This is the presentation that I made at the SABR convention in Washington, DC, in July 2009.  It went very well; I got a lot of good comments, and quite a few people came up to me afterward and asked me to sign copies of my book, The Irish in Baseball: An Early History, on which this presentation was based.

Comments? Send e-mail to dfleitz@wowway.com.

Click on the titles below for information on my six published baseball books:

Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson (2001)

Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian (2002)

Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown (2004)

Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball (2005)

More Ghosts in the Gallery (2007)

The Irish in Baseball: An Early History (2009)

Books to which I contributed:

Deadball Stars of the National League (SABR, 2004)

This work contains 140 biographies on all the National League's starting players of the Deadball (1901-1919) Era.  I wrote the chapter on former Pirates and Reds first baseman Jake Beckley, whom I profiled in my Ghosts in the Gallery book. 

Deadball Stars of the American League (SABR, 2007)

This companion volume to the preceding book contains 140 biographies on all the American League's starting players of the Deadball Era.  I wrote three chapters, on Shoeless Joe Jackson and two St. Louis Browns mainstays, pitcher Jack Powell and manager Jimmy McAleer.  

Sock It To 'Em, Tigers! The Incredible Story of the 1968 Detroit Tigers (Maple Street Press, 2008)

This book has biographies of all playing, managing, coaching, front-office, and other personnel on the world champion 1968 Detroit Tigers.  I wrote the chapter on Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews.

Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox (ACTA Press, 2009)

This book celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1959 White Sox, who won Chicago's first American League pennant in 40 years (but lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers).  I wrote the chapter on Hall of Fame pitcher Early Wynn, who won the Cy Young Award that year at age 39.

The Green and the Blue: The Irish-American Umpire, 1880-1965

By David L. Fleitz

 Presentation made at SABR 39, Washington, D.C.

July 31, 2009

Hello, my name is David Fleitz and I am a SABR member from Royal Oak, Michigan.  I have written six books on baseball, including my latest, The Irish in Baseball: An Early History, which was released by McFarland in May of this year.

The Irish potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s was probably the greatest human tragedy of the 19th century.  Beginning with a nearly total failure of Ireland’s potato crop in 1845, followed by successive years of poor harvests, statistics indicate that between 1845 and 1851, more than a million and a half Irish died of starvation, nearly 20% of the island’s population.  In the nine years immediately following the onset of the famine, some 2,164,000 Irish men, women, and children emigrated to the New World, and the total number of Irish who made the passage by the end of the 19^th century topped three and a half million.

Most Irish immigrants spoke English, which gave them an advantage over new arrivals from Germany, Italy, and eastern Europe.  Still, their life was hard, but they added a distinctive Irish flavor to the American “melting pot,” as Irish immigrants raised families, built communities, fought in the “Irish brigades” in the Civil War, and made a place for themselves in their adopted country.

Hundreds of thousands of these Irish immigrants were young men, and their arrival created a new source of participants for America 's most rapidly growing sport. Baseball was an activity that the immigrant Irishman could engage in to become part of his adopted country.  Through it, the Irishman could fit in and excel at something distinctly American.  While the older generation could not always understand this strange new pastime and its appeal, their young men embraced it with enthusiasm.  Before long, Irish names began popping up on rosters of amateur teams, especially in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and northern New Jersey.  Irish-American laborers and mill workers formed their own clubs, and their children played the game in vacant lots and pastures.  

Sports and games had been an important part of Irish civilization long before the upheaval of the famine.  Hurling, a stick and ball game that resembles lacrosse, had been played in some form in Ireland for more than 2,000 years.  The Irish came to America, said historian Steven A. Riess, “with a manly athletic tradition and quickly became avid sports fans and athletes in their new country.”

Distribution of ethnic players on major league rosters, 1871-1899

Professional baseball, which took root in America shortly after the Civil War, was attractive to the ambitious Irishman.  It matured just as a new generation of Irish-Americans – the children of the famine refugees – reached adulthood, and it did not take long for the Irish to gain a foothold in the increasingly popular sport.  Many of the game’s early stars were either Irish-born or sons of immigrants; I counted 24 Hall of Famers who were Irish-American and played in the 1880-1900 period.  By 1885, according to statistics compiled by Hall of Fame historian Lee Allen, more than 40 percent of all major league players claimed Irish ancestry. (Allen's methodology may not have been the most rigorous; it seems that he classified players by what he knew about them, and by the way their last names sounded.  Still, his figures are probably at least somewhat accurate.)

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Irish would come to dominate the umpiring ranks as well. 

Why were the Irish attracted to umpiring?  Most likely, for the same reasons they were attracted to ballplaying.  Baseball became a profession in the 1870s, just as thousands of Irish-Americans were looking for both work and a place in American society; when umpiring became a profession during the 1880s, it became attractive to the Irish for the same reasons.  In a time when too many occupations were closed to the immigrants and their families, the Irish were looking for occupations that would welcome them, and baseball had already proven itself accommodating to the Irish.  Baseball, too, was growing; the number of teams, major and minor, increased sharply during the 1880s, creating a new demand not only for players, but also for competent game officials.  The Irish filled these positions with enthusiasm.

