You won’t find many people who would deny that instant replay, now in its 10th season in its current form, has been a positive for Major League Baseball.
With the very rare exception, egregious umpiring mistakes get corrected, and that makes the game better.
I’ve occasionally wondered in recent years though how different life would be for spirited managers like Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella and Bobby Cox in the instant replay era, when the legendary knock-down, drag-out confrontations with umpires for which those 4 hugely successful managers are remembered have been largely whitewashed from the sport.
If you’re of a certain age, don’t you miss those encounters?
So as a service to those who didn’t live it, and as a warm reminder for those who did, I recently spent some time on YouTube remembering the good old days.
Sadly, there’s not a great YouTube library of historic managerial meltdowns. And MLB.com’s Film Room stays away from them (I’m fairly certain intentionally).
Still, there’s some decent stuff out there, and what follows is some of what I found.
Young fans who never experienced Earl Weaver and Ron Luciano or Ken Kaiser (pictured below with the Earl of Baltimore) going nose-to-nose don’t know what they missed.
There’s an iconic Weaver confrontation with a mic’d-up Bill Haller that’s easy to find on YouTube if you want to check it out. I’m not going to link to it here, because VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS is G-rated, but it’s really good, easily the best and most entertaining manager-umpire clash I could find preserved on video.
Weaver, the Hall of Famer who guided the Orioles to 4 Pennants and the 1970 World Series title, was as fiery as they come. Over 17 seasons, he was ejected 96 times, 4th-most by a manager in history (the all-time top 10 is below along with the current managers who’ve been tossed most frequently).
His long-running feud with 11-year AL umpire Ron Luciano played out in ballparks across the American League in the 1970s. But their quarreling actually began during their time together in the minors.
When Weaver managed at Double-A Elmira in 1965, Luciano once ejected him from all 4 games of a series in Reading (at least that’s the story Luciano told for years). Two years later, when Earl was managing the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, he disagreed with a Luciano call, unearthed second base and took it back to the dugout.
Their nose-to-nose arguments would become legendary, the 5-foot-6 Weaver turning his cap backwards and kicking dirt while looking up at the 6-foot-4, 250-pound Luciano.
In the big leagues, Luciano ejected Weaver 7 times, including from both ends of a doubleheader in 1975.
"The problem with Earl is that he holds a grudge," Luciano recounted, years later. "Other managers, if they disagree with a call, may holler and shout, but you can still go out for a beer with them after the game. Not Earl. He never forgets. Heck, he even holds your minor league record against you.
“Once, a couple of years ago, I made a controversial call at the plate. Earl charged out of the dugout, screaming that that was the same call I'd blown at Elmira in '66. That sort of thing can get to you.”
Luciano had an amazing story of his own. An All-American offensive tackle at Syracuse, he blocked for the legendary Jim Brown and Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions, but a series of major injuries prevented him from ever playing an NFL game. After working as a substitute teacher and trying his hand in business, he decided to go to umpiring school in 1964. 5 years later he was in the big leagues.
While player surveys in the 1970s ranked Luciano among the best umpires in the game, he was also among the most colorful characters to ever umpire in the majors. He would often call players out by “shooting” them with a cocked finger or an imaginary shotgun. His booming ball-strike calls often echoed around ballparks, and he was far more demonstrative than other umpires of the era, sometimes jumping in the air when calling players out.
Combine that with the Weaver dynamic, and he became a celebrity umpire. Luciano was the best-selling author of 5 books (The Umpire Strikes Back, Strike Two, The Fall of the Roman Umpire, Remembrances of Swings Past and Baseball Lite: The Funniest Moments). Upon retiring after the 1979 season, he spent 2 years broadcasting for NBC.
Luciano was even asked to audition to play the part of Coach Ernie Pantusso on Cheers. But the role ultimately went to Nicholas Colasanto because producers wanted a more experienced actor.
Here’s a brief interview Luciano did with Weaver prior to an NBC Game of the Week in 1980:
And, in a light moment, here’s Weaver showing Bob Uecker how to argue with an umpire.
