Men In Black Part 1

Well I am back. Hope you are all basking in the glow of the Dodgers World Series win. I know for me it will always be a great memory. So, my tale today is about the men who umpire our great game. Specifically 5 of the 10 men who are in the hall. The second half will be in the next installment. Think about that. Over 130 years of professional baseball and only 10 umps have been enshrined. And all of them have different stories to tell. So, lets get started.  We all know that in all probability that the electric strike zone will soon be with us. Some of these umps did the whole job by themselves.

Thomas Henry Connolly

Tom Connolly was born in Manchester England on Dec 31, 1870. His family emigrated to the US in 1875. Thomas had played cricket in England, but became fascinated with the game of baseball when he came to the US. He immersed himself in learning the game.

He also learned by umpiring local games and then games for the YMCA in Natick Massachusetts where his family had settled. While doing this, he was noticed by a major league umpire, Tim Hurst, who got him a position in the New England league.

 Connolly umpired in the league from 1894 to 1897. In 1898 he was brought up to the National League. But he got angry because the league president was reluctant to back umps decisions on the field. He resigned in the middle of the 1900 season. He joined the AL in 1901.

AL president, Ban Johnson wanted to create a reputation for the AL as a solid challenger for the NL. He therefore gave umpires greater support than they had ever received and that attacks on umpires would not be tolerated and their judgement was final. On April 24, 1901 Connolly had the honor of umpiring the first ever AL game. And he did it by himself.

He showed a willingness to eject players from the game, 10 his first season, but over the years the players respected him so much that he once went 5 years, 1925 to 29 without ejecting a single player. He also showed an ability to stand firm against the toughest players in defense of the rules.

On Sept 11, 1912. he called Ty Cobb out for stepping across home plate while batting, after Cobb had batted in a run during an attempted intentional walk. During the ensuing argument, Connolly was struck in the mouth by a bottle thrown by a fan. His reputation won him some prominent game assignments and he umped the first ever games at Comiskey, Shibe, Fenway and Yankee Stadium. He was also the sole ump chosen to work the first World Series in 1903.

In 1931, Will Harridge, the Al president was concerned about widespread complaints about the quality of umpiring in the AL. Connolly retired and was named the Supervisor of Umpires. He remained at that post until 1954. He traveled around the league meeting with the umps to insure the quality of umpiring was meeting the high standards the league wanted.

Connolly worked 8 World Series and was the home plate ump for Addie Joss’s perfect game on October 2, 1908. He also called balls and strikes for 3 other no hitters.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1953 along with another umpiring legend you will soon learn about, Bill Klem. His record of umpiring for 31 years in the AL was broken by Larry Barnett in 1999. Connolly died April 28, 1961, age 90 in Natick Mass. He was survived by 7 children.

William Joseph Klem

William J. Klem, better known as Bill, was born Feb 22, 1874 in Rochester N.Y. He was born in an area known as Dutchtown. Klem had changed his name from Klimm to Klem because he thought it had a better sound. He pursued a career as a catcher until he sustained an arm injury.

He then worked as a bartender and traveled the Northeast building bridges. He decided to pursue umpiring after reading a newspaper article about MLB umpire, Silk O’Laughlin.

His career started in the Connecticut League in 1902. He had a run in that year with the league secretary and team manager, Jim O’Rourke after Klem ejected one of his players. O’Rourke threatened that Klem would not umpire another game in the league, but Klem responded, Maybe so, but I’ll umpire this one.

In 03 he was in the N Y State league and in 04, the American Association. He joined the NL in 1905. Klem worked a record 18 World Series. 08, 09,11, 12, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 32, 34, and 40. Of the 16 teams in existence only one, the St Louis Browns did not appear in a World Series he officiated. The Browns did not win their first pennant until 1944. And only the Dodgers and Phillies and the Tigers failed to win a Championship. He umpired in the first all-star game in 1933, and the 1938 games. He holds the record for Career ejections at 251. He called 5 no hitters, and was the home plate umpire in 1924 when Jim Bottomley drove in 12 runs.

He had a few nicknames among the players, his favorite was ” The Old Arbitrator” Another was Catfish, which he hated. He was known to eject players who used it. He once ran Al Lopez, who spent time with the Dodgers and later managed the White Sox, when Lopez taped a photo showing Klem making a bad call on a play involving Lopez. Lopez had glued it to home plate and thrown dirt on it. Klem saw it when he cleaned the plate, and ran Lopez from the game.

