Barney Bricelin: Baseball’s Smallest Umpire
This article was written by Bill Lamb
This article was published in SABR Deadball Era newsletter articles
This article was published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s August 2024 newsletter.
Standing less than five-feet tall, Deadball Era arbiter Barney Bricelin was the game’s smallest umpire. That diminutive stature, however, garnered him little sympathy or respect from players, baseball fans, or the sporting press. Bricelin’s umpiring tenure was punctuated by assaults upon his person, displeasure voiced from the grandstands, and harsh newspaper criticism. Nor did he get much support from the minor league executives who employed him, being dismissed mid-season on several occasions. Still, Bricelin persevered, rising as high in his profession as the Class B Central, Connecticut State, and Eastern Leagues. And he remained active on the baseball scene of his Ohio hometown until shortly before his death in March 1927. The paragraphs below recall the life and times of this long-forgotten miniature man in blue.
John Lewis Bricelin was born on March 16, 1879 in Franklin, Ohio, a municipality located about 35 miles northeast of Cincinnati.1 He was the eighth of nine children born to coal miner John W. Bricelin (1832-1919) and his wife Mary (nee Maley, 1844-1922), both descendent of Irish Catholic immigrants.2 When Barney (as our subject was called by family, friends, and the press)3 was still a toddler, the Bricelin family relocated to East Liverpool, a pottery manufacturing center located near the Ohio border with Western Pennsylvania. For the remainder of his days, Barney called East Liverpool home. And apart from his time on the ball field, he spent his working life as a potter in various East Liverpool area mills.
Little is known of Bricelin’s early years, but life was not likely easy for someone as undersized as Barney. Bricelin was not a dwarf or otherwise physically stunted. He was, rather, a normally proportioned, well-coordinated young man, but an exceptionally small one: standing about 4’11” and eventually weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 110-120 pounds.4 His lifelong connection to baseball was first memorialized in an April 1898 news item that listed the 21-year-old as a member of a local pottery mill nine.5 The following year, he played shortstop for East Liverpool’s amateur team.6 Barney also maintained his place in the pottery mill league, manning the outfield for the West End club in 1900.7
In October 1900, Barney married 20-year-old pottery decorator Pearl Ballentine.8 Sadly, son Kenneth, the couple’s only child, succumbed to whooping cough at age 13 months. During the early years of his married life, Bricelin’s name disappeared from local newsprint. It reemerged in May 1905 when he played right field for the Knights of Columbus of St. Aloysius Church, the Bricelin family parish.9 He also took over as manager of the East Liverpool amateur club.10 The following season, Barney entered the umpiring profession.
MINOR LEAGUE UMPIRING DURING THE EARLY DEADBALL ERA
Minor league umpiring was a thankless job during the early Deadball Era. The reforms introduced into major league baseball by American League President Ban Johnson were slow to make their way to the minors. This included adoption of practices designed to enhance the status of umpires. Minor leagues, particularly lower-tier circuits, mostly retained the one-umpire system. Ball-strike, safe-out, and fair-foul decisions were thus the responsibility of a lone arbiter – regardless of how far away from the action he stood or how poorly positioned he was to make the call. The potential for getting a call wrong, and the player/fan provocation that came with it, exposed the umpire not only to vociferous criticism; it often placed his safety at risk, as those disagreeing with an umpire’s decision sometimes resorted to violence. And press censure of umpires was a familiar feature of era sports reportage.
Worse yet, disciplinary measures that afforded AL umpires some degree of bodily protection only haphazardly extended to their minor league counterparts. Few punitive sanctions were imposed by minor league officials upon those who abused an umpire. Undeterred, players routinely disparaged, cursed, and/or spat at minor league umps, and physical assaults upon the men in blue were fairly commonplace. Home team fans displeased by a call regularly expressed themselves with verbal taunts, hurling refuse or bottles at the umpire, and sometimes storming the field. Umpires requiring a police escort to depart the grounds was not an unheard-of event.
But perhaps most discouraging for the minor league umpire was the lack of support that he often received from his league’s chief executive when controversy arose. Indeed, minor league presidents were as prone to capitulate to angry club boss, player, or press sentiment as they were to back their umpires. During his time umpiring Barney Bricelin experienced just such a lack of league office support firsthand – and more than once.
