Faith, Family and a Daily Ride
There they were standing on the side of the road, right on time as usual. Going on 56 years, they have yet to disappoint Jim Garman.
Climbing into his white Toyota 4-Runner, the couple settled into the back seat for their daily journey with Garman on the streets of Houston. As he peered into the rear-view mirror at his passengers, the choppy waters of another challenging day were stilled to a glass surface by their peaceful presence and an assured smile widened across Garman’s face.
There was Quentin in a clerical collar and a snappy suit, accentuating his large, athletic build. His once full head of hair had long ago conceded to the passing of years, but a broad German nose, distinctive deep voice and ice-melting smile carried the day for him as much as ever.
“The will of God will never take you where the grace of God will not keep you,” Quentin counseled Garman during their ride.
Blissfully sitting beside her husband was pretty, petite Jeannette, her deep voice somewhat at odds with her smallish features. Wearing her trademark pantsuit, she flashed her knowing freckle-faced smile that assured Garman everything was going to be OK. And one simply didn’t question the self-assured woman who liked to say of her husband, “He may wear the pants in the family, but I make sure they hang straight.”
As Garman pulled into his destination, another glance in the rear-view mirror revealed only a vacant back seat. But that was OK. Quentin and Jeannette would be catching another spiritual ride with the baby of their four children the following morning as assuredly as a scorching sun would rise over the distant Houston oil refineries.
“I do believe that when I look in the rear-view mirror of my life, I imagine my parents are always there … together,” Garman said.
Values That Shaped an Umpire
And just as the sun always rises into such a radiant glow, Quentin and Jeannette long ago ensured that their youngest son would do the same with their hands-on guidance.
“They’re still instilling their lessons in me,” the 55-year-old Garman said. “Through prayer, I touch base with them almost daily.”
Under the spiritual, loving guidance of Quentin, who died in 1999 — 9-9-99 to be exact — and Jeannette, described by eldest son Wally as a frail 94 in a Scottsdale, Ariz., care center, Jim Garman developed into one of the most respected college baseball umpires to ever lace up a pair of spikes. A man with charismatic people skills has perfected an understated, yet authoritative, approach with a clergyman’s touch. He’s a gentle soul who consistently represents the eye of a hurricane occasionally whipped up by short-tempered coaches and players who prey on the perceived weak.
“He’s the guy who, when all the marbles are down, is right there,” said David Rogers, the president of the Houston College Umpires Association.
“When he walks on the field, he’s in full command and the coaches relax,” said Dan Pedersen, the coordinator of baseball umpires for the Pac-12 and Western Athletic conferences.
Raised in the shadows of Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach, Calif., which Quentin started by knocking on the doors of potential members as World War II was winding down and built into a congregation approaching 2,500 members, Garman was nurtured by enduring values from an early age.
“Growing up in a large Lutheran church with my father as minister and my mother so dedicated to our church was a huge impact on me,” Garman said. “My parents walked their talk. The virtues of how to be a helpful and giving person have shaped me in every way.”
The couple of pieces of gum he quietly stuck into his pocket at Sam’s All-Star Market as a boy were returned promptly to owner Sam Chow with a heartfelt apology, on adamant orders from Jeannette. Coming of age in the brunt of the counter-culture revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Garman resisted the temptation of flower child-charted paths that ultimately led to nowhere and walked the straight and narrow road illuminated by his parents’ guidance.
“Many kids were turning off to religion and church, but I was three thumbs up about it,” Garman said. “I was in a youth group going on conventions and convocations and marathon walks to raise money and walk for mankind.”
Wally Garman sees the image of his late father and elderly mother to this day in the brother 10 years his junior.
“The best thing I can say about my brother is he was always around the church and he knew everybody’s name,” he said. “He would know everyone from the two-year-old to the 88-year-old. He always had a hug and a kiss for the elderly ladies.