Research shows that many, indeed most, of the outstanding umpires of the 1880-1920 period were second-generation Irish.  Some of these men were amateur and minor-league players who had failed to advance to major league ball and turned to umpiring as a way to remain in the game that they loved.  A few – Bill Dinneen, George Moriarty, and Hank O’Day among them – had been fine major league players themselves and sought to extend their time in the big leagues by serving as arbiters.  Men such as those mentioned umpired in the majors for 30 years or more after they played their last games.

John Gaffney, umpire from 1884 to 1900

The first great umpire, John Gaffney (above), was an immigrant’s son from Roxbury, Massachusetts.  He was a fine amateur player whose career had ended in the winter of 1880 when he hurt his arm throwing a snowball.  Wanting to stay in the game, he became an umpire instead, and by 1886 he was generally recognized as the “King of Umpires.”  The American Association had its own claimant to that title, “Honest John” Kelly, a New Yorker who was also the son of immigrants.  Kelly had played in the National League in 1879, but batted only .155 and was convinced he would not succeed as a player.  He turned to umpiring instead.  

Gaffney and Kelly set the mold for the Irish-American umpires that followed them.  Both were former players, second-generation Irishmen, and masters of the strike zone and the rule book.  Both men ruled the field with their presence and personality, though Kelly may have had another angle working in his favor.  An umpire’s personal popularity played a key role in his success or failure during the 1880s, when fan rowdiness increased to alarming levels, and John Kelly proved highly popular with the crowds.  Perhaps Kelly gained favor and kept the peace by being something of a “homer,” for researchers have found that in 1884, the home team won more than two-thirds of the games over which Kelly presided.  (I know – small sample size.)

Gaffney used patience and tact to control a game.  “With the players I try to keep as even tempered as I can,” Gaffney explained, “always speaking to them gentlemanly yet firmly. I dislike to fine, and in all my experience have not inflicted more than $300 in fines, and I never found it necessary to order a player from the field. Pleasant words to players in passion will work far better than fines." 

Tim Hurst, umpire from 1891 to 1909

Another second-generation Irishman, Tim Hurst (above), took a different tack.  A coal miner’s son from Pennsylvania, Hurst had worked in the mines himself and learned to hold his own with his fists. He carried this attitude into a career as a boxing referee and, later, as a baseball umpire.  He took no abuse from anyone, and when threatened by a player or manager, Hurst would offer to settle the matter with his fists, challenging the offender in his rich Irish accent.  They called him “Sir Timothy” for his bearing and “Terrible Tim” for his temper, and few players elected to punch it out with him.  In 1897 he took on three Pittsburgh Pirates at once and whipped them all soundly.  Still, he knew the rule book and commanded instant authority, though some players found his conversation so entertaining that they purposely baited him just to hear him argue in his Irish brogue.  When asked why he wore a cap with a letter B on it, Hurst replied, “Because I’m the best.”

The game began to change, but Hurst refused to change with it.  He remained the same battler he had always been, even after joining the American League staff in 1905.  His career ended in 1909 when he spit in the face of Philadelphia ’s Eddie Collins because, as he said, “I don’t like college boys.”  Still, Connie Mack, who managed the Pirates during the 1890s, said, “ Hurst lost his head at times, and this was eventually his undoing, but he did more to stamp out rowdyism than any other official I have known.  He was fearless and one of the gamest men who ever handled an indicator.”

One Irish umpire who had a rough time of it was Tom Lynch, who joined the National League staff in 1888.  Lynch was widely admired for his honesty and integrity in an era when umpires were increasingly the target of player rowdiness and fan violence.  He did not take abuse from anyone, and though he was not an enthusiastic fighter like Hurst, he could be pushed past his limits.  In 1897 he had a fistfight on the field with Baltimore’s Jack Doyle in an argument at Boston (there was little ethnic solidarity on the ballfield at that time); two years later, tiring of the constant abuse and lack of backing from the league, he resigned and took a job as a theater manager in his hometown of New Britain, Connecticut.

Tom Lynch, umpire (1888-1898) and league president (1910-1913)

Ten years later, the National League was looking for a man of integrity to take over as league president; they offered the job to the long-retired Tom Lynch (above), who served in that position for the next four years.  Not surprisingly, Lynch strongly supported his umpires, even against his bosses, the club owners.

Lynch was not a man to hold grudges; in 1911 he hired Jack Doyle as an umpire on the NL staff.  Doyle was not a good umpire; he lasted only half a season.

