By the Book: Writings By and About Umpires

The annals of baseball prose include several memoirs and biographies from and about major-, minor-, and amateur-league umpires, well stocked with entertaining war stories from the diamond front, as well as numerous how-to-manuals for those pondering careers in this noble and unappreciated profession; and books inviting fans to offer their own interpretation of baseball’s knottier problem calls, based on their impeccable knowledge of baseball rules and the inherent infallibility of their judgment. Here are some compelling selections.

Memoirs

Harry “Steamboat” Johnson, Standing the Gaff: The Life & Hard Times of a Minor League Umpire (Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1935; Bison Book Edition with Introduction by Larry R. Gerlach, University of Nebraska Press, 1994). The first book-length umpire memoir by one of its most colorful minor-league practitioners makes it clear that no arbiter stood the “gaff” with more flair, humor, courage, and resolute conviction than Steamboat Johnson. Steamboat, who called them as he saw them, primarily in the Southern Association, from 1909 to 1935, offers keen insights, observations, and fascinating tales of a career minor-league umpire. Gerlach’s lengthy introduction provides a biographical portrait of the legendary arbiter.

Babe Pinelli as told to Joe King, Mr. Ump (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953). Ralph “Babe” Pinelli, former major-league player and National League ump from 1935 to 1956, after a brief major-league career in the 1920s as an infielder, best known as the plate umpire for Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Alas, Mr. Ump, intended for younger readers, was published three years before that historic game.

Jocko Conlan and Robert Creamer, Jocko (New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1967). No shortage of colorful and amusing stories and opinions from Hall of Fame umpire John “Jocko” Conlan, NL umpire from 1941 to 1965.

Dusty Boggess as told to Ernie Helm, Kill the Ump! My Life in Baseball (San Antonio: Lone Star Brewing Company, 1966). This rare paperback is a surprisingly informative, entertaining, even controversial memoir considering it was published and distributed as a promotional giveaway by a Texas beer company that Lynton “Dusty” Boggess worked for after his retirement as a National League umpire from 1944 to 1962. Boggess augmented his colorful tales (related in third person by Ernie Helm) with strong opinions and suggestions on improving the national pastime, notably the unrelenting, if elusive, effort to speed up the game.

Tom Gorman as told to Jerome Holtzman, Three and Two! (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979). Tom Gorman was an NL umpire from 1951 to 1976, whose gregarious New York-cop-on-the-beat sensibility and well-honed Irish wit made him one of the more popular and respected umps of that era, both on the diamond and the banquet circuit. Thus funny anecdotes and keen observations abound in Gorman’s autobiography, as cultivated by legendary Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman.

Ron Luciano, The Umpire Strikes Back (New York: Bantam Books 1982), the first of four Luciano books written with veteran author David Fisher and published by Bantam Books. Luciano was an American League umpire from 1969 to 1979; his flamboyant style, gregarious witticisms, and basic insistence on having fun on the job made him a fan and media favorite, but not always appreciated by managers, players, and league executives. Luciano’s most autobiographical book includes his exploits as an All-American football lineman at Syracuse University and his unrelenting feud with Baltimore manager Earl Weaver. Strike Two (1984) basically culls anecdotes and assorted battlefield observations from fellow umpires. In The Fall of the Roman Umpire (1986), he chronicles his final years as an umpire and calls on several players to recall their lengthy struggles to make it to big leagues and stay there. Remembrance of Swings Past (1988) is crammed with more amusing anecdotes on strange plays and weird rules predicaments as well as the most intriguing characters he encountered, restrained, and debated with in the course of controlling the game.

Eric Gregg & Marty Appel, Working the Plate: The Eric Gregg Story (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1990). Gregg was a National League umpire, hired in 1975 as the third African-American umpire, and one of the youngest at 24. The popular ump, known for his upbeat and sunny demeanor, talks candidly about his tough childhood and his ongoing battles trying to control his weight. Published in his 15th year, the book doesn’t cover the ill-fated controversies late in his career, the decision by the NL not to rehire Gregg after accepting his resignation as part of his union’s bumbling labor action contract strategy, or his losing battle to control his weight that led to the stroke that took his life in 2006 at age 55.

Dave Pallone with Alan Steinberg, Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball (New York: Viking, 1990). This best-selling memoir chronicles Pallone’s turbulent major-league umpiring career from 1979, as a pariah to many fellow umps for crossing their picket lines to accept his first MLB umpiring job, to 1988, when he was basically “outed” and fired as a closeted gay man.