THE UMPIRING CAREER OF BARNEY BRICELIN
Our subject entered the professional umpiring ranks during the 1906 season, calling games in the Inter-State League, an eight-club Class D circuit anchored in Pennsylvania. But the number of contests that Bricelin officiated is unclear, and he appears not to have completed the I-SL season as a mid-August news report has him back in East Liverpool umpiring a game between to local amateur nines.11
In late April 1907, Bricelin was selected to umpire a local pre-season exhibition game that placed the Youngstown (Ohio) Works, the reigning champions of the Class C Ohio-Pennsylvania League, against East Liverpool’s fast amateur club. When a call went against his side, Youngstown’s Elberfeld expressed his disagreement by “dealing the unhappy Mr. Bricelin some upper cuts intermingled with an occasional left hook or two.”12 When agitated fans threatened to enter the fray, the remedy adopted East Liverpool club president Bippas, the game host, was to “waive Bricelin out of the game,” and transfer umpiring responsibilities to others.13 This shaming experience, however, did not sour Barney on umpiring, and late in the season he was engaged by the Class D Western Pennsylvania League.14 And his work during a Clarksburg Bees-Scottsdale Giants game garnered grudging press commendation. “Aside from being cross-eyed once or twice on pitched balls [Bricelin] gave satisfaction,” reported the Clarksburg Daily Telegram.15
Implicated in the above comment was the principal obstacle facing umpire Bricelin. His diminutive size sometimes made it difficult for him to get a good look at pitches,16 a problem exacerbated by the fact that Deadball Era catchers did not assume the low squat utilized by modern-day receivers. In Barney’s time, catchers merely bent from the waist. It was later stated that “if a tall batter is at the plate and a ball crosses the pan breast high, it is in line with Briceland’s [sic] head. That is how tall he is.17
The year 1908 found Barney back home in East Liverpool, employed by a local pottery mill and calling amateur games on weekends. But in August 1908, he got umpiring work in the Class D Southern Michigan Association and drew some mild press praise. Although the home side dropped a 3-0 decision to Saginaw, the Bay City Tribune allowed that “Bricelin had a few kicks on his work but on the whole he seemed about as fair a handler of the indicator as has officiated here this year.”18 Weeks later in Battle Creek, his mettle was demonstrated when “umpire Bricelin’s left arm was dislocated, the forearm being driven into the upper arm by a glancing foul off of Furlong’s bat in the fourth. Dr. Brown set the arm on the field and Bricelin finished [the game] umpiring.”19
The extent that Bricelin received minor league umpiring assignments in 1909 is unclear, but one report placed him in the Ohio-Pennsylvania League working “as a substitute” that season.20 More certain is the fact that after the 1909 season was over, it was announced that “Barney Bricelin of East Liverpool, O. has been appointed an umpire by President Frank B. Carson of the Central League” for 1910.21 The season, however, would prove a traumatic one for the little arbiter, complete with on-field clashes, press criticism, mid-season termination by the Central League, and a suicide attempt.
