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 Richie's Gang
Posted: Wednesday July 21, 1999 05:19 PM
Richie Phillips, who's run the umpires union for more than 20 years, is almost a cult figure for umpires, their patron saint. He's never lost a battle with major league baseball, raising the salaries about 600 per cent -- to almost $300,000 for the top umps. You talk to umpires like Jerry Crawford or Brian Gorman, themselves sons of umpires. Both were born in the summertime. Their fathers were not allowed to take off so much as a single day to be home at the birth of a child. Ah, but Phillips has gotten modern umpires five weeks of vacation, during the season. Umpires travel first class. Many of them spend the days before night games playing golf. When I was with a crew of National League umpires recently, I asked if I could sit in with them before the game, as they performed the time-honored task of taking the shine off the balls, rubbing them with a special mud from the Delaware River. They looked at me like I was daffy. A menial task like that? The umpires pay clubhouse boys to do that work now. You bet they put their trust in Richie Phillips. Indeed, within the world of officiating, it is an article of faith that Phillips has not only changed the lives of baseball's umps; he is a rising tide who has raised the lot of all officials, throughout the profession. The fact is that officials needed a tough, abrasive character like Phillips. After all, nobody cares for umpires; they only get noticed when they make a decision that the fans don't like. Even now, minor league umpires make only $12,500 a year -- tops. The NCAA basketball tournament brings in millions of dollars every year. And yet, for the championship game of the Final Four, the showcase of the sport, the referees selected to run this game, the best in their profession, are paid $575 -- and the right to buy two tickets. You can understand why umpires follow Richie Phillips to the ends of the earth. Unfortunately, Phillips seems to believe in himself just as fervently. Of course, he has been unbeatable. Not only at winning contracts for his men in blue. He has been hugely successful as president of a substantial company, Pilot Freight. This is a guy who led a walkout of altar boys at his parish church, when he was 13. And the priest caved in. This is a guy who once threw a chair through a wall during negotiations at baseball's law firm. This is a guy who is America's league leader in litigation -- and proud of it. Yet, everybody enjoys Richie's company. He's a very popular fellow. He and Len Coleman, his sworn professional adversary -- he, the president of the National League, like to go to the horse races together. For Richie, Richie's way works. So, consciously or otherwise, Phillips has tried to cast his umpires in his image. They have become more confrontational, even arrogant. Why not? Almost alone in sport, they can't be fired. Phillips compares them to federal judges. Now the men in blue are following him blindly, resigning en masse on September 2nd -- sure that baseball will plead for their return as soon as their less capable replacements start making bad calls. It's a huge gamble. And the height of hubris. Both. The umpires have no friends, no sympathy. And baseball is, simply, fed up. It well may be that Richie Phillips is destined to make his umpires the air-traffic controllers of sport. There are a lot of fine, decent gentlemen amongst the umpires. I hope they have the good sense to use instant replay, soon, and change Richie's own bad call. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer
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