Pam Postema with Gene Wojciechowski, You’ve Got to Have B*lls To Make It in This League: My Life as an Umpire (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1992). A bittersweet memoir by the most successful woman umpire in professional baseball, starting in 1977 through 1989. Although Postema became a crew chief in Triple A and worked spring-training games, her efforts to become the first female ump in the major leagues fell short. As she saw it, an old-boys network was simply unable to put a woman on the major-league roster. The book is particularly interesting not only in relating the gender-based taunts she endured in her career, but also in depicting the intense competition within the minor-league umpiring community in pursuing the very few umpiring jobs available in the major leagues.

Durwood Merrill with Jim Dent, You’re Out and You’re Ugly, Too!: Confessions of an Umpire with Attitude (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998). An AL umpire from 1977 to 1999, Merrill offers a book full of umpiring anecdotes and opinions, told with great relish from one of the game’s most colorful and loquacious arbiters, especially when recounting his debating sessions with Earl Weaver, Lou Piniella, and Sparky Anderson, all of whom may have supplied the inspiration for the book’s compelling title.

John Massaro, Please Don’t Kill the Umpire! Reminiscences of an Obscure Man in Blue (Madison, Connecticut: Springbok Press, 1999). John Massaro toiled 24 years as a high-school and college umpire in the 1980s and ’90s, and his memoir is designed to give the often emotional parental critics in the stands at that level keener insights into what is going on in the field, and better understanding of the calls the underappreciated men in blue make throughout the game.

Ken Kaiser & David Fisher, Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate (New York: St. Martin Press, 2003). Kaiser was widely regarded as one the American League’s most colorful umpires during his AL career from 1977 to 1999, with his wisecracking style, trademark minimalist “out” calls, and his background as a hefty professional wrestler from the villain ranks, wearing a black hood and nicknamed “The Hatchet Man.” One of the funniest umpire memoirs for its bizarre anecdotes, it is impressively informative and incisive.

Dave Phillips with Rob Rains, Center Field on Fire: An Umpire’s Life with Pine Tar Bats, Spitballs, and Corked Personalities (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2004). Widely praised as one of baseball’s most respected umps in his 32-year career, primarily as an AL ump starting in 1971, Phillips was thrust into several of baseball’s more bizarre controversies: the George Brett pine-tar saga, the Albert Belle corked-bat caper, being the first umpire to formally discover that Gaylord Perry included a spitball in his repertoire, and, as reflected in the source of the book’s title, working the infamous Disco Demolition Night of 1979 in Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

Bob Motley with Byron Motley, Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: Umpiring in the Negro Leagues & Beyond (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing LLC, 2007). Bob Motley is the last surviving Negro Leagues umpire, starting in 1947 through its final barnstorming days in 1958, and the first African-American trained in the Al Somers umpiring school. Written with son Byron Motley, this is an insightful, often rollicking memoir of traveling on the same buses carrying such legends as Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, and Henry Aaron, as the Negro Leagues started their final fade upon the formal and grudging integration of major-league baseball. Motley was known for his showmanship and acrobatic base calls; the cover photo shows impressive hang time while making a leaping out call at first base.

Al Clark with Dan Schlossberg, Called Out But Safe: A Baseball Umpire’s Journey (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014). The first Jewish AL umpire, Clark had a seemingly respected, if feisty, umpiring career in the AL and MLB (after the league umpiring staffs merged) for 25 years starting in 1976, before it came to an ignominious end when fired for misusing first-class plane tickets, and then briefly imprisoned and fined for his involvement in a baseball memorabilia scam. While clearly a reputation restoration project, Clark doesn’t skimp on interesting and amusing anecdotes, insights, and relevant opinions.

Doug Harvey and Peter Golenbock, They Called Me God: The Best Umpire Who Ever Lived (New York: Gallery Books, 2014). This memoir came out shortly after Doug Harvey became the ninth umpire to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, on the basis of a 30-year career from 1962 to 1992 during which he was widely considered to be one of the best ever. Players bemusedly called him “God” in deference to his Central Casting looks, his demeanor of umpiring rectitude, his sound judgment, and his no-nonsense approach to excess carping and chirping. The memoir is well stuffed with memorable calls and moments, interesting observations about players and managers, and keen insights into his Hall of Fame journey.

