Ron Luciano - The Umpire Strikes Back

Advance Praise for The Umpire Strikes Back

Want some really good laughs? Want to learn about sports and life? This has got to be one of the years best.

Playboy Magazine

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-63758-378-4

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-379-1

The Umpire Strikes Back

1982 by Ron Luciano and David Fisher

All Rights Reserved

Interior Design by Yoni Limor

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press, LLC

New York Nashville

permutedpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Contents

To my mother, Josephine, who taught me the difference between safe and out.

OR Finally Bad Enough for the Regular Season

R eady, Ron? asked the disembodied voice in my ear.

I looked at the microphone in front of me, and nodded.

Merle Harmon, my old friend with whom I would be broadcasting Major League Baseballs Game of the Week, leaned over and said gently, Youll have to speak up, Ron. They cant hear you when you nod.

I nodded firmly. Ready.

Mike Weisman, the voice in my ear, was producing the telecast from NBCs mammoth communications van parked outside the Texas Rangers ballpark. Okay, good, he replied. Weve got ten minutes. Lets rehearse.

Rehearse? A baseball game? Id spent my entire life in sports. Id been an All-American football player in college, Id played four years of professional football, Id umpired in the major leagues for 11 years. Rehearse? In all that time Id never heard of rehearsing a sports event. But as I soon learned, this wasnt sports. This was sports broadcasting, and it was a whole new ballgame.

Normally, at that moment I would have been in the umpires dressing room, desperately trying to squeeze my winter body into my summer uniform.

Instead, I was sitting in the broadcasters booth trying not to smear my make-up. I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair, and wondered what I was doing up there. I was supposed to be down on the field exchanging compliments with Reggie Jackson, screaming at Orioles manager Earl Weaver, letting the fans behind first base call the plays for me, telling Rod Carew how to hit. Who was Yankee third baseman Graig Nettles going to have to complain about if I werent there? What would American League President Lee MacPhail do if I werent there causing problems for him to solve? How could Billy Martin possibly turn the Oakland As into winners without me there to advise him? Who was going to make pitcher Tommy John break into laughter in the middle of his wind-up?

My new career wouldnt begin officially for almost two hours, and already I was thinking about retirement.

Three days earlier Id been packing my umpires gear and preparing to fly to California to open the 1980 baseball season. I was looking forward to it. I was scheduled to work the World Series and I was probably going to get the All-Star Game. In addition, Id recently been elected to a second term as President of the Association of Major League Umpires, so people had to listen to me. But in those three days Id auditioned for NBC Sports and been hired to assist Merle Harmon as color man on the regional Game of the Week. Suddenly, sitting in the announcers booth in Arlington, Texas, the insanity of the situation hit me. Including four years in the minor leagues, Id spent the past fifteen years on the playing field. When I was home during the off-season I was usually out in the woods hunting or bird watching. Incredible as it sounds, I had no idea what a color commentator was supposed to do.

Fortunately, Weisman did. He wanted us to rehearse the opening of the program. First, he told me, talk about the Yankees. Can they come back from their disappointing 1979 season? Theyve got a rookie manager, Dick Howser; talk about him. Mention their new centerfielder, Ruppert Jones, and their new catcher, Rick Cerone. Can Cerone replace Munson? Dont forget to mention that they picked up Bob Watson and Rudy May as free agents over the winter. Do you think their pitching is sound enough to win? Do they have enough hitting

I was nodding furiously, trying to remember all of this.

then go to the Rangers. Fergie Jenkins is their starting pitcher, so talk about his long career. What was it like being behind the plate when he was on the mound? Better mention that their manager, Pat Corrales, is in trouble if they dont get off to a quick start. Then run down their line-up. Got it?

Right, I said, nodding. How much time do I have?

Thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds! I can barely say my name in 30 seconds, even without including a middle initial. I started sweating, causing my make-up to run. Never being a person satisfied to create a small disaster when I could just as easily create a catastrophe, I realized I was about to embarrass myself on national television. There are people who claim I didnt know what I was doing as a football player. Theyre wrong. There are people who claim I didnt know what I was doing as an umpire. Theyre wrong. But I knew I didnt know what I was doing in that booth, and within ten minutes the entire nation was going to find out.

I glanced over my shoulder. A burly sound technician was blocking the door. There was no way out.

I had never wanted to be a television broadcaster.

My voice is perfect for mime and my face is made for radio. But I had never wanted to be an umpire, either. (With the exception of my friend Bill Haller, no one ever grew up intending to be an umpire. But Hallers brother Tom wanted to be a catcher, so an affinity for masks must run in that family.) My ambition as a child was to spend a quiet adult life sleeping late, hunting and fishing, and somehow getting paid a lot of money to do it. Instead, I became a professional football player.

I was born in Binghamton, New York, in 1937. My father and his two brothers had immigrated to America from the tiny Italian village of San Giovanni about twenty years earlier. They split up when they got here and bought train tickets to wherever their money would take them, because they couldnt believe that any one town would be large enough to have three jobs available. My fathers ticket took him to the small town of Endicott, in upstate New York. His brothers ended up in Pennsylvania.

With my mother, who was born in America, he opened Perrys Grill, a ninety-seat restaurant across the street from the IBM clock factory. We served about 350 meals a day. Eventually the restaurant became a parking lot. IBM became a conglomerate.

We lived over the bar and the jukebox would be blasting until 1:00 a.m. every morning, so even today I can recite the lyrics of any song written between 1945 and 1955 and sleep through absolutely anything. The bar had one of the first television sets in the city and I thought it was the greatest invention in the world. Back in 1949 the networks used whatever was available and inexpensive to fill time. Weather forecasts lasted a half hour. I didnt care. I would sit in front of that set, absolutely mesmerized. I might go to school the next day without having done my homework, but I knew the temperature in Honolulu.

I had a normal childhood, except perhaps for the largest gangland bust in history. When your name is Luciano, and youre living in a community of seventeen thousand Italians, there is no such thing as a gangster. The Mafia was considered a local fraternal organization. There were perhaps fifty families in Endicott thought to be connected, and they were among the most respected people in town. In fact, when The Untouchables went on the air, none of us could understand its appeal. The wrong side always won.