He became chief of umpires in 1940. The league began experimenting with 4 man crews in 1941. Klem appeared in a few of those games. He umpired 5,375 regular season games, and 103 in post season. He umped for 37 years and Bruce Froemming tied that mark in 2007. He was the first to wear the modern chest protector under his shirt and campaigned to have it adopted across the league. Only Beans Reardon and Jocko Conlan did not use it.

Klem passed away on Sept 16, 1951 at the age of 77. He was elected to the hall with Tom Connolly in 1953. The first two umpires in the hall.

Nestor Chylak

Nestor George Chylak Jr. Born May 11, 1922 in Olyphant Pennsylvania. His parents were of Ukrainian descent. He was the first of five children and he attended the University of Scranton.

During WWII, Chylak served in the US Army in Europe. He suffered shrapnel injuries during the Battle of the Bulge. He was blinded for several days and hospitalized for 8 weeks. He earned the Silver Star and was awarded a Purple Heart for his wounds.

He came back from the war and began umpiring amateur games. He moved to the New York Penn League and then the Canadian American League before he finally made the majors in 1954.

Chylak said that two of his greatest thrills occurred in the early to mid 60’s One was umpiring the 7th game of the 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski hit his walk off homer, and the other was the last game pitched by Sandy Koufax in the 1966 World Series when he faced Jim Palmer.

He worked the first AL Championship series in 1969. In 1974 he was on the field for 10 cent beer night in Cleveland. The fans became unruly and started fights with the players, sometimes pouring beer on them. Chylak declared the game forfeit and sustained a facial wound by being hit by a chair. He was the home plate umpire for the first game played by the Blue Jays in 1977 in a snowstorm at Exhibition stadium.

He retired in 1978 and became assistant league supervisor of umpires. He was in the umps room at Comiskey on Disco Demolition night in July of 1979. Between games the fans rioted. Because of the damage to the field, the umps refused to allow the second game to be played and when league president Lee MacPhail decided the Sox must forfeit the game, Chylak had to inform Bill Veeck.

After his retirement he became a member of the Sports Illustrated Speakers Bureau and addressed a wide variety of groups about the lessons learned during his years in baseball. He died at 59 of a heart attack in Dunmore Pennsylvania. He was survived by his wife, 2 sons and 7 grandkids. Elected to the Hall by the Veterans committee in 1999.

John Bertrand Conlan ( Jocko)

Conlan was born on Dec 6, 1899 in Chicago Ill. He had a brief career as an outfielder for the White Sox before beginning his career as an ump. He began his professional baseball career in 1920. He spent 13 years in the minors. He came to the Sox in 1934. But in 1935 he was presented with an unusual opportunity. During a game against the Browns, the ump, Red Ormsby fell ill due to the heat. In those days only two umpires typically umpired games, and a player with a rep for honesty would sometimes be pressed into service if an ump was incapacitated. Conlan was asked to fill and took to it well

The next year, 1936 he started his umpiring career in the minors. He joined the NL in 1941 and stayed until 1965. He did 5 World Series, 45, 50, 54, 57, and 61. He also did six All Star games…43, 47. 50, 53, 58, and the first game of the 62 season. For a couple of years they played 2 all Star games.  He also umpired in all 3 of the Dodgers playoff series, 51, 59 and 62. And he was the home plate ump when Gil Hodges hit 4 homers on August 31, 1950. He was also an umpire when Willie Mays hit 4 homers on April 30, 1961. He retired in 64, but was a substitute ump for 17 games in 1965.

Conlan was known for several trademarks. Instead of a regular dress tie like most umps wore…yeah they wore ties back then, he wore a natty bow tie. He also was different in that he made out calls with his left hand instead of his right. He was also the last umpire allowed to wear the outside chest protector.

Casey Stengel admired Conlan’s performance as a player and an umpire. He had managed Conlan when he played for the Toledo Mud Hens. Once Conlan broke his leg sliding into third, he was hitting .292 when he got hurt. He scored a run before telling anyone he was hurt. Stengel gave him 500 of a 1000 bonus he would have gotten for hitting .300.

Stengel related that as a reward for the 500 dollars, Jocko would run him more than any other manager in the league. He had a famous argument in April of 1961 at the Coliseum in LA with Leo Durocher. Leo was arguing with Jocko, and he had already been tossed from the game. Leo attempted to kick dirt on Conlan’s shoes, but he slipped and instead kicked him in the shin. Striking an umpire is a serious offense, but Conlan instead kicked him right back. The entire thing was captured by an alert photographer and circulated for some time. Conlan was wearing shin guards, so Leo’s kick did no damage.

