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To give umpires a measure of protection, ushers periodically patrol the stands looking for troublemakers, and all major-league ballparks now serve drinks in paper cups instead of cans or bottles. But determined fans still manage to smuggle heavy artillery into the parks. When the Chicago White Sox played host to a group of golf caddies earlier this season, the umpires were pelted with 500 golf balls. Says Umpire Runge: "Once a lady threw a shoe at me. Generally it's the standard stuff—bottles, garbage, cushions, programs. But I turned white in New York a few weeks ago when someone tossed a four-inch bomb behind me."
Fastballs & Foul Tips. Even when the fans, players, coaches and managers are reasonably passive, the umpire faces other dangers. Physical injuries are common. Most dangerous assignment: calling balls and strikes behind home plate, where the umpire is an easy mark for a stray fastball or foul tip. Before he traded his thin, hair-stuffed National League chest protector for an inflated American League model, fragile Jocko Conlan absorbed a regular beating. His hospital record: two broken collarbones, two broken elbows. Last fall in Baltimore, American Leaguer Larry Napp was struck by three successive pitches—one on the mask, two in the groin—and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. The National League's Bill Jackowski has been twice hit in the throat by lined fouls.
To these hazards must be added the loneliness of a man who is by necessity an outcast. Umpires and players do not mingle, fly in the same plane or sleep in the same hotel. Their fan mail is light and invariably scathing. "I occasionally get birthday cards from fans," says the National League's Al Forman. "But it's often the same message: they hope it's my last."
Better Than the Mines. In pursuit of his trade, the aspiring major-league umpire must serve a lengthy minor-league apprenticeship (average duration: five to seven years), pass an exhaustive, FBI-type security check. Even after arrival in the majors, an umpire's tenure is chronically insecure: he can be optioned, traded or fired, sometimes on whim.
The umpire's rewards are slim. Traveling seven months of the year, working seven-day weeks, he is paid a starting major-league salary of $7,500, can work up to a top of about $18,000. But for all that, ex-ballplayers, would-be ballplayers who never got beyond the bush leagues, and fans with the hankering and the nerve to brave the insults and the perils of umpiring keep the majors well supplied with raw stock. "It's an unnatural life," says Umpire Augie Donatelli, who came out of the Pennsylvania coal country and took up umpiring after washing out of class D professional ball. "But have you ever been miles deep in a soft-coal mine? Umpiring gets rough, but whenever it does, I say to myself, 'Augie, this is better than the mines.' "