorite stories o
ccurred in 1990 when Lou Piniella was managing Cincinnati and took the Reds to the World Series, which they won. He had taken over the team, and they were going horseshit. Before the game, Lou knocked on the door of the umpires’ dressing room.

  “So who’s that?” I asked Jerry Crawford.

  “It’s Lou Piniella,” Jerry said.

  “Tell him he has ten seconds. What’s he want?”

  I figured he wanted to argue about something that happened in the game the day before.

  Lou came in and said, “Harvey, will you just do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll come out and start a little argument with you,” he said. “Will you throw me out of the game?”

  “You want us to throw you out of the game when you come out?” I asked with a certain skepticism.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Because my ball club is going so horseshit that I can’t wake them up. So maybe my getting thrown out of a game will wake them up.”

  That was fine. It didn’t bother me. I didn’t know whether that was considered a favor or not, but at least he came in and let us know what he was going to do instead of just coming out and screaming and calling us cocksuckers.

  Lou came out in the first inning and ran to second base to argue a call.

  Dutch Rennert, who’s a card and a half, was a delight to have on your team, except that Dutch would just as soon get the game over with in a hurry and let’s go sit at a bar and have a drink. He was great, sociable, and I just loved him and loved being around him.

  Anyway, Lou went charging out and stood there gesticulating, talking to Rennert and looking back at me. He then turned around and went back to the dugout. Between innings he came out to me and said, “Harv, what the hell is going on? I thought you guys were going to jerk me out.”

  “Well, what happened?” I asked.

  Said Lou: “I said, ‘Okay, Dutch,’ and Dutch just said, ‘Okay by me,’ and so I turned around and walked away.”

  In truth, I know what happened, why Dutch didn’t run him. Dutch thought he’d have to write a report, and he didn’t want to have to do it.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I told Lou. “Move your arms up and down and act like you’re pissed. I’m going to walk away, and you go kick dirt on my plate and I’ll unload you.”

  “Okay,” he said, and we did just that. He kicked some dirt on my plate, and I unloaded him.

  After the game I said to Dutch, “How come you didn’t unload him?”

  “He didn’t call me anything.”

  “Dutch,” I said, “he wasn’t going to call you anything. He just wanted to get unloaded.”

  “The game’s not played that way,” said Dutch.

  “Okay, Dutch.” And of course I wrote a report that Lou had wanted to jack up his ball club, that he had come in before the game and asked me to throw him out—so I threw him out. Lou didn’t get fined.

  Another time Lou came roaring out to second base to my umpire—Dutch again—and I walked out partway to be a witness.

  “Harvey, don’t come over here,” Lou said. “It’s his call. I want him to explain it to me.” And he started in again.

  “Lou,” I said.

  “I mean it, Harv,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  What Lou wanted was for us to call the runner out for taking out the shortstop on a double play. He was arguing about the fact that the runner went after the shortstop, after he took the throw from the second baseman and went to throw to first base, and you can’t do that. The runner must be able to reach the bag if he slides. But even though it was Lou’s runner who went out of his way to impede the fielder, Lou was arguing it should have been a double play, because you’re supposed to call the man out at first base if the runner makes an improper slide at second.

  If Lou only would shut up, I thought, I’ll be able to straighten him out.

  “Lou, give me five seconds,” I said.

  “All right, Harvey, what is it?”

  “Lou, what you’re arguing about is a double play, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. A double play,” he said. He was arguing, “You ought to call the guy out at first. If he interferes like that, goes out of the baseline—”

  “That’s your man that slid out there,” I said. “You asked us to call a double play against your team.”

  Lou looked around, looked down at the ground, looked at his shoes, and didn’t know what to do or say. Embarrassed (to say the least), he finally just walked off, because he realized he was asking us to call a double play against his own team.

  Lou had the silliest look on his face. I always contended that umpiring for Lou was like umpiring for a high school kid.

  — 15 —

  During my years umpiring I got to watch some terrific managers at work. Among those wonderful managers were Davey Johnson, John McNamara, Bruce Bochy, and Jim Leyland.

  Davey did as well with a good ball club as any manager I saw. With the New York Mets he had the horses, and he handled them well. He knew how to argue. He’d come at me, give me all sorts of hell, but when I told him it was over, he’d go back to the dugout and let us get on with the game.