“I think that was a rub off, quite frankly, from my dad because at the end of the service, my dad would stand at the front door, slipping the grip to each parishioner who was there that day. He would call them by name and have a little word with them as they went by.”
Jeannette, robbed of her remarkable vitality by the passing of time, played her own role in shaping Jim’s image. Quite the mover and shaker in her time, Jeannette led national Lutheran women organizations and, as Garman said, “showed my two brothers and sister what it meant to champion a cause and how to make a difference in your community.”
What a one-two punch on influence Quentin and Jeannette represented.
Trials, Successes and Setbacks
And in what has been an eventful and often challenging life, Garman has managed to run to daylight in times of crisis, consistently sprung into the open field by the blocks of his parents’ wisdom. Between the time he was pressed into serving as an emergency replacement umpire for one of his father’s church league softball games at the age of 14 — “I had my first bang-bang play at first base, I just totally blew it and the guys came running after me!” he recalled — and the time he earned a place with legendary umpire Doug Harvey in the San Diego Hall of Champions on Sept. 20, Garman’s life has been a gamut of trials and tribulations, successes and setbacks that he has celebrated and endured.
“My parents always taught me to look on the bright side of things,” he said. “Everyone goes through low times, but it’s how you handle the low times and how you move through them that defines you as a person.”
There have been some extremes in the life of James Albert Garman.
He started for a Mission Bay High School football team that went 0-18 his junior and senior seasons (“If the waves were up, we couldn’t field a football team,” he said). And he started at slot flanker for California Lutheran when it won the 1976 NAIA championship. Garman even caught the game-winning touchdown pass in a national semifinal victory over William Penn after pledging such heroics to his parents in a letter he sent prior to the game.
He ran himself and his rickety brown Honda Civic stick shift into the ground on endless back roads in the lower reaches of the minor leagues, chasing what he thought was his dream. And he’s worked eight College World Series over four decades — his most recent five assignments were as crew chief — and was behind the plate for gold medal game of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
This father of two has endured a divorce and re-discovered happiness with his second wife, Rose, whom he married in August 2005.
He succeeded in a demanding human resources career for corporations with as many as 15,000 employees and $5 billion in sales while somehow maintaining his peerless reputation as an umpire. And he has learned what it’s like to be the odd man out during a corporate transition.
“I’ve been acquired, laid off and let go,” said Garman, whose career in human resources has taken him from California to Indiana to Michigan, back to California and, most recently, to Texas, where he started a position in July as Chief Human Resources Officer for Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston.
But he has thrived and survived well into middle age with the value system instilled by his parents. It all didn’t go according to plan — does anything in life? — but what a journey it’s been since his contented childhood growing up three blocks from an idyllic Pacific Ocean beach.
He might have been, could have been, one of the elite major league umpires working today, and that was the plan. Supported by his parents and nurtured by people who included the late Bob O’Regan, a longtime scout for the Minnesota Twins who ran the North Shores Umpire School, Garman almost seemed destined to reach the major leagues.
“He said, ‘Hey, why don’t you go to professional umpire school?’” Garman said of O’Regan. “I thought about it and talked it over with my parents and they were all for it. I could fit it in between two semesters at Cal Lutheran, I did well, signed a contract and the rest is history.”
The Minor League Road
Garman started out in the lower reaches of the minor leagues as a recent college graduate in June 1977. The pay was a budget-busting $800 per month, $500 of which covered expenses.
Securing a position in the Pioneer League, Garman hit the road for Paso Robles, Calif., to pick up Ron Kuntz, assigned to be his partner for that season. A two-and-a-half-day journey in Garman’s packed Honda to Billings, Mont., followed, during which 18-wheelers roaring past the cheap hotels they stopped at beside interstate highways provided the soundtrack of their new, challenging life.
“We called it ‘The Toy,’” Kuntz said of Garman’s car. “The Toy would only fit so much. We had our equipment bag, we had our uniform bag and we had a suitcase. That was about it. Whatever essentials we needed had to fit into The Toy just perfectly to work for us.”