Biographies

Mary Bell Hubbard, Strike 3! And You’re Out: The Cal Hubbard Story (self-published by Mary Bell Hubbard, 1976). A very rare, family-based biography of Cal Hubbard, the only person inducted into the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame, reflecting his work as a legendary football lineman in the 1920s and ’30s, and as a most imposing AL umpire from 1936 to 1951.

Mike Shannon, Everything Happens in Chillicothe: A Summer in the Frontier League with Max McCleary, the One-Eyed Umpire (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2004). This humorous, inspiring, and often poignant memoir recounts McCleary’s 2000 season in the independent Frontier League. What set the veteran independent and collegiate umpire apart was that he was blind in one eye, the result of a freak accident that torpedoed his burgeoning minor-league umpiring career in 1977. But in 1986 he was able to get certified as an ump in the lower levels, glass right eye and all, with a productive career that spawned many amusing and intriguing stories and situations.

Bob Luke, Dean of Umpires: A Biography of Bill McGowan (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2005). A slim biography of Hall of Fame umpire Bill McGowan, a highly respected, if fiery and flamboyant AL arbiter, whose 30-year career from 1925 to 1954 was highlighted by 2,541 consecutive games, and the founding of an umpire training school subsequently operated by Al Somers and Harry Wendelstedt.

John Bacchia, Augie: Stalag Luft V1 to the Major Leagues (Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse, 2011). A compelling biography of Augie Donatelli, NL umpire from 1950 to 1973, with half of the book detailing his imprisonment in a World War II German prisoner of war camp after his B-17 bomber was shot down, that intriguingly serves as a launch to his umpiring career.The second half showcases his productive umpiring career in the ’50s and ’60s that saw him presiding over a record eight no-hitters.

Adrienne Cherie Ashford, Strrr-ike! (Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2004). A slim volume about Emmett Ashford, major-league baseball’s first African-American umpire, written by his daughter. Hired by the AL in 1966, after considerable West Coast sports media pressure, at the advanced age of 51, he become a favorite of fans, if not always with players, for his hustling style, flamboyant strike and out calls, upbeat demeanor, and stylish dress.

History

James M. Kahn, The Umpire Story (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1953). This tome has long been the definitive history on the origins and development of major-league baseball umpiring, published as part of the 1940s and ’50s-era Putnam Sports Series of baseball team histories and major figures. James Kahn chronicles the lot of umpires from the raucous and rowdy days of nineteenth-century professional baseball to the emergence of four-man crews and formal training of budding arbiters in umpiring schools. There is no shortage of great anecdotes and even greater photographs from this hard-to-find baseball classic.

Lee Gutkind, The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand: The Game as Umpires See It (New York: Dial Press, 1975; Southern Illinois University Press reprint, 1999). In 1974 writer and college professor Lee Gutkind followed an umpiring crew – Doug Harvey, Harry Wendelstedt, Nick Colosi, and Art Williams (the first African-American umpire in the National League) – to produce an intriguing, controversial chronicle of their dedication and work ethic, all-too-candid thoughts on the players, managers, and sportswriters, and the pressures, insecurities, and chronic disrespect encountered in the course of the long season grind. The umpires were angered by the book’s warts-and-all account, filled with profane quotes from their locker room; Gutkind countered in the 1999 version that he gave an honest and ultimately positive portrayal of baseball’s most difficult and least appreciated profession.

Larry R. Gerlach, The Men in Blue: Conversations with Umpires (New York: Viking Press, 1980; reprint with Afterword, University of Nebraska Press, 1994). The founding father of SABR’s Umpires and Rules Research Committee conducted illuminating and candid interviews with a dozen “old-time” umpires: Beans Reardon, Lee Ballanfant, Joe Rue, George Pipgras, Ernie Stewart, Joe Paparella, Bill McKinley, Jim Honochick, Shag Crawford, Ed Sudol, Bill Kinnamon, and Emmett Ashford. The result is a series of autobiographies as well as an informal history of umpiring and the evolution of the profession from the 1920s to the 1970s.

John C. Skipper, Umpires: Classic Baseball Stories from the Men Who Made the Calls (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, paperback, 1997). Iowa newspaper editor John Skipper tapped the memories of 19 umpires on famous baseball moments, achievements, and controversies that occurred on their watch. Included are John “Red” Flaherty and Bill Kinnamon on Roger Maris’s 61st home run in 1961; Bill Jackowski on Bill Mazeroski’s 1960 World Series walk-off; Ed Runge on Don Larsen’s World Series perfecto; and Don Denkinger on his ill-fated ninth-inning call in the 1985 World Series; and, yes, Steamboat Johnson on Ty Cobb.