The 1910 campaign began on a bright note, with an early season wire service story informing the baseball world of minor league umpire “Barney Briceland,” stating that he “was less than five feet tall in height … and light in weight but he is all grit.”22 The piece served as sports page filler for months and was oft-times accompanied by a photo of Bricelin in full umpiring regalia.23 The two slightly different photos which accompanied the story are the only images of our subject known to exist today. As a Class B circuit, the Central League put its arbiters in two-man crews, but friction apparently developed between Bricelin and partner Harvey Pastorious. More concerning was the difficulty that the pair had with Central League players. Same manifested itself during a mid-May game in South Bend where a large crowd “made it lively for umpire Bricelin who made several off-color decisions that delayed the game due to the rag chewing that ensued.”24 Two weeks later, more trouble erupted when Bricelin called out Fort Wayne baserunner Curly Blount for leaving third too soon on a tagged-up fly ball. Enraged by the call, Blount throttled the little umpire, was pulled off by his manager, then attacked Bricelin again before order was restored.25
Unhappily for Barney, Blount was far from the only CL player who gave him a hard time. When he banished South Bend second baseman Eddie Wheeler during a mid-June contest, the home side newspaper observed that “umpire Bricelin is having more trouble than [his predecessors in blue] ever did.”26 Meanwhile, Central League clubs had taken to blaming their misfortunes on the circuit’s umpires, with the Dayton Veterans focusing their complaints on Bricelin.27 When Central League boss Carson declared his intention to stand by his umpires, the Dayton Herald retorted: “For the president of any league to stick by the kind of work Barney Briceland [sic] has been doing … would make him the laughing stock of baseball.”28 Such barbs evidently took their toll on Carson who soon thereafter gave Bricelin critics satisfaction, sacking the arbiter in late June. The post-mortem performed by the South Bend Tribune concluded that “Bricelin was a good umpire … but was unfortunate in making some close decisions which incurred the enmity of certain teams in the circuit.”29
The firing sent Barney into a deep depression. Rather than return home to East Liverpool, he retreated to the home of his married sister Anna in Wheeling, West Virginia, for the remainder of the summer. On the evening of September 3, 1910, that despair produced near-fatal consequences. Bricelin ingested a half pint of the drug laudanum mixed with papine in an attempt to kill himself.30 Rushed to a local hospital, he was at first given “little chance” of survival.31 But against the odds, Bricelin recovered and subsequently returned home to Ohio for the winter.
In late January 1911, it was revealed that “Barney Bricelin, the midget who handled an indicator in [the Central] League last season” had been hired to umpire in the Class B Connecticut State League, his suicide attempt of the previous fall notwithstanding.32 The season, however, quickly turned ugly for the little ump. His decision to suspend play of a Bridgeport Orators-Springfield Ponies game in the seventh inning on May 1 drew sharp press criticism.33 Despite the fact that play thereafter resumed and the contest was played to conclusion, a Bridgeport newspaper preceded its game account with the following ditty:
Of all the umpires in the land
This Bricelin is the worst.
To save his life he couldn’t tell.
The players’ bench from first.
We thought that Ebner was a joke,
And Schetter quite a shine.
But when compared with Bricelin,
They both look simply fine.34
More complaints about Bricelin reportedly poured in to CSL President William J. Tracy,35 but Barney remained on the job. On May 15, he ejected four Northampton Meadowlarks during a game against Hartford, wearing out shoe leather “walking around the players who wanted to argue with him.”36 Two days later, Bricelin’s work during a game between Springfield and the New Haven Murlins was rebuked in the league press. The New Haven Union declared that the contest was marked by “continual wrangling between the umpire and the Springfield players from beginning to end” and concluded when “Bricelin gave another raw decision” that closed a 2-0 New Haven victory.37 Coverage of the game in the Springfield Union was even more pointed, appearing under a headline that read “Umpire Robs Pony Players; Bricelin’s Rulings Are Freakish Throughout.”38 In the end, Bricelin’s umpiring so incensed Springfield players that he required an escort to safely depart the grounds.39
Dissatisfaction with umpire Bricelin crescendoed after he worked a Northampton-New Haven game on June 10. His rulings so infuriated New Haven players that three of them attacked him on the field. Clyde “Waters choked the midget umpire for a while, [Tony] Pastor tried to take a crack at him, and [Jere] Connell clouted him on the back of the head,” raising “a big lump” on Barney’s cranium.40 After finishing the game, “Bricelin telephoned President Tracy and demanded suspension of the players,”41 but disciplinary action was stayed pending a “thorough investigation” of the matter by the CSL boss.42 Perhaps surprisingly, the often-critical New Haven Union expressed sympathy for the beleaguered umpire. “The lack of size of the little fellow is a big inducement for batters to go after him, and yesterday afternoon’s fracas was only an illustration of just how far a player will go who knows he has something on the umpire in physical ability,” the newspaper observed. It then added that “it’s safe to say that neither Jere Connell nor Clyde Waters would try to hit [good-sized CL] umpire [Charles] Lanigan, no matter who badly wronged they felt themselves to be.”43
