Major League Managers

While Umpire School has been fabulous in regard to my understanding of the intricacies of baseball as a game, it has not provided many juicy tidbits to titillate a fan-boy. I haven’t heard whether or not Alex Rodriguez is a nice guy. The major league umpires haven’t told many personal stories of their encounters with the larger-than-life celebrities who play baseball. I haven’t even heard the dirty details about that minor league manager who went psycho on the field last summer, crawling around and pretending to throw grenades from behind the pitcher’s mound – despite the fact that one of our instructors had home plate that night.

So far only four managers have been mentioned in class by name.

Terry Francona of the Boston Red Sox had a discussion once with Paul Nauert about the running-out-of-the-baseline rule. Mr. Francona didn’t understand that it was legitimate for a runner to run from first to second base on the grass, as long as he wasn’t trying to avoid an imminent tag. Mr. Nauert explained the ruling, and Mr. Francona returned to the dugout.

Frank Robinson came off the bench one time while his Washington Nationals players ganged up on the home plate umpire. The plate ump had allowed a run to score on a play in which the third out was made by a runner who hadn’t tagged up from second on a fly ball. Since the run scored before the appeal play,[1] the run counted, but the players didn’t agree with the ruling. Mr. Robinson came out to home plate, got between the players and the ump, and shooed his players back to the bench, chastising them for berating the umpire on a correct call.

Those first two managers merely came up in the context of these stories. Lou Pinella, however, is mentioned frequently. If a trainee umpire makes a questionable call, an instructor might waggishly note that “Lou would be out of the dugout on that one!” This morning Mr. Nauert told a funny story about Mr. Pinella’s Tampa Bay days. Mr. Nauert prefaced the story by saying that he never seems to do his best umpiring in Tampa.[2] The crux of the story was that Sweet Lou was on the wrong end of a missed balk call that cost his team a chance to play extra innings. The next night, Mr. Pinella was gracious when the crew admitted their mistake, and he even made a wry comment when yet another call failed to go his way later in the game.

The final manager who has been noted, and noted frequently, is Bobby Cox.

No current umpire has said anything negative about any manager. Not even once. But on day 2 of the school, (retired umpire) Harry Wendelstedt interjected a diatribe about Mr. Cox. Sparing the details, Mr. Wendelstedt Sr. credited Braves GM John Schuerholz for the team’s long term success, and suggested putting Mr. Cox in the “Hall of Shame.” The rest of the staff said nothing… while Mr. Wendelstedt continued, the other professional umpires held poker faces. No embarrassed faces, no “huzzahs”… but just blank stares.

An instructor who invokes Lou’s name always seems to have a twinkle in his eye, as if they know Lou’s a crazy guy whose on-field tantrums are all in good fun. An instructor who mentions Bobby, though… I’m almost expecting them to cross themselves after they say his name out loud. A student who is asked “you think Bobby might come out on that one?” had better think carefully about his mistake.

The Atlanta Cracker[3] has a theory about why Bobby Cox seems to rile up umpires. He thinks that, sure, Lou will throw a wobbler occasionally, but most of the time Mr. Pinella is gracious and professional. However, Mr. Cox might well be criping nonstop about every call, every pitch, every little thing. If that’s the case, I could see why the umps don’t seem to have much affection for the man.

This afternoon, my whole field was called together. In retrospect, I suspect that we were called in mistakenly; that is, they thought it was break time but it wasn’t. When we got together, Paul Nauert said something to our field instructor while Paul talked into a cell phone with a huge smile on his face. The field instructor told us, “Breaking News: Bobby Cox has retired.” Now that I’ve checked the sports wires, I recognize that we (and CJ the Crazy Braves Fan) were having our collective legs pulled. But, the delivery was totally believable: When Mr. Cox does abandon the Turner Field dugout for good, I will bet that the whole major league umpiring staff will likely have that same celebratory smile on their faces.

I’ll repeat: It’s still the case that no current umpire has said even the slightest disparaging word about Mr. Cox, or anyone else in baseball. The preceding analysis is no more than the Nachoman’s inference from observed behavior. It kinda leaves me to wonder what inferences the instructors here (or worse, my students back home) take from observing my behavior. Shudder. Maybe they’ll find how much I hate three hour games and the DH.

[1] NOT the force play… a runner who fails to tag up on a fly out is NOT in jeopardy of a force play; rather, he can be called out on appeal.
[2] My immediate thought that I didn’t verbalize is “That’s okay, because they don’t play such good baseball in Tampa, either.” Ba-dum-bum.
[3] a.k.a. Paul Vickers, the Nachoman’s Atlanta Braves correspondent