Bruce Weber, As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires (New York: Scribner’s, 2009). New York Times reporter Bruce Weber pursues insights into the contemporary world of umpires, putting himself through formal umpire training and working games in Little League and MLB spring training. His illuminating and informative account, replete with numerous interviews and anecdotes from umpires, players, and baseball executives, explores the challenges of umpiring amid the developments of instant replay, and the almost excruciating pressures and competition among minor-league umpires striving for inclusion in baseball’s most exclusive fraternity, where many are called and few are chosen.

David W. Anderson, You Can’t Beat the Hours: Umpires in the Deadball Era from1901-1909 (Create Space Independent Publishing, 2013). Anderson, an amateur umpire, pays homage to the MLB umpires who practiced their craft at a time when their profession was at its most challenging and dangerous, the first decade of the twentieth century. The book includes biographical sketches of all the NL and AL umpires.

Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Game on the Field; The Stories Behind the Innovations that Shaped Baseball (Cleveland: Ivan R. Dee, 2006). Pages 368 through 395 of the first volume of Morris’s astounding and fascinating reference work contains all things related to umpiring from the first professional umpires to the use of Lena Blackburne’s mud rubbing the gloss off the ball.

David W. Anderson, More than Merkle: A History of the Best and Most Exciting Baseball Season in Human History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). This account of the thrilling 1908 season, historically defined by umpire Hank O’Day’s delayed, dramatic, and utterly controversial ninth-inning call of the Giants’ Fred Merkle out on a second-base force out that nullified the Giants’ game-winning run in a September showdown game against the Chicago Cubs … all leading to the Cubs’ last World Series championship (as of 2016) and lifetime scapegoating of “Merkle’s Boner.” Two other worthy accounts of this topic are Cait Murphy, Crazy ’08 (New York: Harper Collins, 2008) and G.H. Fleming, The Unforgettable Season (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981).

Marilyn Kratz, Umpire in a Skirt: The Amanda Clement Story (South Dakota Historical Society, 2010). A brief book introducing young readers to Amanda Clement, who attracted national attention in 1904 when she became the first paid woman umpire for a South Dakota amateur baseball league.

Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce, with Daniel Paisner, Nobody’s Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011). A detailed account of the infamous first-base “safe” call by respected umpire Jim Joyce, depriving Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga of a perfect game against Oakland on June 2, 2010. (It would have been the 27th and final out had Joyce called it correctly.) After viewing the replay after the game, a distraught and remorseful Joyce tearfully and poignantly apologized to a classy Galarraga, which led to chronicling the journey of the pitcher and the umpire in getting to that time and place, and a call that led to expansion of instant replay to cover virtually all judgment calls other than balls and strikes.

David Nemec and Eric Miklich, Forfeits and Successfully Protested Games in Major League Baseball: A Complete Record, 1871-2013 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2014). This wonderfully researched book recounts the more than 50 successful appeals of games replayed, early on in their entirety and later from the point of the protest. And more than 130 forfeits are included, the vast majority before 1900, brought on by obstreperous player, manager, and fan behavior; no-show teams; and promotions-gone-bad, to wit, 1974’s 10-cent Beer Night in Cleveland, the White Sox’ Disco Demolition Night in 1979, and the Dodgers’ Ball Night in 1995.

Filip Bondy, The Pine Tar Game: The Kansas City Royals, the New York Yankees, and Baseball’s Most Absurd and Entertaining Controversy (New York: Scribner’s, 2015). A detailed examination of the 1983 saga when Kansas City star George Brett’s game-winning homer was nullified by the Yankees’ claim that his bat had too much pine tar, only to be restored by AL President Lee McPhail on appeal.

The Art of Umpiring

There have been a number of books written on the fine art of umpiring at all professional and amateur levels, all stressing encyclopedic knowledge of baseball’s rules, hustle, staying in shape, good positioning, and maintaining a level head when all around you are losing theirs. The following are of special note.