On June 12, 1911, it was announced that CSL President Tracy had resolved the situation by firing the assaulted umpire, stating that he “has had a lot of trouble from Bricelin.”44 In addition, “Bricelin was not competent and objections to his work have been made by six of the eight clubs in the league.”45 No disciplinary action, however, was taken against the three New Haven players who had attacked the fired arbiter.46 Coupled with this astonishing outcome was a further Tracy declaration – presumably uttered with a straight face – that he intended to “back up the umpires and tell [CSL club owners] that they must see that umpire ‘baiting’ is stopped.”47
Less than a month after his dismissal, Barney Bricelin was back in blue, umpiring games in the promoted-to-Class C Southern Michigan Association.48 But that affiliation did not last long, and by mid-August he had dropped down to calling games for another former employer, the now-Class D Ohio-Pennsylvania League.49 Bricelin had returned to the East Liverpool pottery mills when recalled to duty by the O-P League in July 1912.50 Although his calls still were subject to criticism by the league press, a West Virginia newspaper opined that “Bricelin … seems to be a fair minded umpire, and he is much liked by real fans, although two decisions given by him on two consecutive days have been rather poor.” This, however, was attributed to the failings of the circuit’s one-umpire system rather than any shortcomings of Bricelin.51
The Ohio-Pennsylvania League folded at the close of the 1912 season, and no evidence of Bricelin umpiring elsewhere in Organized Baseball during the 1913-1915 seasons was uncovered. Rather, he appears to have kept his hand in the game solely by working the odd amateur and semipro game back in East Liverpool.52 In April 1916, however, the now 37-year-old left his pottery mill job to accept an umpiring position in the Class B Eastern League.53 He immediately travelled to Boston to work EL preseason games,54 but his stay in the circuit proved a short one. By mid-May, Barney was back in East Liverpool umpiring a semipro game.55 The reason for his quick separation from the Eastern League was not discovered. All that can be said is that this brief association closed Barney Bricelin’s career as a minor league umpire.
LIFE AFTER THE MINORS
On the domestic front, Bricelin’s marriage was a troubled one, and by 1910 he and wife Pearl had separated.56 The couple later divorced. Barney remarried in July 1918, taking 20-year-old Delia Brannen as his second bride.57 When he completed his World War I draft registration card two months later, Barney gave his residence as Salem, Ohio, and his occupation as a potter at the Salem China Company. But he continued his involvement in the local baseball scene, umpiring the occasional amateur game.58 In 1920, Bricelin switched to managing, taking over as pilot for a club in the Clarksburg, West Virginia, pottery league.59 He returned to East Liverpool in the succeeding years, alternating between managing and umpiring. In 1925, he assumed command of the Newell-Laughlin team in the East Liverpool Industrial League,60 but resigned early in the season. No reason was disclosed.61
In January 1926, Barney and Delia Bricelin hosted an East Liverpool area visit by Bill McKechnie, manager of the reigning world champion Pittsburgh Pirates, and his wife, and proudly escorted the McKechnies on a tour of the Newell-Laughlin pottery works.62 The next discovered press mention of our subject appeared in February 1927 and related that “J. Barney Bricelin” was in residence at St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh, receiving visits from his wife and other family members. The patient was reported as “ill” but “improving.”63 Two weeks later, he was dead, succumbing to “a complication of diseases” on March 12, 1927.64 The Bricelin death certificate more particularly identified the cause as broncho-pneumonia, with toxic psychosis listed as a contributing factor (which suggests that the deceased may have suffered late-life mental illness). John Lewis “Barney” Bricelin was 47. Following a Requiem Mass said in East Liverpool at St. Aloysius Church, the deceased was interred in the Bricelin family plot in the parish cemetery. Survivors included widow Delia, older brother Andrew, four sisters, and ex-wife Pearl.
Now looking back almost a century, it is difficult to render judgments about Barney Bricelin’s umpiring abilities with any degree of confidence. That the little arbiter possessed ample amounts of determination and courage cannot be gainsaid. Equally indisputable is the considerable handicap presented by his diminutive size. That his small stature may have aggravated the abuse routinely suffered by Deadball Era minor league umpires also seems likely, but there remains the question of how much of this abuse Bricelin brought upon himself. In the final analysis, Bricelin’s work needs to be seen firsthand to be assessed and, absent time travel, this is beyond the realm of possibility. Suffice it therefore to say that Barney Bricelin, whatever his talents, dedicated himself to a thankless, poor-paying avocation, and for that the game owes him its gratitude.
