But not always.

On Tuesday, May 19, 1998, the first-place New York Yankees were entertaining the last-place Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a three-game series. Working the game were AL umpires Drew Coble, plate; Dale Ford, first; Ted Hendry, second; and Larry Young, third.

The crew was put on notice that something may be brewing. “We got a call from Steve Palermo, one of the umpire supervisors, alerting us to some bad blood between the two teams,” Young recalled. “So we were prepared.”

Baltimore led, 5-3, and the game was moving smoothly going into the bottom of the eighth. But after a couple of walks, Orioles Manager Ray Miller, taking no chances, made a pitching change, bringing in Alan Mills to replace Sidney Ponson. Mills lasted one batter before being relieved by Norm Charlton. After facing one batter, Charlton was replaced by Armando Benitez, setting the stage for one of the biggest brawls in baseball history.

Benitez, known for his quick temper, left one up for Bernie Williams, who promptly smoked a three-run homer more than 400 feet into the upper deck. That brought up Yankees’ centerfielder Tino Martinez.

On the first pitch, Martinez was drilled in the upper middle of his back with what was reported to be a 98 mile-per-hour fastball. To ask if the pitch was intentional would be like, well, asking Albert Pujols if he ever hit a home run. The pitch was a blatant effort to hit Martinez.

Coble ejected Benitez in a heartbeat. Actually, Coble got him faster than that, “I ejected Benitez almost before the pitch got there,” Coble was quoted as saying. “You’re always looking for it and hope it doesn’t happen. I felt he would throw at him. I didn’t feel he would throw up at his head like he did. If you’re going to throw at anyone, you throw at his feet.” Benitez, as expected, offered the time-honored excuse, “I’m sorry for this,” the pitcher said with a straight face, “I didn’t try to hit him. I just tried to throw inside.”

Benitez looked toward the New York dugout, dropped his glove and all but invited the team to come on out. The Yankees were only too happy to oblige. At first, both benches emptied, moving toward the center of the infield. There was the usual pushing and shoving and yelling. Then, with players from both bullpens arriving on the scene, Yankee pitchers Graeme Lloyd and Jeff Nelson started whaling on Benitez. And it was on.

At first, the umpire crew tried to separate the combatants. That was until the fists started flying. The umpires then got out of the way and started taking names.  Darryl Strawberry was an interested observer until someone apparently said the wrong thing, and he became part of the undercard, joining the fray and going after Benitez. “I told Strawberry if he crossed the foul line he was done,” Coble, the crew chief, said. “Obviously, he was in no mood to listen.” It took the best efforts of Yankees Manager Joe Torre, and others, to finally get the 6-foot-6 Strawberry under control.

The fight had a life of its own

“The fight just seemed to have a life of its own,” recalled Young. “I have never seen anything like that before.” Miller was also busy, trying to get his team settled down. With fights breaking out all over, the scrum gravitated toward the Orioles’ third-base dugout, where a number of players fell down the steps and spilled into the dugout. After a couple of minutes, it seemed order was restored, only to have another flare-up. Surprisingly, even with the number of blows delivered, nobody was seriously injured.

“There were some big-time punches, no question about that,” Hendry remembered. From his position at second base, it was like watching in CinemaScope. “I didn’t want to get in there and get hurt. It was a chain reaction, then everybody got out there and there were some good fights going on.”

When the smoke cleared, the Yankees had pushed across six runs to erase a 5-3 Orioles lead and eventually win the game, 9-5. A video of the melee can be seen on YouTube, “Yankee-Oriole Fight.”

It would be a long night for Coble, who had to write ejection reports on five players: Lloyd, Nelson and Strawberry of the Yankees, and Benitez and Mills of the Orioles. “It was one of the worst brawls I have ever been in,” said Coble, who umpired in the AL for 18 years. “At one time, it was from dugout to dugout.”

The next day, Coble joined AL umpire supervisor Marty Springstead and AL President Gene Budig at the AL office, where they spent more than two hours watching video, trying to sort out the mess.