Would a pair of green 22-year-old umpires stand a chance from men who made their living in professional baseball and who would shred them to pieces at the first sign of submission?
“It was a big deal to be leaving home and going out to the minor leagues,” Garman said.
But through it all, that parental link was as strong as ever. Unpacking the contents of his suitcase in a Billings motel room, Garman’s tired eyes drifted to a five-by-five-inch sheet of notepad paper tucked in a side pocket.
In the majestic, artistic handwriting he immediately identified as coming from the pen of his mother, the note read, “Never forget who you are, what you stand for and where you’ve come from.”
“I broke down,” Garman said. “I went down, called her and thanked her. There was a lot of change going on. I had graduated from college, was going out in the minor leagues and I didn’t know what it meant. It was more anticipation, wondering what I had gotten myself into.”
More than 34 years later, Kuntz can still feel the potency of his partner coming across a small piece of paper that packed the punch of an illuminated billboard.
“I do remember him getting very emotional about it because this was his opportunity to really go out and establish himself,” Kuntz said. “They were always there for him. They were a very, very tight family and Quentin and Mrs. Q. were always part of his life from the beginning. It was just her way of saying, ‘You’ve done well; make the most of this opportunity.’ Just taking the time to putting something in writing was very special to him.”
That little piece of paper remained with Garman for several years, serving as a motivational postcard when the going got tough. And did it ever get rough.
“I just remember that these guys argued a lot better,” Garman said. “It’s more of a business and more of their livelihood and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is a different level.’ Everything’s up a couple of notches and I just remember the incredible drives. From Idaho Falls to Calgary and then you get out of the car and umpire? That’s like a 16-hour drive.”
A Lesson From the “Holy Roller”
But Garman forged on against the enormous odds. He even received a lesson Sept. 10, 1978, that influences him to this day. It was while he was working a part-time job he had held since his teenage years — attendant for the referees’ locker room at what was then known as Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.
With 10 seconds remaining and the Oakland Raiders trailing the San Diego Chargers, 20-14, Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler fumbled the ball forward — he later admitted it was intentional — as he was about to be sacked by Woodrow Lowe near San Diego’s 14 yardline. In a game that would take on the derisive nicknames “Holy Roller” and “Immaculate Deception,” Raiders tight end Dave Casper batted and kicked the ball into the end zone before falling on it for what proved to be the game-winning touchdown.
The NFL supported referee Jerry Markbreit, who had ruled Stabler fumbled instead of throwing a forward pass. New rules were adopted in the offseason to address the issue. When Markbreit and his crew entered the safety of their locker room as irate Chargers fans screamed in protest, Garman was a fly on the wall who witnessed firsthand what that besieged crew was experiencing.
“I can’t remember who the crew chief was,” Garman admitted, “but he said, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it, guys. We just cost them the game.’ That little bit of humor broke the ice.
“It made a big impression on me because it was a huge game and a big game-ending call. And for those guys to have a sense of seriousness, then humor, it gave me perspective and a sense of brotherhood in officiating — we all try to be perfect every time out on the field, but no one can be perfect all the time.”
Choosing the Right Life
But Garman certainly was approaching excellence as he ascended through the minor leagues. He worked his way from the Pioneer League to the California League to the Texas League by 1981, but that’s where the professional journey abruptly ended for both Kuntz and Garman.
Kuntz met a woman who would become his wife and realized he couldn’t make a living on a minor league umpire’s wages. Garman’s reasoning was rooted far more into his upbringing as he observed the big picture with increasing concern.
“The biggest driver was that most of the major league umpires I knew weren’t that happy, personally as well as with their family life,” Garman said. “Those were the days before they had vacation and rotation and most of the umpires I knew were either divorced or not being faithful or missing their kids.
“I wasn’t married at the time, but I knew the lifestyle I wanted to live and that wasn’t in alignment. That was unfortunate because I was doing well.”
