Inside Baseball: Veteran umps weigh in on controversies

Bill Klem, the umpire whose Hall of Fame career predated replays, Jumbotrons and in-season vacations, never had a problem distinguishing between safe and out or ball and strike.

"It ain't nothing," Klem used to explain, "till I call it."

Klem helped define umpiring, helped make the men in blue as much a part of the game as the players themselves. But he also knew that the best of his breed were those you rarely noticed.

Last week, in Philadelphia, as likely will be the case this week in some other city, the umpires were noticed.

When fill-in Scott Barry ejected - and ignited - Ryan Howard and when Greg Gibson ruled that Houston's Michael Bourn had not gone beyond the baselines on a pivotal bunt, the familiar questions and complaints about umpires began anew.

Why are they so confrontational? Why is a substitute working a significant game in mid-August? Why are they so reluctant to ask for help?

Part of why the reaction is often so vehement is that baseball umpires are actors in the game in a way referees in hockey, basketball and football are not. After all, you rarely hear anyone yell, "Kill the linesman!"

"In basketball, if you call a foul on one end, you go to other end, call one the other way, and it's all squared up," said Larry McCoy, who umpired in the American League from 1970 to 1999. "The game kind of flows from one moment to another. It's kind of that way in football, too. But in baseball, when there's a close call, there's an argument, and the game stops. Everyone's attention is on that umpire."

"Every play in baseball," said Marty Springstead, who umpired from 1966 to 1985 and then served as a major-league supervisor, "the umpire is making a decision."

And if that umpire is wearing a non-conciliatory, tough-guy, Joe West-like expression, everyone assumes he's just spoiling for a fight.

"That's not so," Springstead said. "But you do have to let the 50 people in the dugouts and the 50,000 people in the stands know who's in charge. It's four against 60,000 when you're out there. You'd better be tough."

According to McCoy anyway, despite the perceptions, there are fewer smirking umpires itching for a fight than ever in baseball.

"That was old school," he said. "When I was working there were less of them than 20 years earlier. There are even less now. But you've got to do more than project toughness. You've got to be tough."

Toughness is one thing. Arrogance is something else. And if a fine line separates the two, it appeared to many that Barry landed on the wrong side when he tossed Howard in the 14th inning Tuesday after a pair of strike calls on checked swings.

Barry, whose normal venue is triple A, was substituting on Gerry Davis' crew because Davis was enjoying some of the four weeks of in-season vacations that umpires, who earn between $84,000 and $300,000 annually, have won in collective bargaining in recent decades.

"Two things happened there," said McCoy, 69, who resides in Greenway, Ark. "One, if a player beats you to the big leagues, you don't know [anything]. That's the just the way it is. Players will argue with [the subs from the minor leagues] a lot more.

"And the second thing is those guys will make a lot more mistakes because they're out there thinking, 'If I screw up, I'm out of umpiring.' You come up to the big leagues, and you want to look good. So instead of letting a game flow, they get to thinking and end up screwing up. A lot."

What appeared to infuriate Howard, who charged Barry and had to be restrained by teammates, was that four pitches earlier, the ump had called another check swing a strike. And when Howard reacted then by placing his hands on his hips, the ump mimicked his action and glared in at him.

That invariably led to speculation that Barry was waiting for payback.

"It all depends on how he questioned the first one," said McCoy, when asked if he would retaliate against a griping player in a situation like that. "If he said, 'Larry, where was that pitch? I thought it was outside,' nothing's going to happen. But if he says, 'Outside corner my [butt], what the [expletive] were you looking at?' then he doesn't want to be taking that close one.

"You've got 50 guys over there. If they see him bitch and raise Cain and then you let him walk on a 3-2 pitch, what are they going to think? You have to protect yourself a little bit out there."

The fact that the Howard incident was triggered by a check swing surprised neither McCoy nor Springstead.

"Check swings are a pain in the neck," Springstead said. "Umpires have an awful lot to focus on in just a split second. And now that the home-plate guy is supposed to ask first or third for help, it means that instead of everybody being mad at one guy, they're mad at two."

McCoy said he once had a crew chief, Jim Honochick - who later became famous as the blind ump in those Miller Lite commercials with Boog Powell - who couldn't distinguish a checked swing from a full cut. When he was asked to rule, he'd check with McCoy, who would flash him a signal.

"It don't matter if your eyes are good or bad, nobody wants a check swing," said McCoy. "I used to get my [butt] chewed out more than anything else on check swings. Nobody wants one.

"Because of technology, they're calling them closer than ever. Frank Robinson, who was a great hitter, would have hit about .200 these days. He used to start and stop on almost every swing."

And what about the fact that the Phillies, in the midst of a pennant race, had a game influenced by an umpire whose regular gig is in triple A? Is it wise for the most experienced umps to miss games at this crucial time of year?

McCoy said vacations are wonderful tonics and welcome breaks in the midst of a grueling season. Remember, there are no home games for umpires. They're on the road for 162 games, not to mention spring training and, for the best of them, the postseason.

But Springstead wasn't so sure. He said that like Howard, who is having difficulty rediscovering his stroke after an injury layoff, vacationing umps need a period of readjustment when they return.

"When I was umpiring, we got two weeks," said Springstead, 73, who resides in Sarasota, Fla. "Since I had seniority, I'd take my two weeks together in August. And I'd always need a day or two to get back in the groove. You're kind of in La-La Land out there at first."

Referring to the furor created this season when first-base ump Jim Joyce missed a call with two outs in the ninth that cost Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game, McCoy said that since the play wasn't likely to have any bearing on the game, the crew should have huddled and gotten the call right.

It reminded the retired umpire of the 1996 game in which Yankees pitcher David Cone, who later would get a perfect game, missed out on a combined no-hitter. With one out in the ninth, McCoy called an Oakland batter safe at first on a close play.

Cone had been making his first start after undergoing surgery to remove an aneurysm from his right armpit, and manager Joe Torre pulled him after seven innings. Jose Herrera singled to shortstop off Mariano Rivera to end the no-hit bid.

"It was the same exact play," McCoy said. "But he was safe by a foot-and-a-half. . . . That's one of those calls where's he's got to be safe or else he's out."