Budig wasted little time in announcing penalties. The following day, Baltimore’s Benitez was handed an eight-game suspension, while teammate Mills was suspended two games. Strawberry and Lloyd got three-game suspensions and Nelson two games. Budig also fined all five players. An AL official said Benitez was fined $2,000, Strawberry and Lloyd $1,000 each and Nelson and Mills $500 apiece.

So, the question then became, were the two teams warned prior to the second game of the series?

“The crew thought it was pretty much over,” Young said, “And Drew decided against any kind of pregame warning. It kind of ties your hands when you issue warnings.” As it turned out, Coble was correct in his assessment. There were no further problems the rest of the series.

The Yankees won 76 of their remaining 95 games for a 114-48 season, winning the AL East by 22 games. It’s the most wins in a season in Yankee history. New York then went on to win the first of three straight World Series.

So, at Yankee Stadium that day, it really was a bench-clearing brawl, and the crowd of 31,311 did, indeed, see the real deal.

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Ryan reportedly approached pitching coach Tom House in the clubhouse to prepare him for the worst.

“My back hurts, my heel hurts and I’ve been pounding Advil all day,” Ryan told him. “I don’t feel good. I feel old today. Watch me.”

House watched, all right, as Ryan pumped 94 and 95 mph fastballs past batters who weren’t even born when he made his major league debut with the New York Mets in 1966. Second baseman Roberto Alomar swung through the last of those deliveries, the finishing flourish to Ryan’s record seventh career no-hitter. Three months past his 44th birthday, the Rangers’ ageless wonder was the oldest pitcher to author such a masterpiece.

“He was just so dominating,” said plate umpire Tim Tschida, who worked 27 MLB seasons (1986-2012). “As it went on, you got the feeling no one was gonna get a solid hit, that if they broke it up it was gonna be on a flare or an off-the-fists kind of thing or a bloop of some sort. His stuff was just electric.”

The Blue Jays entered the game as the majors’ top hitting team with a .276 average. But Ryan, mixing crackling fastballs with dazzling curveballs and changeups, silenced their bats in a 3-0 victory at Arlington Stadium.

“I never had command of all three pitches like I did tonight,” Ryan told reporters. “This was my most overpowering no-hitter.”

Ryan struck out 16 batters in what Walter Shapiro of Time magazine called a “time-warp classic.”

“There was a chance he’d throw a no-hitter every time he went out there. And he had everything working that night. It just seemed like it was meant to be,” said first-base umpire Drew Coble, who worked in the league from 1982-99. He lost his job as part of the Major League Umpires Association mass resignation strategy in 1999. He was later among those MLB was ordered to rehire, but he instead retired as part of a 2002 agreement.

Ryan threw 83 of his 122 pitches for strikes. He allowed only two baserunners, walking third baseman Kelly Gruber in the first inning and left fielder Joe Carter in the seventh. Neither advanced past first. Otherwise, Ryan was perfect.

Ryan, who concluded his Hall of Fame career in 1993 with 324 wins (tied for 14th on the all-time list) and the major league record for strikeouts (5,714), equaled Sandy Koufax’s mark of four no-hitters while with the California Angels in 1975. He threw his fifth as a member of the Houston Astros six years later and supplanted Cy Young as the oldest pitcher to throw a no-hitter in a 5-0 Texas victory at Oakland on June 11, 1990.

John Shulock, who umpired in the majors from 1979-2002, worked second base in that game and for Ryan’s seventh no-hitter.

Ryan preserved his youthful vitality by sticking to a vigorous workout regimen and riding a stationary bike for 30 minutes following every start, without fail — even in the afterglow of his seventh no-hitter.

“He rode that frickin’ exercise bike 10,000 miles a day, I think,” Coble said with a laugh. “He worked to stay physically fit and he had real strong legs. A lot of power pitchers eventually become junk ball pitchers. He stayed a power pitcher all of his years because he had such strong legs.”

As fit as he was, not even Nostradamus could’ve foreseen an epic outing from Ryan against Toronto. Troubled by a backache, he sought relief with a heating pad in the clubhouse before the game. A headache, tender heel and split callus on the middle finger of his pitching hand added to his woes.

Rangers Manager Bobby Valentine took the unusual step of warning the umpires — Tschida, Coble, Shulock and Mark Johnson (1979-99, who also lost his job with the mass resignation), working third base — that he might need to make an early pitching change.

