US Secret Service Agent Puts His Life on the Line Posing as a Major-League Umpire

 

I’d heard the story of a time that a US Secret Service agent borrowed major-league umpire garb and posed on the field at Yankee Stadium, ready to take a bullet if need be in order to protect the life of President George W. Bush.

It was the night that President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game Three of the 2001 World Series — October 30, 2001. This made it less than two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

I had myself been at the Stadium for three games against the Red Sox, on September 7, 8, and 9, and then headed back home to Boston. Less than 48 hours later, the Twin Towers were hit.

After the attacks, MLB postponed games across the country as the U.S. and the rest of the world grappled with the magnitude of the event, amid uncertainty as to what might happen next. Needless to say, a high-profile athletic event like a game at Yankee Stadium presented a prime target.

Baseball resumed a little over a week after the attacks. The Yankees had gone on the road, but returned home on September 25 for the first game held at the Stadium after 9/11. Ron Kulpa was the home-plate umpire that night. Wally Bell, Marty Foster, and Mark Hirschbeck were the base umpires. Ron holds vivid memories of the occasion.

“Everyone in the country was on edge, and going into Yankee Stadium was a thrill but there was a lot of emotion, a lot of tears being shed as far as fans and players — but you also knew we were probably in the safest place to be in the world. Security came in and briefed us on everything, and they told us, ‘You’re probably in the safest spot in the world right now.’”1

Roger Clemens had gone to visit a fire station earlier that day. A number of others had paid their respects one way or another. Both teams’ players and the umpires were given special caps to wear, in honor of the first responders. For Kulpa, “It was an honor. It was an honor to be there and it was something I’ll never forget.”

The World Series, of course, is played in front of a massive worldwide television audience. And President Bush committed to throw out the first pitch prior to Game Three. Naturally, security was tight.

Steve Rippley was the crew chief of the six-man crew that night. In fact, he recalls, “My wife came to the Stadium with me, but because of Bush being there and all that, the security was so high that she didn’t get in until the third inning.”2

The other umpires on the crew were Dale Scott, Ed Rapuano, Jim Joyce, Dana DeMuth, and (again, as it happens) Mark Hirschbeck.

Rippley says that when he arrived at the umpires’ dressing room, “I opened the door and here we’ve got a guy in there. In so many words, I said, ‘Who the heck are you?’ I believe his name was Jonathan Cherry. The guy was a phenomenal guy, a sweetheart of a guy. He said, ‘I’m going to go out on the field with you and I’m going to stand next to you when the president throws out the first pitch.’

“Basically, he told me, ‘I’m the bullet sponge. In other words, if anything happens to Bush on the field, I’m going to jump on top of him.’”

He was dressed in a way that resembled an umpire, but Rippley told him, “We’ve got to make it realistic. You have to dress like us. You can’t just look like us.” The other part of it was, there are six umpires who work World Series games. “If seven guys go on the field, somebody’s going to realize something’s out of the ordinary, so I made one of the guys drop back so there were only six of us on the field.”

That was Mark Hirschbeck. He said, “I’m fine. I’m fine to stay off the field.”3

Rippley continued, “We made it as realistic as possible. In every dressing room, there’s an extra kit. I think he drew from that and then the crew that was there, we gave him some of our stuff — kind of mixed and matched so he would look like us.”

Of course the agent wore protective gear — bulletproof vest and all. And a pistol under his umpire’s jacket. “Yeah, he was all covered up, but he was loaded for bear,” Rippley said. “It was never in plain sight. There’s probably other people who were around the field, but I don’t know that there was anybody closer than he was.”

The president himself came into the umpires’ room about 20 minutes before the game and chatted with the umpires, signing baseballs for them and posing for a few personal photos.

A video on YouTube shows the agent, with his equipment. As Jim Joyce says in the clip, “He had communications. He had guns. He had things hooked on the back. He had things hooked on the front.”4 The clip also shows President Bush warming up before the game so he could make a proper first pitch.

Dana DeMuth was the number-two man on the crew. Before they went onto the field, they asked the agent where they should stand. “They had us stand on the line. Steve was the crew chief and I was the number-two man, so he says, ‘I’ll stand between you and Steve.’ He was obviously there to protect the president, and what stands out in my mind about was when he said, ‘If any sniper is going to take the president out, he’ll take me out first.’ I remember him saying that and Steve Rippley and I both looked at him, and we both took a step away from him.”

Umpires themselves, of course, don’t normally carry pistols onto the field, though Rippley joked, “I wish they would have given us grenades every once in a while!”

Everything proceeded as planned, without incident. The pitch was thrown — a good pitch, arcing right over the plate. Derek Jeter had warned Bush beforehand: “Don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you.”

Rippley recalls, “As soon as the F-14s flew over, the Secret Service guy gave me a big shot in the ribs and he says, ‘That’s the sound of freedom.’ It brought tears to your eyes, but it was kind of neat.”

BILL NOWLIN, known to none as “The Old Arbiter” since he has never worked a game behind the plate, still favors the balloon chest protector for its nostalgic aesthetics. Aside from a dozen years as a college professor, his primary life’s work was as a co-founder of Rounder Records (it got him inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame). He’s written or edited more than 50 books, mostly on baseball, and has been on the Board of Directors of SABR since the magic Red Sox year of 2004.

 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cathie Ross, Terry Samway, and Tim Samway.

 

Notes

1 Author interview with Ron Kulpa on January 1, 2017.

2 Author interview with Steve Rippley on January 10, 2017.

3 Author interview with Dana DeMuth on January 13, 2017.

4 youtube.com/watch?v=evb489N11Q4.