And for 31 National League seasons, that’s just what Doug Harvey did before retiring after the 1992 season. His passion for the game defined Doug Harvey the man, making him among the most revered umpires of all time.
Oct. 4, 1992: In the lockerroom in the Houston Astrodome, Doug Harvey calmly prepared for his last supper with baseball the only way he knew how: Business as usual. Never mind that every moment of that day would be his last with baseball. Harvey’s crew of Jerry Crawford, Charlie Williams and Gerry Davis would watch their chief control the game for the last time. They understood the magnitude of the day. Baseball had given them the privilege of being a part of it.
After a lifetime of devotion to the game, there was little fanfare that day for Doug Harvey. The game pitted the L.A. Dodgers against the Astros, two teams that knew their seasons had ended long before their calendars said so. It was the last day of the long season and most wanted to just go home. But Harvey was at home. Before his final first pitch, the Astrodome’s message board lit up with Doug’s name and the sparse crowd politely applauded. Play ball.
During the games that consumed 47 years of his life, Harvey carried himself behind the plate in much the same way he always conducts himself: With an air of dignity and reserve. His strike call was as distinctive as his luminescent, silver hair. For a lefthanded hitter, Harvey systematically locked into the slot early and waited patiently for the deliverance. Well after the ball crossed the plate, he jabbed his right arm, fist clenched, straight across his body while barking the result. Strong. Deliberate. No one had to guess what Harvey thought of a pitch. No one has to guess what Harvey thinks about anything. He is as straightforward and decisive as his delayed strike call.
The ‘Chief.’
In baseball, many veterans have been called “Chief.” To Harvey, it meant a little more. His mother, Margaret, is a full-blooded Cherokee-Choctaw Indian and he believes that bloodline helped make him the umpire he was and the person he is, proudly displaying the self-respect of an Indian warrior.
Parlaying his internal strength enhanced by his heritage, Harvey and his family fought through the latter stages of the Depression. “I know what it is to be deprived,” he said. “I vividly remember walking with my mother three miles one way through Los Angeles to cash in a stamp that allowed me a pair of shoes.” They couldn’t afford to take the street cars.
Doug Harvey’s father, Harold, was invisible to Doug for five years. Dad had to work too much to be Dad. He was an ice man from 4:00 a.m. ’til 1:00 p.m., a fruit packer from 2:00 p.m. ’til midnight. By the time he came home, young Doug had gone to bed. Despite the hardships consistent with that era, the Cherokee-Choctaw calming influence crafted a belief system based on internal strength, a respect for the earth and the importance of family.
Doug Harvey holds strong religious beliefs, but doesn’t trumpet them. He doesn’t sit in a pew every Sunday. Yet, his strength comes from a religiousness that challenges him every day. “God put each of us on earth and said: ‘I defy you. I will put certain blocks in your way. Let’s see if you get by them.’ ” Harvey faced his first “block” at the age of four, when he was diagnosed with ailing kidneys. Due to that, he was hospitalized for his fifth and sixth birthdays. Doctors said: “Take that boy home. He’s dying.” Given a 2,500-to-1 chance of living, young Doug underwent experimental surgeries. He ran through that block and for his determination he would be rewarded many times over.
When in need of solace, he will find a plot of earth and lie down, communing with Mother Earth. To Harvey, baseball is a game of nature, “the greatest game God invented” and his love of that game must have been hereditary. He fondly recalls his father playing ball for barnstorming teams every weekend in the late 1930’s. Mom and the gang would tag along to watch.
During his high school days, the El Centro (Calif.) Imperials (Class D Sunset League) became a part of the Harvey family. From 1943-48, Doug’s father would complete his day-long driving routes, then serve as the team’s business manager. To stay close to Dad, the family embraced baseball. Margaret worked the concession stand as Doug helped her clean it and prepare the food. He also sold programs, took the flag to centerfield and was the team’s batboy. Then, after every game, he cleaned the concession stand and the lockerrooms. Since Harold did some umpiring, the Harveys opened up their home to the umps who came to town, with Margaret making postgame meals. Doug Harvey loved it.
A Passion for Baseball.
Doug Harvey devoted his life to baseball. “Officiating becomes all-encompassing once you’ve truly been bitten by the bug. It takes every fiber of your soul,” he said.
