A Little Boy in the Big Leagues

CLOSE YOUR EYES and dream up a baseball umpire: what does he look like? Very likely he's probably somewhat over weight with a red face. It's very likely he's sweating. How does he act? Well, he squats down into that certain undignified position with every pitch and stands up to yodel "Streee-rike" for the good ones. Every time he calls an out at the plate he pumps his meaty fist up and down. When the runner's safe he spreads his arms so far apart that they force his nose into the dirt. Often a manager comes charging out of the dugout to disagree with him, and he meets the guy halfway, to hold a parley with him at the top of his vocal cords until, finally fed up, he jerks out the big thumb to say, "You're outta here!"

Open your eyes again Chances are that umpire is not just a collection of parts from all the umpires you've ever seen since Dad started taking you to the bullpark at seven, chances are it's true-to-life former umpire Ron Luciano. During his 11 years umpiring in the American League. Luciano shaped himself into one of baseball's most recognizable physiques. Very visible to start with because of his 6'4, 250-lb fame, he became even more conspicuous on the field with a variety of never before-seen histrionics: the sextuple pump out call, the "outoutoutoutoutout" call at first base, the smoking finger gun-downs of strike-out victims. Luciano animated baseball's mundanities, no runs, no hits, no men left could be fun.

On top of his antics, Luciano was a truly lovable guy. Crowds responded to him, journalists interviewed him, the Today Show asked him to be a guest. Everyone laughed at him for all his bombastic gesturing but respected him because they knew he was laughing too.

Luciano was as enthusiastic about the game as the game is about him. He stumbled into umpiring on a business trip to Florida, and the union was a delightfully perfect fit. He could never really shake his little kids' awe of the athletes around him.

Luciano's only goal in life was to have a good time, and he'd tell you as much if you sat in the box seats behind home plate. He'd tell the players as much too, though him on-field gab got him in trouble with the league office who wished he'd take the game more seriously. Labor and management have a tendency not to see eye-to-eye, but Luciano found his own way to deal with it; he didn't pay the fines.

The end only came when in 1979 he got an offer he couldn't refuse from NBC. He moved his talk off the field and up to the booth to do color-broadcasting during baseball telecasts. The job was tailor made for him: two days of work a week talking to people who had no choice but to listen. So he took it.

Many of the stories Luciano tells of his days on the field center around blunders he embarrassed himself with One time he heaved his substantial body back and forth between the bases with a California Angel during a run-down, admirably trying to make sure he had a good angle on the tag. All his good intentions were for naught, however, when he very ungracefully coffided with the runner, sending them both sprawling. In another game he was umpiring the third-base line when the visiting team hit a long fly ball that sailed toward the bleachers. Luciano sprinted toward the outfield to make a decision fair or foul but lost the ball in the sun. With no idea what to call, and everybody in the stadium waiting to see his verdict, he tried to make the best of an extremely poor situation by pointing to the stands, jumping in the air, and signalling "home run" as emphatically as possible. However, the ball had landed 20 feet foul and before they called out the riot dogs. Luciano humbly changed his call.

THE BASEBALL PURIST can take Luciano's description of the blunders as an expose. He can take it as a vicious strike right at the heart of baseball's integrity. Or he can take it simply as added color to an otherwise stand baseball world Luciano takes it in stride, and always with an air of tongue in cheek. "Hey, what did you expect," he would undoubtedly ask the righteous, "did you think the umpire was perfect."

Throughout Umpire Luciano himself is the only recurrent character, though his pet peeve. Baltimore Orioles Manager Earl Weaver comes close. They didn't get along on the field where relations deteriorated to the point that the league gave Luciano a short vacation whenever his crew visited Baltimore. But he can't help bringing up Weaver again and again, almost offering him symbolically as the exception that proves the rule that everybody in the league likes him. Of all the ejections he handed out over 11 years. Luciano has to be proudest of the one he give. Weaver during the warm-ups before the fourth game in a four game series. What was Weaver's offense? He asked the umpire, rather thetorically, "How about it Luciano, you gonna be as bad tonight as you were in the first three games?"

Luciano's re-enactments are entertaining, but as with too much of everything, the anecdotes and one-liners grow a little weary. Pun and irony are about as complex as the material gets. (He tries to play mind games with himself sometimes. Luciano tells us, until someone reminds him he's playing with a handicap.) Stylistically, you or I could have written the book. Luciano (or Fisher) could have written something other than simple sentences, Noun, verb, object, there's little embellishment. The stories are meant to give pleasure on their own, and generally they do, but like a diet of Coke and cookies, too much simplicity leaves you craving for more substantial food for thought. But joining the ranks of the literati is not one of Luciano's ambitions. He was a talker on the field, so he writes his book like he'd speak a monologue. His aim is to entertain.

BUT EVEN SO, he thankfully gives us a little substance to sink our teeth into. Luciano claims he's a basically shy man who loses his inhibitions when he gets on the field. It's an unusual idea, to lose your self-consciousness only in front of thousands of people, but hidden somewhere among the confessed botched calls, and hints at being overwhelmed, that impression of insecurity seeps through.

Luciano's moments of candidness are not the plays on sympathy you might typically expect from an umpire: "Oh, this is such a lonely job. Everybody hates you." For Luciano, it was a great job, and almost everybody liked him. Subtly, he just wants to let you know that at times he feels like he's always playing in a ball park a little bigger than himself.