  McNamara, who led the Reds for several years, was one of the greatest people in baseball. I loved John. He’d ask a question, get an answer, and walk off.

  Bochy has done the greatest job in the world, first in San Diego and then in San Francisco. Right now I think Bruce Bochy is the best manager in baseball. The Padres sold or traded so many key players out from under him, and he still put together a contending team. I think the world of the guy, and to watch him work was terrific. He was a guy who would come out and talk to you.

  “Harvey, what the hell is going on out here? What happened?”

  Jim Leyland was the same way.

  I don’t mind when a manager is a little upset, wanting to know what’s happening. I can remember early in Leyland’s career when he came into the league, he came out to second base four different times.

  “You know, Jim,” I said, “this is the fourth time you’ve been out to see me.”

  “Is that too many, Harv?” he asked.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit much, Jim?” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Okay.”

  And that was it. Leyland was a terrific guy.

  — 16 —

  One of the great joys I had as crew chief was training the young umpires who came under my wing. Two of my favorite were Jerry Crawford, Shag’s son, who was with me for eleven years, and Joe West, a great professional and a dear friend. Jerry was a lot like his dad. I would talk to Jerry constantly about his temper. He would acknowledge that mine was the better way of umpiring, but it wasn’t him.

  I tried to protect Jerry from his temper, but it wasn’t easy because he was feisty like his dad. He wouldn’t take anyone’s shit. If Gene Mauch went after him, he gave as good as he got.

  We had a situation in San Francisco between Jerry and Giants third-base coach Dave Bristol that could have turned disastrous for Jerry.

  John Montefusco was pitching for the Giants, and he was throwing a two-hitter and winning 1–0. The game was in the eighth inning and he had a 2–2 count. Jim Quick was the home-plate umpire. Jerry was at first base. I was at second.

  The pitch came in to George Foster and he took a half swing. Quick signaled over to Jerry, who said, “No swing.”

  The Giants hollered.

  The next pitch that Montefusco threw George hit nine miles for a home run to tie the game at 1–1.

  The next hitter made an out, and as the Giants came off the field, Montefusco hollered, “You suck,” at Jerry—and wham, Jerry ran him.

  The first guy off the bench was Bristol, who made a beeline for Jerry.

  “What the hell did you run him for?” Bristol wanted to know.

  “Get your butt over to third base,” Jerry said.

  “I asked you a question,” screamed Bristol.

  “I
don’t owe you an explanation for nothing,” said Jerry. “You’re not the manager of this team.”

  With that, Bristol took his cap off and in his anger whacked Jerry across the face with the knob of his hat. Jerry’s head snapped back, because it really stung like hell.

  Jerry balled his fists and was about to coldcock Bristol when I put my arms between his arms, held him back, and began to pull him backward.

  “It’s all right, kid,” I said to him. “Calm down. Everything’s all right. We got it. We got it.”

  I was talking to Jerry like he was an alligator. I saved his professional life that day. I guarantee you Jerry would have knocked Bristol’s ass down. I turned Jerry away from Bristol and told him, “No, no, no.”

  We turned in a report to the league office, and Bristol was given a three-day suspension for striking an umpire. I thought the punishment was ridiculous. They could have struck a real blow for baseball if they had sat him down for the rest of the year. That’s what Bristol deserved, and they didn’t do that.

  Baseball doesn’t have enough control. The owners and the commissioner are too afraid of the players.

  How can you command respect if a manager strikes an umpire and only gets a slap on the wrist?

  — 17 —

  Joe West, who was working on my crew, also found himself in a little hot water one day. Don Zimmer was coaching third base. Joe was umpiring at third. As the throw was coming in from the outfield, Joe whipped around to see the play at third. If the play is between you and the throw, or if the throw is off to the left, you go to the right. If the throw is off to the right, you go to the left.

  Joe got down behind the third baseman, the fielder receiving the ball. Zimmer came over and bodily checked him. Well, Joe took Zim and threw him—and I mean threw him. Joe West was all-everything when he was in college. He was a quarterback, and he’s strong as a bull. He whipped Don out of the way—I guess Don still has a plate in his head from a beaning a long time ago—and he said Joe tossed him right on the plate.