A solid second baseman and the winner of 5 World Series as part of the Yankees dynasty in the 1950s, Billy Martin is best remembered for the fire he brought to the dugout over 19 managerial seasons with 5 clubs between 1969 and 1988. He skippered 4 different clubs to the postseason, and had his most managerial success during 5 separate stints with George Steinbrenner’s Yankees, winning 2 pennants and the 1977 World Series during his parts of 8 years managing in pinstripes.
Among his most notable ejections, the one pictured below in the 9th inning of Game 4, the final game, of the 1976 World Series, when he was thrown out by Bruce Froemming.
Here’s Martin getting his money’s worth on a disputed catch of a sinking infield liner in Oakland in 1988.
Lou Piniella played for Martin with the Yankees, and, as a manager over 23 seasons with 5 clubs, won 3 Manager of the Year awards and led the Reds to a title in 1990.
It was a legendary tirade during that 1990 season for which many best remember Sweet Lou.
On August 21, with the first-place Reds having lost 5 in a row and the Dodgers and Giants trying to close the gap in the division race (the Reds were in the NL West in those days), first base umpire Dutch Rennert called Barry Larkin out on a double play ball to end the 6th inning of an eventual 8-1 win over the Cubs.
Piniella raced out of the dugout and fired his cap in disgust. Eventually, he pulled first base out of the ground and hurled the bag toward right field.
Not satisfied with his first toss, he ran after the base and chucked it further into the outfield.
A few days after Piniella’s iconic throw, The Cincinnati Enquirer hosted a base-tossing contest on Fountain Square. 100 people turned out in an effort to top Piniella’s 35-foot toss. The Enquirer supplied foam bases that were to be flung—“a 2-handed throw, just like Lou did it,” Enquirer reporter and contest judge Jim Knippenberg specified. Participants included children, business men in suits and ties and then-Mayor Charlie Luken.
Also from that 1990 season, here’s Piniella going at it with home plate umpire Jerry Crawford, with a cameo from Hall of Famer Doug Harvey.
And if you have some extra time on your hands, here’s 10 minutes of Piniella ejections over the years.
No manager in history was ejected more often than Hall of Famer Bobby Cox, who literally lost an entire season’s worth of games, thrown out 162 times over his 29-year managerial career. A 4-time Manager of the Year, Cox managed the Braves to 16 post-season appearances, 5 Pennants and a World Series crown in 1995.
In this Bally Sports South video featuring 6 Braves Hall of Famers, Chipper Jones shares his favorite Cox ejection story.
While Weaver, Martin, Piniella and Cox may be 4 of the best-known managers remembered for their run-ins with the men in blue, what manager hasn’t had a good one or 2 over the years?
Here are 2 other classics:
PIRATES MANAGER LLOYD McCLENDON (2001)
FROM THE DOUBLE-A SOUTHERN LEAGUE, PHILLIP WELLMAN (2007)
In 2009, ESPN ranked this one #1 on their list of Top 10 meltdowns of all-time. 14 years have passed, but this hasn’t been surpassed.
I used to have season Spring training tickets for the Yanks when they played in Fort Lauderdale.
I was sitting in the Front Row right behind home plate for the first spring training game and Billy
Martin was the manager that year. The year before Billy was thrown out of a game and he started kicking dirt on the Umpires shoes after he got kicked out of the game. Well on this beautiful
spring day in Fort Lauderdale Billy approaches home plate to exchange lineup cards with the Ump
and as he handed the lineup card to the ump he looks at the crowd in the stands with a big smile
and starts to kick dirt all over the home plate umpires shoes. Of course the ump started to laugh
I used to have season Spring training tickets for the Yanks when they played in Fort Lauderdale.
I was sitting in the Front Row right behind home plate for the first spring training game and Billy
Martin was the manager that year. The year before Billy was thrown out of a game and he started kicking dirt on the Umpires shoes after he got kicked out of the game. Well on this beautiful
spring day in Fort Lauderdale Billy approaches home plate to exchange lineup cards with the Ump
and as he handed the lineup card to the ump he looks at the crowd in the stands with a big smile
and starts to kick dirt all over the home plate umpires shoes. Of course the ump started to laugh
at Billy..................
Good stuff. I always thought umps did a pretty good job. I'm amazed how many calls are reversed these days.