Umps

Commissioner Fay Vincent and National League president Bill White met for several hours in New York yesterday, but Vincent's investigation into White's dispute with NL umpires won't be concluded until next week at the earliest. "They discussed the situation and agreed to get together again sometime after the holiday weekend," said Rich Levin, a spokesman for the commissioner's office. "Nothing was decided. " Levin would not elaborate on the content of the meeting, and neither principal was available for comment.

Umpires are livid that Major League Baseball has sent investigators to their hometowns, asking neighbors a series of questions that include whether the ump belongs to the Ku Klux Klan. "The questions that we found out are being asked are about beating wives, marijuana use and extravagant parties," World Umpires Association president John Hirschbeck said in a telephone interview yesterday. "And then finally with this whole thing about the Ku Klux Klan. "You get someone from security, shows his credentials and starts asking these kind of questions, and right away what's the neighbor going to think other than the umpire is in trouble, he's done something wrong and he's going to lose his job. " Hirschbeck and union spokesman Lamell McMorris said Tom Christopher, the Milwaukee-based supervisor of security and investigations in the commissioner's office, had asked questions about Klan membership to neighbors of umpires Greg Gibson and Sam Holbrook, who reside in Kentucky.

Citing Nixonian logic and mouths to feed, union lawyers filed a last-ditch lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia yesterday in hopes of keeping 22 major league umpires on the payroll. U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner was to hear the case this afternoon. The Major League Umpires Association wants the judge to block the scheduled terminations, just two days away, pending the outcome of binding arbitration. The lawsuit notes the 22 umpires have a combined 355 years of experience in pro baseball, and 39 children and four grandchildren among them.

Rockies closer Manny Corpas came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth, retired the Phillies in order and that was that. Or was it? TBS cameras on Corpas warming up before coming into yesterday's 4-2 Colorado win in Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Citizens Bank Park clearly showed the righthander pour a cup of water or soda on the front of his shirt before leaving the bullpen and then rubbing dirt on the area. Then, when he went into the game, he appeared to go to that spot before several of his pitches in order to get a better grip on the baseball.

Baseball owners have agreed to rehire five of the 22 umpires who lost their jobs in a failed mass resignation three years ago and to allow four more of the umps to retire with back pay and benefits. The agreement is likely to be announced today, after the baseball official in charge of umpires meets with the five and decides they are physically fit to resume umpiring, several officials familiar with the deal said yesteday. With the deal, umpires no longer will seek to enforce a Dec. 14 decision by U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III in Philadelphia.

Former big-league umpires Bob Davidson and Tom Hallion will return to work this week in the low minors, more than 3 1/2 years after losing their jobs in the majors. Davidson and Hallion were among the 22 umps who took part in a failed mass resignation plan in September 1999. Court battles ensued, and several of those umpires were rehired by the majors, some retired and others were caught in limbo. Davidson will resume his career tomorrow in the Class A Northwest League, calling his first game when Vancouver visits Everett.

Sure, Houston's Mike Scott led major-league pitchers with 306 strikeouts last season. And, certainly, Texas' Pete Incaviglia broke the American League record by striking out 185 times. But the major-league's true strikeout king last season was 38-year-old Ed Montague. Montague, a National League umpire, was every pitchers' best friend in 1986. In the 50 or so games in which he called balls and strikes, Montague thumbed out an average of 13.94 batters - nearly seven per side.

One ill-advised word = three-game suspension. That's the result of the recent PIAA Class AAA baseball semifinal involving Ss. Neumann-Goretti and Lampeter-Strasburg. After that game, won by L-S, 2-1, N-G coach Mike Zolk, irate over the outcome of three crucial calls, accused the umpires of cheating. The PIAA wasn't too happy. Patricia Sticco, N-G's principal, was asked to investigate the situation and provide her findings. Additionally, she was given the chance to handle the matter internally.

The bosses at Major League Baseball on Thursday told the Athletics that they were right, the umps were wrong, and they were sorry but they can't make amends. One day after umpire Angel Hernandez and his crew blew a call on what would have been a game-tying homer for Oakland at Cleveland, MLB executive vice president Joe Torre told the A's to suck it up. With two outs in the ninth inning Wednesday, Adam Rosales sent a drive to left that easily cleared the 19-foot-high outfield wall and struck a metal railing before bouncing back into the field of play.

SO MUCH for the notion that only seniors experience true devastation after heartbreaking defeats that end a season. Joey Glennon is a junior at Ss. Neumann-Goretti High and again and again Monday, while trying to express his feelings on a 2-1 setback in a PIAA Class AAA baseball semifinal, he cried, heaved, cried harder, heaved harder. To do the Saints' loss to Lampeter-Strasburg, played at Spring-Ford High, in Royersford, full justice, a three-part series would be necessary.

