The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-24

he has brought his sound philosophy and knowledge of men, so that the diamond, he talks of it, becours as broad as the whole world. And with simplicity that makes absorbing reading. lie has ac- ,.,mplished what many skilled writers fai to achive. he has given u living. full, {. lenSth portrait of a man-himself.
 By HANS WAGNER l- Umpirins is feature in baseball .that has never been given as much attention as it deserve To answer all questions on umpires in one lump n can truthfully say that lneve1 vet have seen an umpire Wht lid nos ztry to be right and give the plays as he saw them.
 --r-oh, I've seen some pretty rough ."U1es, make no mistake about that .l3ut all these boys were trying.
 was once fined $25 by a new umpire when I wasn't. even on the freld ] had got a day off to go fish aing. This young umpire had sort of half baked idea of what the duties of an umpire should be, The older follows had told him that an umpire must first impress the players with shis authority-show them that he twas not afraid of them.
 Well, this one started badly and C. II might add, finished quickly. The players started riding him from the ;beneh. To show authority he ordered two or three of them off
 -7 1 was getting little prominent Yin baseball then and this bird fig 1ired it out that he would fix himself l@solid by going after one of the stars so he said later.
 z, That's going to cost Wagner $25," rhe yelled over to the Pittsburg bench. He never did understand why he got such a laugh. He hadn't been Tn the league long enough to know the players by slight But sure enough, he reported to the league president by telegraph that night that he had fined Wagner S25. I got back from the fishing trip and was so notified sby the office. To my mind that is the longest range punishment l ever have had The poor fellow lasted just week.
 And He Asked Wilson.
 Personally I always have thought the umpires gave square deal. Play -ers all want the close ones their way G-no exceptions. At heart, though. they know that rmpires do not pur- eposely rub it into them.
 remember one time the Pittsburg club was playing Chicago. A long fly hit toward Outfielder Wilson. It struck close to the foul line and the umpire called 1t fair. There was a neerrible row about that. We natural ly said it was a foul.
 We surged around the umpire, try ing to make him change his decision, but there was nothing doing.
 Ask Wilson," we begged. Just ask him He'll tell you. Leave it to him"
 | it," the umpire surprised us by agree as "Hey, Wilson," we yelled as the out 'fielder came in. "The umps says he'll leave it to you-was that ball foul or fair?'
 Flair by foot"
 -s If you ever saw gang slink back to the bench it was us. It never had occurred to us that Wilson, might
 .,rs%1 q, Dfta he'd be fighting, too
 Never again did we ever ask for q player to give his honest opinion. We didn't want justice you see. We wanted that ball called foul.
 Everybody is against the umpire. Fans and players ride him when he makes a decision against us. If he makes a close one in our favor we figure it was coming to us because he made bad one against us last year.
 I have noticed that some umpires seem to give decisions in favor of the home club Then I have seen others who appeared to always give the close ones to the visitors. But talk ing 1t all in all my experience has shown that the decisions about break even in the long run. An umpire can not please everybody, so if he fig ures it out and pleases himself he knows he has done the right thing. What the Umpire Has to Do.
 good umpire must be fearless, confident and have good judgment He must follow the ball closely and place himself a the best angle to see the play. The most important quail ity, though, is to be good judge of human nature. He must not see or rhear a lot of little things that so on around him. After little ex perience he knows the difference be- tween natural kicks due to impulse and those that are delib erately in tended to show him up. No umpire will ever stand for being shown up, That's why they will throw you out of a game for tossing up your glove and will not bother you for calling them names.
 crowd is present. The whole af- -fair is between him and the players The minute anybody tries to get the crowd in--well, that fellow is in bad with the umpires. He should be. ~1An umpire has a lot of work to do, He must keep the game nov ing rapidly so as to please the crowd. He is what you might call stage manager. It is up to him to stage the show badly or enjoyable. In ad dition an umpire must know the rules from A to z and must be so familiar with their application that he can make a decision on the in- stant and be right. big majority
  points of the rules. A whole lot of them have never read the rule book In their lives.
 It has just struck me that it might be good idea to select an all- American team of umpires, just as we do ball players. Later on I'm going to name the best ones during my time and explain why.
 But to answer an injuiry-the worst decision I ever saw was made by Umpire Byron and he made it on me.
 # Pittsburg and New York were playing at Pittsburg. I was stealing fhird and the catcher threw the ball into my feet. making It impossible tor Devlin-I think it was Devlin- Co pick it up. We both got in a tapgle as I slid through cloud of dust The ball was bound under my arm where nobody could find It. With the ball still caught under my arm started for the plate while the New
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