His passion bordered on fanaticism. He enjoys golf, but unlike other pro umps, he never played it during the season as he believed it sapped his strength. On the days that he worked the plate, he did not read the newspaper or watch TV for fear of eyestrain.
Harvey never had to push himself to officiate because he loved it so much. “I was meant to officiate, there’s no doubt in my mind. I’m one of the few people on Earth who found what he was supposed to be and got a chance to live it. God meant me to umpire.”
Many in baseball refer to Harvey as “God” and Doug is somewhat troubled by that moniker. As the tale goes, the label was planted on him when he was working a game during a rainstorm and was trying desperately to get it in. The weather proved too tough and the tarp was brought out. The rain continued, but Harvey delayed calling off the game. That’s when Terry Kennedy, then a catcher with San Diego, was purported to have said about Harvey: “What does he care about the rain? He’s God. He walks on water.” The name stuck. Though most use the term innocuously, Harvey prefers it not be used. No man could have such influence. Not even an umpire.
Harvey’s drive and dedication were accentuated by umpires of influence, such as Al Barlick, Jocko Conlan and Shag Crawford. Harvey and Crawford worked 12 years together in the N.L. Said Harvey about Crawford: “He was hot-headed and had an Irish temperament. He’d go and get anybody.” Doug’s calculated calmness helped Shag relax while Shag’s excitability kept Harvey pumped up. They were good for each other. Said Crawford: “In all my years of umpiring, I don’t recall anyone being as consistent as Harvey.”
A Razor-Sharp Edge.
But for all his calm, Harvey’s demeanor is punctuated by a razor-sharp edge. He feels that if you are cut by it, you’ve cut yourself. He draws a straight, hard line between what is and isn’t acceptable and there’s no leeway. That’s the only way he knows how to do things. He sees things clearly as either right or wrong; there are no gray areas. He is consistent to a fault. Cross that line and you are excised from his life.
One person who crossed that line is his first son, also named Doug, from a previous marriage. When the younger Harvey ran away from his home, leaving his kids, he had gone too far: Dad Doug severed the relationship. It’s been five years since Harvey has seen his son. “That child is up in the mountains someplace,” he said, admitting that he doesn’t know exactly where his son lives.
Harvey carried the same hard-line approach through his umpiring career. On the field he would listen, but only to a point. His philosophy with managers was simple. “I gave every man 20 seconds to let him vent. After that, I’d tell him, ‘I’ve listened to you and you haven’t changed my mind.’ ” He strongly believes that you can’t control others unless you first control yourself. That doesn’t mean he shrinks from doing battle. “If a ballplayer is going to hammer me unfairly, then I’m going to hammer back. I think that’s the way most good umpires look at it.”
Unionization and the ‘Scabs.’
In 1979, replacement umpires, called “scabs” by Harvey, replaced the regulars when they went on strike. The “scabs” pained when touched by Harvey’s edge. Even today, 14 years later, his voice rises and his pace quickens when talking about the sub umps, as if it were yesterday when they crossed the picket lines. Harvey’s overflowing river of emotions related to the “scabs” starts with his attachment to the Major League Umpires’ Association (MLUA, the umpires’ union).
In 1963, Harvey’s second N.L. season, the umpires considered unionization. Harvey was committed to that goal because to him, it was simply the right thing to do. A few months earlier, Harvey was in Pittsburgh for a Sept. 15, 1962, game between the Pirates and Giants. While at the hotel, he received a phone call from Joy, his wife, who was in Bakersfield. She told Doug: “Honey, I’m at the hospital now. I’m here to have your child.” Fighting to keep his emotions in check, Doug Harvey recalled what went through his mind at the time. “There I was, 3,000 miles away, and I wasn’t allowed to go home for the birth of our first child. That upset me.” It also solidified his support for the formation of an umpires’ union.
In part, that’s why Harvey’s calculated calmness turned into borderline rage when the “scabs” worked in 1979. It hurt him then, it hurts him now and it will still hurt him tomorrow. Said Harvey: “There’s two things I hate in life: liars and thieves. The scabs are both. They’re lying by telling themselves they’re major league umpires. And they’re stealing my job.”
