Umpires Losing in Hardball

Unyielding and unforgiving, major league baseball continued to gut its umpiring staff Thursday when 13 National League umpires were informed their resignations have been accepted effective Sept. 2. Nine American League umpires received similar notification earlier in the week.

Tom Hallion, who was suspended by the National League for three games July 2 for a bumping incident with catcher Jeff Reed of the Colorado Rockies, and Eric Gregg, whose wide strike zone during the 1997 playoffs drew considerable criticism, were among the 13 NL umpires--more than one-third of the 36-man staff--to be removed.

The others: Terry Tata, Joe West, Bob Davidson, Bill Hohn, Frank Pulli, Larry Poncino, Gary Darling, Bruce Dreckman, Larry Vanover, Paul Nauert and Sam Holbrook.

In a statement by the umpires union, President Jerry Crawford, an NL umpire, called baseball’s actions “illegal, reprehensible and immoral.”

Crawford said the union had hired the Philadelphia-based law firm of Cohen, Weiss and Simon and “will relentlessly pursue every possible avenue to block the implementation of baseball’s punitive, unlawful and discriminatory actions.”

Union counsel Richie Phillips, whose negotiating style and strategy has created deep divisions among the umpires, said the 13 notified Thursday “are some of the finest the game has ever known.”

“Terry Tata has worked many of the most important games in the last 25 years,” Phillips said. “Are you telling me that an umpire who has never worked a spring training game in his life is more fit to umpire in the major leagues than Terry Tata? I mean, what baseball has done here is attempt to execute surrendered prisoners, and I’ll fight this to the death.”

The union already had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia asking, among other things, that the umpires be permitted to withdraw their resignations up until Sept. 2. Judge Edmund Ludwig refused to grant the union a temporary restraining order, but told the two sides to see if they can work out a solution before he revisits the issue in mid-August. There has been no attempt by management, having hired 25 minor league umpires as replacements and eager to gain stronger control over the umpires by placing them under the central authority of the commissioner’s office, to work out an interim truce, sources said.

In a preemptive strike designed to force management to the bargaining table (their labor contract expires Dec. 31) and forestall possible firings, 57 of the 66 union members submitted their resignations, effective Sept. 2, after a July 14 meeting with Phillips, but their solidarity began to splinter almost immediately. A group of AL umpires openly questioned their counsel’s strategy and began rescinding their resignations, undermining the strategy and prompting full-scale rescinding by 42 umpires Tuesday. It was too late, however, to satisfy management, although sources said that NL President Leonard Coleman strongly objected to the dismissals orchestrated Thursday by Commissioner Bud Selig and Executive Vice President Sandy Alderson. Alderson did not return phone calls Thursday.

Of the 13 umpires notified Thursday, there was no common thread.

Sources said that race and ethnicity had as much to do with retention as ability, and that management, sensitive to possible accusations of illegal retribution, attempted to avoid blanket dismissal of the most militant union activists.