His name was mentioned in the 1962 song “The Los Angeles Dodgers” by Danny Kaye, And in the book, Carl Erskine’s Tales from the Dodger Dugout, Extra Innings..2004, includes short stories from Erskine, and Conlan is prominent in many of them.

Conlan retired to Arizona and enjoyed playing golf. He was elected to the Hall in 1974. He underwent heart surgery while watching the first game of the 1974 World Series. He died in 1989 at 89 years old in Scottsdale Az. His son, John Bertrand served in the US House of Representatives.

William George Evans ( Billy)

Billy as he was called was born on Feb 10, 1884 in Chicago Illinois. He was also called the boy umpire. He joined the Al in 1906 at the age of 22. The youngest MLB umpire ever. He also was the youngest ever to umpire a World Series game. doing so at age 25.

When he was a child his family relocated to Youngstown Ohio where his dad was a superintendent at Carnegie Steel plant. As a youth he participated in programs at the YMCA and played on a youth team called the Youngstown Spiders, in honor of the Cleveland Spiders.

He gained some notoriety as an athlete at Rayen School. Excelling in baseball, football and track. He went to Cornell University and played on a freshman team managed by major league SS, Hughie Jennings. After two years his law studies and sports career came to an end with the sudden death of his father.

He returned to Ohio and got a job as a sports reporter for the Youngstown Daily Vindicator. He had written for his high school yearbook and college newspaper. Evans was approached during a game between a couple of semi pro teams and asked by an exe major leaguer, Marty Hogan to fill an umpiring vacancy. He was on a date with a young woman and was not interested until Hogan said it paid 15 dollars a week, a figure that matched his salary as a sportswriter.

He caught the attention of Charlie Morton, president of the Ohio Penn League and was offered a full time position. He took the job on the condition that he could retain his position as a sports writer. Being an ump is hard enough, but juggling both of those jobs? WOW.

His ability so impressed Jimmy McAleer, a former MLB player and he recommended Evans to AL president, Ban Johnson.  So at 22 Evans joined the AL staff with little professional experience. He was also the only ump of his era who had never played professional baseball. After making his debut at Highlander’s Park in NYC, he went on to ump in six World Series, 09, 12, 15, 17, 19, and 23. Working in an era when MLB used no more than 2 umps for any game, and sometimes one, he single-handedly umpired 7 double headers in eight days during the 07 season. He was a base umpire during Charlie Robertson’s perfect game on April 20, 1922.

Unlike a lot of umps of the time, he admitted to missing a lot of calls. His honesty did not protect him from the wrath of the fans, who in those days were a lot more apt to cause problems at games. He sustained a skull fracture on Sept 15, 1907 when a bottle hurled by an angry fan knocked him unconscious.

He made some innovations to a game when he began running to a base where a play was made so that he would be on top of it. He also tried diplomacy over belligerency and proved an ump could control a game without threats of physical violence.

Billy would not back down when physically threatened. In September of 1921 he was involved in a bloody fist fight with Ty Cobb. Cobb threatened to whip Evans right at home plate. That would have gotten Cobb and immediate suspension. Evans supposedly invited Cobb to the Umpires dressing room for post-game festivities. Before long both men were brawling beneath the stands as players from both teams looked on. Some accounts said many of Cobbs team mates were rooting for Evans.

After the fight, Cobb was suspended one game, and Evans had bandages for the next several days. Even though they both agreed to keep the fight quiet, Johnson found out about it and lamented that he was sorry he missed it.

For his entire career Evans remained active as a sports writer. After retiring, he became the general manager of the Indians. He was credited with taking the Indians from a second to a first division team and remained with the Indians until 1935. He worked for the Red Sox as a while as chief scout and head of the farm system. But he left on October 8the 1940 after the Sox sold Pee Wee Reese to the Dodgers over his objections.

He became general manager of the Rams for the 1941 season and in 1942 took over as league president of the Southern Association. He did that for 4 years and then took over as GM of the Tigers. One of his first moves was trading Hank Greenberg to the Pirates. In 1951 he left in favor of Tiger legend, Charlie Gehringer.

In Jan of 1956 he suffered a massive stroke while visiting his son and died on Jan 23rd at 71 years old. In 1973 he was elected to the Hall of Fame. Becoming the 3rd umpire so honored.

It is a joy and a privilege writing for this site, and I appreciate the chance to do so. Since Mark posted a pic of his granddaughter, she is the cute one, I am posting a pic of my granddaughter Charlyssa and my only great grandchild so far, Kinsli Grayce.