Death On The Diamond: The Cal Drummond Story

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime (2004), No. 24.

 

The collapse of umpire John McSherry at home plate on April 1, 1996, recalled immediately the fatal beaning death of Ray Chapman in 1920. The latter is, we are told, the lone instance of a game-related fatality in major-league history. To Chapman’s fatality on the diamond should be added that of umpire Cal Drummond, who also succumbed to an injury suffered during a baseball game. That Drummond’s story is little known is not surprising inasmuch as it received surprisingly little attention at the time, a neglect that is the umpire’s lot.

Umpires know well that words will never harm them, but that bats and balls can break their bones. That’s why the modern umpire wears steel-reinforced shoes, a chest protector, shin guards and mask when calling balls and strikes. Time and again such protective equipment has shielded the plate umpire from serious injury. Such was not the case with Cal Drummond.

Born on June 29, 1917, in Ninety Six, South Carolina, Calvin Troy Drummond was an outstanding three-sport athlete, playing football, basketball, and baseball at nearby Ninety Six High School, Class of 1938.1 After serving for five years as an infantryman during World War II, he tried his hand at umpiring. Drummond attended Bill McGowan’s umpiring school in 1948 and, after graduation, worked a season in the Class-D Alabama State League.

Drummond retired from baseball for the next three years, then donned the blue serge suit again in 1952. He advanced steadily through the professional ranks — the Georgia State League (Class D) 1952-1953, the South Atlantic League (Class A) 1954-1956, and the International League (Triple A) 1957-1959, reaching the American League in 1960.

Life in the bush leagues was not always pleasant. In 1952, after his partner made two close calls in Fitzgerald, Georgia, irate fans slashed the tires of their car and poured sand into the gas tank; the deputy sheriff who attempted to prevent the vandalism was slugged.2 When Drummond’s partner in 1957overruled him on a play at first base, the umpires were pelted with “stones, drinking cups and other debris” until the threat of forfeit restored order.3

The American League, following the lead of its supervisor of umpires, ex-professional football player Cal Hubbard, was known for fielding “big” arbiters, but Drummond, at an even 6 feet and 185 pounds, was one of the smaller junior circuit umpires. Nonetheless, he was known for a tough, no-nonsense demeanor, and thick skin. “The worst thing that can happen to a man is to be born without guts and be an umpire,” he once said. “No umpire likes criticism, but you don’t expect to be patted on the back. Nobody comes to see you. The managers are going to challenge you because that’s their job. The writers and the announcers are going to criticize you. That’s their job. What it amounts to is you’ve got your job and they’ve got theirs.”4

Drummond was doing his job as the plate umpire on Tuesday, June 10, 1969, as the Baltimore Orioles hosted the California Angels. Sometime during the later innings of the game he was struck on the mask by a foul ball. (At the time umpires wore bar masks, which had no “give” like today’s wire masks.) Drummond finished the game, but was later taken to Mercy Hospital, where he lost consciousness for more than a week. The particulars of the incident — the pitcher, the batter, the inning — are not known. Baltimore newspapers made no mention of the happening and did not even note Drummond’s hospitalization for almost a week.5

Norman Macht’s subsequent interviews in 1995 and 1996 with several Orioles who played in the game, including catcher Andy Etchebarren, produced no particulars about the incident.6 However, Macht did obtain a critical recollection from crew member Larry Barnett; Barnett thought the foul ball occurred “probably late in the game,” and said there was no break in the action as none of the umpires came in to check on Drummond. Barnett clearly recalled what happened in the dressing room after the game. “Drummond pulled his belt off and the two ball bags fell to the floor, balls rolling all over the floor. This was noteworthy because Drummond was a very neat, fastidious person who would take off one sock and carefully fold it before taking off the other one, and for him to just pull the belt out of the loops before taking off the ball bags was startling. But nothing was said; they [the umpires] just picked up the balls.” Later that night, at the Lord Baltimore Hotel where the umpires were staying, Barnett got a call from crew chief Ed Runge: “I have to take Drummond to the hospital. His speech is slurred; something’s wrong.”7

Something was wrong. Drummond remained unconscious for about a week while doctors considered an operation to relieve the pressure on his brain.8 Drummond’s family rushed to Baltimore, and when his condition improved, had him flown home on June 22. His condition worsened after a few days and he was hospitalized again on June 30. This time doctors operated to remove a blood clot in Drummond’s head.9 Afterward he lay unconscious for two weeks in the intensive-care unit before beginning recuperation.10

By early spring 1970 Drummond had recovered enough to contemplate a return to baseball. “Really anxious to get back,”11 he worked a few local college games as well as a dozen spring-training games in Florida to prepare himself for game conditions; he also threw out the first ball at the home opener of the Greenwood Braves of the Western Carolinas League. He was finally cleared by doctors to resume umpiring after the start of the major-league season. After talking with league President Joe Cronin, Drummond was set to resume his umpiring career by joining a major-league crew in Kansas City. Instead, he was sent to the American Association to work two games before joining his crew in Boston on Sunday, May 3.