What was already a bad time for umpires got worse Saturday when one of them walked a batter on just three called balls. It happened in Kansas City with two outs in the fifth inning. Royals batter Lorenzo Cain was awarded first base on the seventh pitch of his at-bat after the Yankees' Andy Pettitte buried a pitch in the dirt. Home-plate umpire Mark Wegner called ball four. Yankees manager Joe Girardi disagreed, setting off a controversy. "We thought in the dugout it was 2-2," he said.

The bosses at Major League Baseball on Thursday told the Athletics that they were right, the umps were wrong, and they were sorry but they can't make amends. One day after umpire Angel Hernandez and his crew blew a call on what would have been a game-tying homer for Oakland at Cleveland, MLB executive vice president Joe Torre told the A's to suck it up. With two outs in the ninth inning Wednesday, Adam Rosales sent a drive to left that easily cleared the 19-foot-high outfield wall and struck a metal railing before bouncing back into the field of play.

One ill-advised word = three-game suspension. That's the result of the recent PIAA Class AAA baseball semifinal involving Ss. Neumann-Goretti and Lampeter-Strasburg. After that game, won by L-S, 2-1, N-G coach Mike Zolk, irate over the outcome of three crucial calls, accused the umpires of cheating. The PIAA wasn't too happy. Patricia Sticco, N-G's principal, was asked to investigate the situation and provide her findings. Additionally, she was given the chance to handle the matter internally.

SO MUCH for the notion that only seniors experience true devastation after heartbreaking defeats that end a season. Joey Glennon is a junior at Ss. Neumann-Goretti High and again and again Monday, while trying to express his feelings on a 2-1 setback in a PIAA Class AAA baseball semifinal, he cried, heaved, cried harder, heaved harder. To do the Saints' loss to Lampeter-Strasburg, played at Spring-Ford High, in Royersford, full justice, a three-part series would be necessary.

D AVID ROSS hit a bases-loaded single in the 10th inning and the Atlanta Braves beat the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1, last night for their second straight victory in extra innings. Atlanta and Pittsburgh played 19 innings Tuesday night before Julio Lugo scored the winning run on a controversial call at the plate that umpire Jerry Meals later acknowledged was incorrect. Ross became Atlanta's starting catcher yesterday when the Braves placed Brian McCann on the 15-day disabled list with a left oblique injury.

Everybody, including home-plate umpire John Hirschbeck, knew that Roy Halladay was working on a no-hitter. And Hirschbeck instinctively understood he might be the only one who couldn't let himself get caught up in the increasing frenzy around him. Only after it was over, after Halladay put the finishing touch on his second no-no of the season and the Phillies beat the Reds, 4-0, in Game 1 of their National League Division Series, did the veteran...

Bill Klem, the umpire whose Hall of Fame career predated replays, Jumbotrons and in-season vacations, never had a problem distinguishing between safe and out or ball and strike. "It ain't nothing," Klem used to explain, "till I call it. " Klem helped define umpiring, helped make the men in blue as much a part of the game as the players themselves. But he also knew that the best of his breed were those you rarely noticed. Last week, in Philadelphia, as likely will be the case this week in some other city, the umpires were noticed.

Comment From Marshall Mathers : Why am I not worried about the Phillies? They never beat the Astros this time of year, and I know they didn't gain on the Braves, but they didn't lose ground, either. Gonzo: I watched the Phils-Mets rivalry show on Versus the other day. Shane Victorino had a lot of face time. He kept saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that the Phils have shown that they're a late-season team and they never give up. And he's right. Same goes for this year. They should have performed better against the 'Stros, sure, but I'm not worried about it. They always play better down the stretch when the pressure is on. Comment From Ryan : Do you think you made an enemy today?

Paul Dehel wore a Phillies jersey and carried a two-sided, autographed sign praising a visiting player and mocking an umpire. The 17-year-old from Jenkintown summed up a strange night at Citizens Bank Park. To many in the 106th consecutive sellout crowd, the bad guys in the building weren't so much the players in rust-colored jerseys - after all, popular former Phillie J.A. Happ was the Astros' starting pitcher - as the arbiters in gray slacks and black hats. "After the last two nights, I had to," Dehel said of his decision to display a sign that took umpire Scott Barry to task for his work in the 14th inning of the Phillies' 4-2 loss to the Astros on Tuesday night.

By the end of the longest and most peculiar night of this Phillies season, Roy Oswalt was playing left field, Raul Ibanez was at first base, and Brian Schneider was catching. Mostly a lack of offense was to blame - the Phillies had two runs and 10 hits in 16 innings of a 4-2 loss to the Houston Astros on Tuesday night - but third-base umpire Scott Barry also played a role in the last of manager Charlie Manuel's moves on his mangled lineup card. With runners at first and second and two outs in the bottom of the 14th inning, Ryan Howard thought he had checked his swing on a two-strike pitch from Astros righthander Mark Melancon.