A Fixture in Omaha
By the summer of 1981, he took his first human resources position, for Sea World Inc., in San Diego, but umpiring remained in his blood. He had just worked the postseason for the NCAA Division I regionals for the first time that spring and went on to earn assignments to the tournament for the next 30 years. Garman’s stock soared to the point that he made the trip to Omaha to umpire at the College World Series in 1987, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2011.
He even worked briefly in the major leagues in 1995 when he served as a replacement during an umpires’ strike in spring training and the first week of the regular season.
It was nothing more than a cameo appearance in the Big Show, but Garman was certainly up for the challenge he once pursued as a career.
“I was proud of our work and that we as amateur umpires could work without any issues,” Garman said. “As far as crossing the line with Major League Baseball umpires, it was my opinion that there was no way whatsoever that we were going to take their jobs. We were just replacements until the issue got resolved. It was a great experience and no long-term harm was done to anyone. No regrets.”
Should there be any question Garman wouldn’t have excelled at that level had he not altered his career goals in 1981? Not at all. This is a man who long ago mastered his craft.
“He’s extremely consistent,” Pedersen said. “He’s highly respected. He doesn’t make many mistakes, but when he does, most of them go unnoticed. That’s how good he is.
“He’s worked the World Series for four decades now and it’s pretty amazing that he can do that, that anybody can do that.”
What Rogers most admires is a man who doesn’t draw attention to himself, but takes command when the situation warrants.
“He’s always been very low key,” Rogers said. “If there’s a checked swing and it’s like the catcher is asking for a checked swing, he’s going to give you the most nonchalant, ‘No, he didn’t go,’ as you’ve ever seen.
“But if the play has the ability to be bold and it has somebody on the spot, he’s going to be right there. You don’t have to worry about him taking care of his end of the bargain.”
A Father’s Voice
Perhaps his crowning achievement came in 1997 when LSU defeated Alabama in the deciding game of the 1997 College World Series. Sitting in the Rosenblatt Stadium stands in stifling heat that afternoon were Quentin and Jeannette. Taking a deep breath just as his father constantly reminded him to do so many years earlier, Garman basked in the glow of calling a great game from behind the plate as he sensed his parents beaming with pride.
What timing it turned out to be for it was the last College World Series that Garman would work prior to Quentin’s death 27 months later.
“Just to have them sit up there and watch their son do well was very important to me,” Garman said.
Life goes on for Garman as he carries on the values instilled in him by his late father and physically diminished mother. But he still talks to them every day, mostly when he’s behind the wheel of his 4-Runner.
In fact, as he was driving to Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport in June for the flight to Omaha for another College World Series, he had quite a talk with that lovable mentor with the German nose, clerical collar, sharp suit and illuminating smile.
“Hey, Dad,” Garman started. “It has been a good season for me so far, but the biggest challenge is the CWS coming up. I know you will be watching — just like you always were, whether I was playing or umpiring baseball. I remember when you and mom came to Omaha in ’97. What an awesome time we had. I miss you being there with me. I just saw mom last month when I had a series at Arizona State. She didn’t quite know who I was all the time, but she still carries herself like the minister’s wife and has that great smile.
“Dad, help me this week to always think about your advice on dealing with people and how to represent the game of baseball. I remember how you would tell me before a big pitch to take a deep breath, relax and focus myself. The NCAA and Omaha have built a new stadium, so the old one you and mom went to is going to be leveled. It’s kind of sad. I have mixed emotions. The new stadium looks great, but it seems like things just keep getting bigger and bigger.
“In Omaha, they are predicting some hot weather. I remember you and mom sitting up in the stands, just roasting under that sun. You guys never complained. I also remember those LSU fans you converted to cheering for the umpires. I bet they never did that before!
“I’ll check in with you when I get settled in Omaha. Thanks for being the best father and coach an umpire could ever have. I miss you. I hope I will make you and mom very proud.
“Amen.”
Peter Jackel is an award-winning sportswriter from Racine, Wis.