It was 39 degrees on May Day in Des Moines, Iowa, when Drummond began his comeback by umpiring a series between the Iowa Oaks and the Oklahoma City 89ers.12 His return was short-lived as he left the game in the second inning “complaining of illness” as well as some dizziness and numbness in the right side of his head. The next day, Saturday, he spoke with Joe Cronin on the telephone, assuring the league president that he was feeling fine and ready to umpire the plate that night.

Drummond called balls and strikes without incident until the end of the seventh inning. At the conclusion of the frame, he went to the Oklahoma City dugout “to rest,” saying, “I feel dizzy. I think I’m going to pass out.” He then collapsed. Attended to by the Iowa team physician, he gained semiconsciousness in the dressing room before again losing consciousness while being taken by ambulance to the hospital.13

Cal Drummond died some four hours later, in the early morning of May 3. An autopsy revealed that he “died of a cerebral infarction [stroke], a decreased blood supply to an area of the brain that required surgery last year.”14 The blow received in Baltimore in June 1969 proved fatal 11 months later. Thus came to an end an umpiring career of 19 years, 10 in the majors which included working the first of two All-Star games in 1961 and the 1966 World Series.

On Sunday, the day of Drummond’s death, the American flag flew at half-staff at Des Moines’ Sec Taylor Stadium in honor of the deceased arbiter. Iowa Oaks pitcher Fred Talbot, a former major leaguer, paid him the ultimate umpire’s accolade: “He did one of the best umpiring jobs I’ve ever seen. He didn’t miss a single pitch on me.”15 Obituaries appropriately did not mention the irony of his death: That 52-year-old Cal Drummond died on the day he had been scheduled to realize his dream of rejoining his American League crew.16

The Cal Drummond story is important aside from his tragic death and its place in the annals of baseball necrology. It is also the inspirational story of one man’s personal commitment to the umpiring profession and determination to return to the major leagues after a life-threatening injury. It is likewise instructive in that the press, by ignoring the human-interest tale of an umpire who suffered a severe head injury and lay unconscious in the hospital, reflected the long-standing attitude of the public toward those who make playing the game possible.17

Notes

1 Drummond’s Sporting News umpire career card says he was born in Greenwood, but local newspapers say Ninety Six. Ninety Six was a small, rural town of 773 in 1920 so he probably regarded Greenwood as his experiential home

2 The Sporting News, July 30, 1952.

3 The Sporting News, August 14, 1957.

4 The Sporting News, May 16, 1970.

5 Baltimore Evening Sun and Baltimore News American, June 11, l969; Baltimore Evening Sun, June 16, 1969. The Washington Post also failed to mention the incident or hospitalization. Veteran umpire Johnny Stevens replaced Drummond, although The Sporting News continued to list Drummond on the crew through June 16. Thanks to Joey Beretta for this information.

6 If the incident occurred in the later innings, Angels and Orioles scoresheets indicate that the pitchers and catchers involved were either Pedro Borbon and Ken Tatum, pitchers, and Jim Hicks, catcher for the Angels, or pitcher Marcelino Lopez and catcher Andy Etchebarren for the Orioles.

7 Norman Macht to Larry Gerlach, September 5, 1995.

8 Baltimore Evening Sun, June 16, 1969. This notice was the first piece to appear in the Baltimore press about Drummond’s condition.

9 Greenwood (South Carolina) Index-Journal, June 21, July 1 and 12, August 5, 1969; Baltimore Evening Sun, July 1, 1969.

10 Greenville (South Carolina) News, May 4, 1970.

11 Greenwood Index-Journal, April 18 and 21, 1970.

12 Des Moines Register, May 2, 1970.

13 Des Moines Register, May 3, 1970.

14 Des Moines Register, May 4, 1970.

15 Des Moines Register, May 3 and 4, 1970.

16 The best obituaries are in the Greenwood Journal-Index, May 4, 1970; the Greenville News, May 4, 1970; and The Sporting News, May 16, 1970.

17 At the time of Drummond’s hospitalization, the press gave widespread coverage to Jesus Alou’s fractured jaw, Denny McLain’s hospitalization for “nausea and a headache,” Gates Brown’s “respiratory infection,” Wes Parker’s appendectomy, and Reggie Smith’s pulled shoulder muscle.