Billy Evans, How to Umpire (American Sports Publishing Company, 1920) launched the genre. An AL umpire from 1906 to 1927, the youngest ever hired at age 22, and the third umpire inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, Evans puts special emphasis on umpire deportment and maintaining control. He expounded more expansively on the fine art of umpiring in his self-published 1947 manual and grand umpiring thesis, Umpiring from the Inside, covering training, preparation, hustle, control of emotions, complete knowledge of rules, and interpretation of the “knotty problems” umpires confront that give official rules book a workout.

Joe Brinkman and Charlie Euchner, The Umpire’s Handbook (Lexington, Massachusetts: The Stephen Greene Press, 1985). Brinkman, a respected if occasionally quirky MLB ump whose career spanned 35 years beginning in 1972, presided over his own umpiring school, from which this umpiring manual was spawned.

Carl Childress, Baseball Umpires Encyclopedia (Home Run Press, 2012). Childress, a longtime amateur ump from Texas, has written several books on umpiring technique, preparation, etiquette, and comportment. Childress, the editor of the website Officiating.com, has produced an encyclopedic account of all things umpiring, before, during, and after the game, with extensive expounding on rules interpretation, primarily geared to the amateur umpire.

Carl Childress, The Umpire’s List of Lists (Home Run Press, 2013). This slim but enlightening and entertaining volume is a compendium of umpiring do’s and don’ts before, during, and after the game designed to enhance to umpire competence, techniques, preparation, and credibility. Particularly compelling are his recommendations on dealing with managers and players, heading off potential trouble in the form of beanball wars and fights, dealing with the politics of umpire hiring and assignments, bonding and communicating with your fellow umpires on the field, and recognizing when your judgments and techniques are faltering. This is a good companion to Childress’s 2012 opus from Home Run Press, 151 Ways to Ruin a Baseball Game.

Rules of the Game

Official Rules of Major League Baseball (Chicago: Triumph Books). Published yearly in handbook format in the spring as an official publication of Major League Baseball, and revised as needed. The official rules also have a guide to umpires and official scorers on rules interpretations and odd circumstances.

Dan Formosa and Paul Hamburger, Baseball Field Guide: An In-Depth Illustrated Guide to the Complete Rules of Baseball (The Experiment, LLC, New York, 2006, 2008, 2016-3^rd edition.) Baseball Field Guide, published in a handy paperback handbook format, fully lives up to its title with its lucid and comprehensive explanations and nuanced analysis of contemporary baseball rules in the video replay era, and the detailed roles of umpires, managers, coaches, players, and even spectators. The 20-page chapter on umpires is particularly informative and enlightening on the duties and challenges facing umpires practicing their craft amidst the technologies of the New Millennium, courtesy of book’s 2016 third edition.

Glen Waggoner, Kathleen Moloney, and Hugh Howard, Baseball by the Rules: Pine Tar, Spitballs, and Midgets: An Anecdotal Guide to America’s Oldest and Most Complex Sport (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1987; New York: Prentice Hall, 1990). A roundup of lively stories about the many and often bizarre controversies generated through baseball’s decades by the official baseball rules that have bedeviled and beleaguered the men in blue, and generating the stormy debates with managers attempting to impose their own creative interpretations.

David Nemec, The Official Rules of Baseball: An Anecdotal Look at the Rules of Baseball and How They Came to Be (New York: Barnes & Noble Press, 1994 and 1999). This official MLB publication offers the official MLB rules and stories and motivations behind them.

“Knotty Problems”

In the final chapter of his 1920 seminal umpiring guide, How to Umpire, Billy Evans posed what he referred to as “knotty problems,” or the unusual, puzzling, wacky situations that come up in baseball games that fully test and challenge the arbiter’s knowledge and interpretation of the rules. Soon after, Evans’ knotty problems became a popular feature of the yearly Spalding Official Baseball Guide. In 1949 Evans and the The Sporting News gave his feature its own literary showcase, Knotty Problems of Baseball, a paperback compilation of head-scratching diamond scenarios that popped up through the decades, and their judicious, and on occasions injudicious, solutions. The “Knotty Problems” books, now hard to come by, generated several similar books in recent years for the edification and pleasure of dedicated armchair umps including:

Harry Simmons, So You Think You Know Baseball! (New York: Fawcett, 1960). A best-selling collection of a popular baseball rules column appearing in the Saturday Evening Post from 1949 to 1961 that spawned at least three other similar books with the exact same title.

The Editorial Staff of Baseball America, It’s Your Call: Baseball’s Oddest Plays (New York: Collier Books, 1989). In addition to inviting readers to untangle baseball’s oddball plays of yore, Baseball America asked several umpires from the 1980s and ’90s to tell of the weirdest situations they had to untangle.