When the dust settled, he did not budge. When asked what he would have done if the roles had been reversed, his answer is curt: “I’d have told them to stick it. I’m not stealing any man’s job.” Critics say that Harvey and the other regular umps should try to understand the scabs’ perspective. Harvey disagrees. “How about Doug Harvey, who’s given his whole life to baseball? Thirty years since I started umpiring and I had to stand outside stadiums! Those scabs came in (to the stadium) and someone hollered at them, ‘How can you do this?’ And (Dave) Pallone (one of four umpires who rose to the N.L. during the ’79 strike) hollered back: ‘Screw all of you. I’ll be here when you are all gone.’ Now I should worry about what happens to people like that? No way!”
Eventually, all four scabs retained by the N.L. left the league. “If I had to give one reason why all four of them are out, it’s because of (me),” said Harvey.
At an MLUA meeting years ago, the members voted on whether to bring the “scabs” into the group. Some argued that the MLUA should accept them because, as Harvey put it, they would be “stupid” not to collect their initiation fees and annual dues. “I stood up at that meeting and said: ‘That’s the problem around here. You people are talking about it being a monetary thing and it’s a moral issue. I will never change my morals.’ ” The scabs were denied entry.
Harvey said that while no scab wanted to work with him, such a pairing was unavoidable. When it occurred, before the first pitch of the season Chief Harvey sat in the dressing room with his two partners on one side and the “scab” across the room. “I’d look at both of my partners and say in a loud, firm voice, ‘If I catch you eating breakfast, lunch or dinner with this guy (the scab), catch you walking to the ballpark with him or even splitting a cab with him, then for the rest of the year you travel with him because I’m no longer your partner. That’s all I’ve got to say other than should there be anything pertaining to the rules of the game and he comes to you and asks you a question, tell him to come and see the Chief.’ ”
Harvey would answer scabs’ questions only because it was in the best interest of the game. “They were a non-entity when they worked with me. My responsibility is to the game, not to a change of my moralities.”
No “scab” ever tugged at Harvey’s heartstrings. But on the field, he says he truly tried to help. At a game in New York, replacement umpire Lanny Harris was working the plate on Harvey’s crew. Joe Torre argued a call made by Harris and, by Harvey’s account, was berating the new ump. Harvey finally walked in from the infield and told Torre that was enough. “I said: ‘Okay, Joe. You’ve hammered this kid pretty good. Now let’s go on or you’re going.’ Torre turned to Harris and told him, ‘You’re horses-!’ And he stayed in the ballgame! That’s not my kind of umpire!” Harvey and Harris, who passed away in 1991, never discussed the incident because to do so would have violated Doug’s self-imposed prohibition against talking with scabs.
Life with Wife Joy.
The expressions Harvey brandished on the field sometimes carried over to his home life in San Diego. Joy, the Chief’s best partner, knows how to handle him. When consumed by baseball as Doug is, it was difficult to shut off baseball when he returned home after the season. Joy faced that problem ever since they married in 1960. “I was tough on Joy when I first got back every year. I’d been in an all-male environment for months, cursing and digging at other umpires to stay loose.”
In the dawn of Doug’s career, Joy didn’t back down. As soon as he got back, she’d send him out to play golf for two weeks. That meant go out at sunrise, come back at dusk, eat dinner and go to bed. When the baseball ills filtered through and left his system, Joy accepted the Chief back into their home. When his dugout mouth ran rampant, Joy would say, “Harvey, I’m not one of your crew.” That quickly brought him back to reality.
The Beginning of the End.
Joy has been an active and willing participant in her husband’s career. Doug said he was one of the first umpires to bring his wife to offseason, umpire-related award presentations and banquets. She attended postseason games Doug worked and was there when he decided to retire. That difficult decision was made last season as he weaved his way through a series of problems. First, early in the season, he had double-knee surgery. Then later, he was fatigued and struggled to complete a plate assignment in 100-degree temps in Atlanta. “I barely made it,” he said. “The seventh, eighth and ninth innings were hell. I was 62 years old and I had to fight to make it.”
Between innings, worried trainers and batboys made a fuss over Harvey. Jerry Crawford, Shag’s son, was working first base. Late in the game, Crawford walked in and said, “Chief, I think we ought to get you out of here.” Harvey was defiant. “Jerry, I’ve got nine outs to go and I’m an S.O.B. if I can’t make nine outs. Get the hell back out there. Leave me alone. I’ll let you know when and if.”