PHOTO CREDIT
Barney Bricelin, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, April 5, 1910.
NOTES
1. Per State of Ohio birth records accessed via Ancestry.com. Other sources, including Bricelin’s WWI draft registration card, place his birth in Salineville, an Ohio village located 18 miles west of East Liverpool.
2. The other Bricelin children were Florence (born 1866), Andrew (1868), Mary (1870), Julia (1873), Anna (1875), Verena (1876), Irene (1882), and James Edward (1886).
3. The origin of our subject’s nickname was undiscovered.
4. Bricelin’s TSN contract card lists him as “under 5’; smallest umpire in business.” At the turn of the last century, the average American male stood about 5’7” and weighed around 150 pounds. Bricelin’s stature was more like that of a racehorse jockey than a baseball player.
5. See “Decided on the Rules,” (East Liverpool, Ohio) Evening Review, April 16, 1898: 3. Bricelin was listed as a member of the Harker-Laughlin club.
6. See “Baseball: The Crockery City Team Will Play Steubenville,” Evening Review, June 21, 1899: 4.
7. Per the box score accompanying “Laughlin No.2 Won the Game,” Evening Review, May 28, 1900: 2. Bricelin hit a double and scored a run in an 18-5 West End loss.
8. Per State of Ohio marriage records accessed via Ancestry.com. The couple was married by a Columbiana County Probate Court official on September 4, 1900.
9. See “K. of C. Lineup,” Evening Review, May 27, 1905: 2.
10. As reported in “Sporting: Zanesville Is Coming to Play the Locals,” Evening Review, May 31, 1905: 2.
11. See “Elks Defeated,” Evening Review, August 17, 1906: 6. The Inter-State League campaign did not conclude until late September.
12. “Bad Playing by Champions,” Evening Review, April 23, 1907: 7.
13. Same as above.
14. Per “Sportograms,” Clarksburg (West Virginia) Daily Telegram, August 26, 1907: 3.
15. “Sportograms,” Clarksburg Daily Telegram, August 30, 1907: 3.
16. As later noted in “Just a Few Bingles,” Evansville (Indiana) Courier, June 2, 1910: 7.
17. “The Tiniest of Umpires,” Buffalo Enquirer, April 29, 1911: 9.
18. “Files,” Bay City (Michigan) Tribune, August 24, 1908: 6.
19. “Eleven Innings at Creek,” Detroit Free Press, September 13, 1808: 17.
20. See “Smallest Umpire,” Muscatine (Iowa) Journal, May 17, 1910: 6. See also, “Central League Has a Midget Umpire,” Evansville Courier, April 13, 1910: 7.
21. “Condensed Dispatches,” Sporting Life, November 3, 1909: 2. See also, “Central Signs Shortest of Umps,” Evansville (Indiana) Press, November 6, 1909: 6.
22. See e.g., “Smallest Umpire Is Not Five Feet Tall,” Pittston (Pennsylvania) Gazette, May 13, 1910: 10; “Briceland Smallest Umpire,” Ceresco (Nebraska) Courier, May 10, 1910: 6; “Sporting News and Comment,” Oakland Enquirer, April 25, 1910: 11. Another story stated that with his shoes on, “Briceland” stood 5’1⁄2”. See again, “Central League Has a Midget Umpire,” above.
23. The “Barney Briceland” photo was published in the Seattle Star, April 9, 1910: 2; Halifax (Nova Scota) Evening Mail, April 9, 1910: 2; Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) TimesLeader, April 5, 1910: 12; and elsewhere.
24. “Crystall’s Support Loses Third Game,” Evansville Courier, May 16, 1910: 5.
25. When informed of the incident, league president Carson fined Blount $50. See “‘Curly’ Blount Draws $50 Fine for Attack on Our Own Barney Bricelin,” Evening Review, June 2, 1910: 8; “Fine Three Players,” South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, May 30, 1910: 9. See also, V.B. Glass, “The Sporting Editor’s Views,” Evansville (Indiana) Sunday Journal-News, June 5, 1910: 9, and “Bricelin Is Bumped,” South Bend Tribune, May 30, 1910: 9, which described Blount as “the mildest-mannered player in the Central League.”
26. “Broncs Overcome Big Lead and Win,” South Bend Tribune, June 16, 1910: 11.