Richard Goldstein, You Be the Umpire! The Baseball Controversy Quiz Book (New York: Dell Publishing, 1993). An extensive question-and-answer format challenging readers on how they would have ruled on diamond history’s controversial plays.

Ira L. Smith and H. Allen Smith, Low and Inside and Three Men on Third (Halcottsville, New York: Breakaway Books, 2001). These two volumes of baseball anecdotes and oddities prominently featuring umpires were originally published in the late 1940s and early ’50’s by sportswriter Ira L. Smith and humorist H. Allen Smith. Low and Inside focused on circumstances that tormented umps before World War I; Three Men on Third covers to the 1950s. These popular tomes are the most entertaining of this genre of baseball literature.

Peter E. Meltzer, So You Think You Know Baseball? A Fan’s Guide to the Official Rules (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013), the most extensive, best organized, and updated of the “So You Think You Know …” books.

Dom Forker, Wayne Stewart, and Robert Obojski, The Big Book of Baseball Brainteasers (New York: Main Street Books, 2004); Dom Forker, Wayne Stewart, and Mike Pellowski, Baffling Baseball Trivia (New York: Main Street Books, 2004), companion books of material culled from previous Sterling works by the assembled authors.

Miscellany

MLB Public Relations Department, Major League Baseball Umpire Media Information Guide. These annual media guides provide brief bios of each umpire’s major- and minor-league career, World Series, and All-Star Game assignments, famous games umpired, and family and hobby information. They also include all-time umpire rosters, records, history timelines, and lists of players-turned-umps; plate umps in each no-hitter; MLB rules that apply to umps; and each stadium’s ground rules. The printed copies are not readily available to the general public, but easy accessed online on the umpire link on MLB’s website (mlb.com) and the umpire website, stevetheump.com.

Derek Zumsteg, The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007), a Baseball Prospectus editor’s report on how players and managers can, have, and continue to violate, abuse, mangle, and tweak the rules of baseball, all to gain an advantage, all under the scrutiny and gaze of the men in blue.

Ross Bernstein, The Code: Unwritten Rules and Its Ignore-at-Your-Own Risk Code of Conduct (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008), two volumes discussing baseball’s “unwritten rules,” as mentally formulated by players and managers on assorted baseball etiquette and rituals.

Spike Vrusho, Benchclearing: Baseball’s Greatest Fights and Riots (Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2008), a compilation of episodes brought on by perceived beanballs, basepath spikings, and mutual ill will, for which umpires served as referees, peacemakers, and prefects of discipline.

Paul Dickson, The Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Etiquette, Conventional Wisdom, and Axiomatic Codes of Our National Pastime (New York: Collins, 2009), explores sundry behaviors – traditions, customs, rituals – apart from the official rules of the game.

Andrew Goldblatt, Major League Umpires’ Performance, 2007-2010 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2011), a study of MLB umpire home-plate performances, habits and tendencies, employing various elements of sabrmetrics and Retrosheet to measure their strike zone and the possible impact on the games they umpired. Also reviewed are the player and manager ejection rates, and the circumstances that brought them about.

Novels

John Hough Jr., The Conduct of the Game (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), a well-reviewed novel of a young man in the early ’60s pursuing a career as an MLB umpire, amid family turmoil, sexual awakenings, and moral dilemmas.

Pat Hines, Making the Call (New York: Avalon Books, 2001), from the Avalon Career Romance series in which a young woman named Wesley Garvin achieves her dream and goal to be MLB’s first woman umpire, but soon encounters the complications that come when she develops a relationship with, and ultimately a passion for, a practicing first baseman from the Pittsburgh Pirates!

Jon L. Breen, Kill the Umpire: The Calls of Ed Gorgon (Norfolk, Virginia: Crippen & Landru, 2003). In 1970 veteran mystery writer Breen created veteran major-league umpire Ed Gorgon, the “Horsehide Sleuth,” to solve crimes. The complete Gorgon canon is contained in this book, 16 stories in all, bearing such titles as “The Body in the Bullpen,” “The Babe Ruth Murder Case,” and, of course, “Kill The Umpire.”

REID DUFFY has been a SABR member since 1985 and a former chairman of its Umpires & Rules Committee. He lives in Indianapolis, and is retired after a long career as a television news reporter.