Harvey finished the game. But this time, as he walked through the tunnel after the game, he had the dry heaves. A doctor told him he’d be okay with rest and fluids. But even Doug Harvey admits he had been pushed to the limit. “I just had about as much as I could take.”
That came as no surprise to Joy, who was in Chicago, had watched the game on TV and had planned to meet Doug there later. She saw the trainers and batboys tend to Doug and watched as he awkwardly worked the last few innings from one knee, saving precious energy. When Doug arrived in Chicago, she gave him hell. She was as worried as he was sick.
The handwriting was on Doug Harvey’s wall: Once the season ended, he could no longer continue to umpire and would have to leave the game that for decades he dearly loved. “I won’t look back and say I should’ve stayed one more year,” he said. He feared that if he stayed too long, he might violate his personal golden rules: Don’t embarrass baseball and don’t embarrass his family. He worried he was on the verge of doing both. It was time. “I’ve given 47 years of my life to officiating. It bothers me to think that I will no longer be a part of it, will no longer be a part of helping young umpires become better.”
Harvey seems to be waiting for a sign that will lead him to the next phase of his life. He enjoys sharing wisdom and believes he has lots to offer. Yet he hasn’t done anything to try to land a job in which he can work with young umps. He knows he’s led an accomplished life and is not about to call people and expound on his talents. If you want Doug Harvey, you’re going have to come to him.
He would like, but would never ask, to be considered for the Hall of Fame. He is taken aback by the thought of joining the likes of Barlick and Conlan. Many people have asked him about that and he sheepishly shrugs. “I didn’t set myself to get to the Hall of Fame and I can’t do anything about it. If it happens, it happens.” Being inducted into baseball’s Hall may not be top priority for Doug, but it means so much to his mother, now 86 years old. “She’s sitting at home and I asked her how she was doing,” said Doug. “She said, ‘I’m fine, but I’m staying alive to see you get into the Hall of Fame.’ ”
The Final Game.
Although Harvey literally set the standard for today’s big league umpires, his retirement from the N.L. was practically a non-event for the powers that be. In fact, he said there was no formal recognition from league executives. No one from the front office, not one, attended any of his final games. “I was told by three ballclubs that the N.L. office insisted upon using the rule that no umpire may be given gifts by a ballclub,” he said. The New York Mets defied that rule by giving Harvey a set of golf clubs; his crewmates gave him a watch. Plus, he said that over half the big league umpires wrote or called offering best wishes.
It seemed less than fitting that Harvey’s career ended with a regular-season game in Houston instead of with the N.L. playoffs or the World Series. He said he was offered a chance to bow out with the World Series, but turned it down because he believed he couldn’t give baseball his best. For his final game, Harvey worked the plate after trading rotation spots with Jerry Crawford. Doug wanted his finale to be behind the plate. Plus, the umpires wanted to get home as much as anyone.
The night before that game, Doug asked his crewmates what time their postgame flights departed. They said 6:35. The Chief demanded they move up the flight time to the next earlier departure, which was 4:55. “Book it,” Harvey ordered. His crew was concerned they’d miss their flight knowing that game time was 2:00. Harvey reassured them, saying: “Don’t worry, you’ll make it. There won’t be many baserunners.”
By all accounts, the game was unconsequential. The managers came out to home plate with their lineup cards, handing them to Harvey. Somewhat out of character, he passed the cards back to them without scrutinizing them. Then Doug got their attention when he drew lines with his foot nine inches off the outside corners of the plate. Straight, hard lines. He said, “This is my last plate job and you’d better send them up swinging.” The managers looked bewildered. Harvey said: “I’m not kidding. The games are too long and we don’t even need this game.” One man asked what Doug would use to measure the height of his strike zone. With a smile as wide as his newly-found strike zone, he said, “Chin to shin.”
One hour and 44 minutes later, the 3-0 game was over and so was Doug Harvey’s umpiring career. The umpires were pressed for time. They quickly cleaned up and packed their bags. The Astros’ clubhouse attendant brought in a cake and champagne. Joy and their two sons joined them in the lockerroom. The crew members sipped champagne together and hurriedly said their final good-byes. Doug and Joy Harvey were left alone in the lockerroom. That was all the fanfare he needed.
Written by Bill Topp, Referee assistant editor