27. See V.B. Glass, “The Sporting Editor’s Views,” Evansville Sunday Journal-News, June 19, 1910: 9, who declared that he would “rather be [Arctic explorer] Doc Cook than a Central League umpire.”
28. “Comment,” Dayton Herald, May 28, 1910: 6.
29. “Bricelin Is Released,” South Bend Tribune, July 1, 1910: 12.
30. Both laudanum and papine were opium-based drugs sometimes used in the 19th century for anesthetic purposes.
31. Per “Bricelin, Former Ump, Drinks Poison,” Evansville Courier, September 4, 1910: 7.
32. “Umpire Bricelin Gets Job in Conn. League,” Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal Gazette, January 25, 1911: 6. See also, “Caught on the Fly,” Sporting Life, February 4, 1911: 3.
33. See e.g., “Bridgeport 5, Springfield 1,” New Haven (Connecticut) Union, May 2, 1911: 9.
34. “Uppy Upham Had Ponies Faded Away,” Bridgeport (Connecticut) Farmer, May 2, 1911: 7. Springfield subsequently protested to the league president but “even though the umpire was way off color” in suspending play, same “had no effect on the [final] score.” See “Game Here Monday Protested by Zeller,” Bridgeport Farmer, May 5, 1911: 10.
35. According to “Conn. League Umpires Likely to Get Releases,” Bridgeport Farmer, May 5, 1911: 6. Although Hall of Famer James (Orator Jim) O’Rourke is listed as CSL president by various authority, he was actually the league secretary.
36. ‘Wild Work in This Ball Game,” Hartford Courant, May 16, 1911: 14.
37. “White Wings Shut Out Springfield,” New Haven Union, May 18, 1911: 7.
38. Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, May 18, 1911: 15.
39. As reported in “New Haven 2, Springfield, 0,” Meriden (Connecticut) Morning Record, May 18, 1911: 3, and “White Wings Shut Out Springfield,” above.
40. “Players Attack Umpire Bricelin,” Bridgeport Farmer, June 10, 1911: 8. See also, “Larks Take Scrappy Game from Wings,” New Haven Union, June 10, 1911: 7.
41. “Players Attack Umpire Bricelin,” above.
42. Per “Bricelin Puts It Up to the President,” New Haven Union, June 11, 1910: 8.
43. Same as above.
44. Per “Tracy Drops All Charges Against New Haven Trio,” Bridgeport Farmer, June 12, 1911: 8.
45. “League Meeting Here on Tuesday,” Hartford Courant, June 12, 1911: 10.
46. See again, “Tracy Drops All Charges,” above. See also, “Sportograms,” Evansville Journal-News, June 20, 1911: 8.
47. Per “Pres. Tracy and ‘Umps’ Talk It Over,” Meriden Morning Record, Jume 12, 1911: 1, and “Tracy Drops All Charges,” above.
48. See e.g., the box score accompanying “Takes 3 of 4,” Flint (Michigan) Journal, July 10, 1911: 7.
49. As per the line score published in “Canton Comes to Life Once Again,” Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, August 3, 1911: 7.
50. As reported in “Poor Gate at Salem Cause of Transfer,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, July 14, 1912: 19.
51. “Fairies Fail to Connect,” Fairmont West Virginian, August 1, 1912: 3.
52. See “Umpire Bricelin Good Here,” Evening Review, July 2, 1915: 13.
53. Per “Umpire Bricelin Gets Job,” Pittsburg Press, April 19, 1916: 32; “Barney Bricelin Accepts Job in Eastern League,” Evening Review, April 7, 1916: 14.
54. “Umpire Bricelin Heads East,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, April 20, 1916: 10; “Umpire Bricelin Lands,” Pittsburgh Post, April 20, 1916: 11.
55. See “Good Game Here Sunday,” Evening Review, May 20, 1916: 10.
56. As reflected in the 1910 East Liverpool city directory.
57. “Marriage Announced,” Evening Review, July 6, 1918: 8. The union lasted until Barney’s death but was childless.
58. See e.g., “Married Men and Bachelors Meet Thursday,” Evening Review, August 6, 1919: 9.
59. See “M’Nicol’s Club Wins Pennant,” Evening Review, October 13, 1920: 10.