Jack Sheridan, umpire from 1890 to 1914

The percentage of Irish players dropped as more German and Eastern Europeans entered the game, and by 1900 the Irish were no longer the largest ethnic group on the playing field.  However, their presence in the umpiring ranks remained steady for several decades to come.  Perhaps the reason is that umpires have longer careers than players; perhaps also the example set by Irish-American umpires from 1880 to 1900 set a template for the successful umpires that followed them.

One outstanding umpire was Jack Sheridan (above), a man so Irish in appearance and manner that people simply assumed that he was born on the island.  Instead, he was a Chicagoan who grew up in San Jose, California.  He had been roughly treated in the National League during the 1890s, so he joined Ban Johnson’s Western League later in that decade.  He was the best arbiter on Johnson’s staff, and umpired in the American League from 1901 to 1914.

Sheridan had a few idiosyncrasies.   He wore no chest protector behind the plate, because he was nimble enough to jump away from foul tips.  His strike three call was totally his own.  He would make an exaggerated gesture with his arms and bellow, “Strike three!  San Jose, California !  The garden spot of America !”  Speaking of a lack of ethnic solidarity, he battled John McGraw in both the American League and the National; in 1902, Boston pitcher Bill Dinneen hit McGraw with pitches five times in one game, but Sheridan refused to allow McGraw to take his base, claiming that McGraw had not tried hard enough to get out of the way.

McGraw apparently disliked Sheridan personally, but respected him professionally.  In 1913 McGraw and Charlie Comiskey took their teams, the Giants and White Sox, on a rond-the-world exhibition tour.   They wanted to choose the two best umpires to accompany them; they selected Bill Klem and Jack Sheridan.

Bill Dinneen and Hank O'Day, pitchers-turned-umpires

Two other outstanding Irish-American umpires were Bill Dinneen and Hank O’Day, whose baseball cards are shown above.  Speaking of people extending their baseball lives through umpiring, Dinneen pitched for 12 seasons and umpired for 28 more, while O’Day pitched for 7 seasons and spent 31 years as an umpire, interrupted by two seasons as a manager.  Both are answers to great trivia questions.  Dinneen was the only major leaguer in history to throw a no-hitter and call one as an umpire; he called 5 of them, in fact.  O’Day was the umpire who called Fred Merkle out at second base in the famous Giants-Cubs game of 1908.  He was also the only umpire who ever threw Connie Mack out of a game, which he did in 1895.

In 1946 the Baseball Hall of Fame created a secondary level of recognition called the “Honor Rolls of Baseball,” with the names of 39 managers, umpires, executives and sportswriters.  Of the 11 umpires on the list above, seven (the green ones) were Irish-Americans, and Hank O’Day certainly should have been the eighth.  (I did not count Tommy Connolly, since he was born in England, but he may well have also been Irish.)

George Moriarty, former third baseman, umpired from 1917 to 1940

George Moriarty grew up in Chicago, where his immigrant father was a childhood friend of another Irishman, Charlie Comiskey.  He reached the majors as a third baseman in 1906, having already earned a reputation as a fighter of the first rank.  When he joined the Detroit Tigers in 1909, Ty Cobb challenged him to a fight.  Moriarty handed Cobb a bat.  “A fellow like you,” said the young third baseman, “needs a bat to even things up when fighting an Irishman.”  Cobb wisely backed off.

In 1917, his playing career over, Moriarty joined the American League umpiring staff, remaining until 1940.  A Sporting News poll in 1935 rated him the best umpire in the league.  One day in 1932, he took a page from Tim Hurst’s book when he fought four Chicago White Sox (three players and the manager) all at once after a hotly contested game in Chicago.  Moriarty emerged with a broken wrist, but managed to hold off all his assailants despite being nearly twice the age of the players involved. 

Moriarty was so esteemed as a baseball man that he took a two-year hiatus from umpiring in 1927-28 to manage his old team, the Detroit Tigers.  In fact, several Irish-American umpires interrupted their umpiring careers to manage major league clubs; others who did so were John Gaffney, John Kelly, Hank O’Day, and Tim Hurst.

Jocko Conlan, umpire from 1941 to 1965

The last of the great Irish-American umpires was Jocko Conlan (above), another ex-player who turned to umpiring as a way to stay in the game.  While riding the bench for the White Sox in 1935, he filled in for an umpire who had become ill in the summer heat.  Conlan liked the work, and shortly afterward retired as a player and gained a minor league umpiring job.  In 1941 he joined the National League staff and remained for 24 years.  He was only 5-7 and weighed about 145 pounds; compare that to many of the umps working today.

The most famous Conlan story involves Leo Durocher, who was coaching for the Dodgers in 1961 when he ran out to argue with Conlan at home plate.  Durocher kicked at the dirt and accidentally hit Conlan in the shins; Conlan kicked Leo back, and the two men stood at the plate kicking each other until Durocher realized that Jocko was the home plate umpire and was wearing shin guards and steel-toed shoes.

Conlan was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974; he died in 1989 at age 90, and when he did, the tradition of the Irish-American umpire died with him.