“When we exchanged lineup cards at home plate, Valentine told me he had a guy warming up in the bullpen because Nolan said his back was stiff,” Tschida said. “So they had another guy ready to go in the top of the first inning.”

Ryan hardly oozed confidence as the leadoff hitter, center fielder Devon White, stepped to the plate.

“I didn’t think I’d be out there very long,” Ryan told reporters. “But once the game got started, everything kicked in for me and it just got better and better as the game went on.”

Ryan allowed only the walk to Gruber in the first inning, then found his groove in the second, freezing all three batters with 12-to-6 curveballs.

“As much as people talked about his fastball, his breaking ball was devastating,” Tschida said. “And when he was on with the breaking ball, he was really tough to hit because he didn’t have to throw a fastball for a real good strike. He struck out the side in the second inning on breaking balls — called strikes to all three hitters, and they didn’t even question those pitches.

“They didn’t even look at me. They just turned and walked back to the dugout. After the third out, I could see the infielders from the Rangers running off the field and they were all looking at each other, smiling.”

Even at that early stage they sensed something magical was afoot.

After a 1-2-3 top of the third, Texas scored three, including right fielder Ruben Sierra’s two-run homer off Jimmy Key. That was all the offensive support Ryan needed.

He breezed through the fourth and fifth innings before shortstop Manny Lee threatened to spoil his budding gem in the sixth with an end-of-the-bat blooper to center. But Gary Pettis raced in, reached down and plucked the ball off his shoelaces.

“That was the only time I was worried,” Ryan said after the game. “That ball could have fallen in, but I knew Gary had a good chance because he was playing shallow. It was good to have a Gold Glover there on that play.”

The decibel level, in concert with the tension, increased as the game entered the later innings. The crowd of 33,439 let out a thunderous roar when Ryan struck out catcher Greg Myers to end the eighth, and became louder still after he retired Lee and White on routine grounders to start the ninth.

In a bit of irony, the next batter was Alomar, whom Ryan had known since he was a youngster, back when Ryan and Sandy Alomar — Roberto’s father — were Angels teammates. In fact, Sandy Alomar played second base in Ryan’s first two no-hitters in 1973.

The fans stood, poised to explode. Ryan got two quick strikes, then took a deep breath before rearing back and blowing a 93 mph fastball past Alomar to wrap up the most improbable of his seven no-hitters. Teammates mobbed Ryan, hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried the hero off the diamond.

“I didn’t stick around, but I did walk off slowly, wanted to kind of savor the moment,” Tschida said. “Because the chances of working a no-hitter behind the plate — I mean, if you get one you’re lucky.”

This one was extraordinary on many levels. What made it more special for the umpires was Ryan’s classy gesture: He gave each crewmember three autographed baseballs, mementos of an unforgettable evening.

Three hours before, when his back ached and head throbbed, Ryan seemed an unlikely candidate to accomplish anything momentous. But on a night when he felt positively awful, Ryan proved awfully dominant.

“Maybe he wasn’t feeling well and maybe he was 44 years old,” Tschida said, “but Nolan Ryan was very much a competitor. He didn’t think anybody could hit him.”

And on the night of May 1, 1991, nobody could.

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As Satch Davidson sat in the umpires’ room rubbing up baseballs for the night’s game, he glanced over at a second small batch of balls – the ones specially reserved for Hank Aaron’s at-bats. One thought kept crossing his mind: “Let’s just get this over with so we can get back to normal.”

On April 8, 1974, the largest crowd in Braves history (53,775) came out to witness history. What they hoped to see was the famously stoic Aaron hit what was sure to be the most exciting long ball in history, which would crown Aaron baseball’s new home run king.

The chase to beat the Babe heated up in the summer of 1973. So did baseball fans’ interest in Aaron, but not all of that interest was good. Aaron was receiving more than 3,000 letters a day as he approached Ruth’s career home run mark of 714, and a disturbing number of those letters was hate mail from racists unable to accept that a black man was about to displace the storied white slugger.

One infamous letter read: “Dear Nigger Henry, You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. … Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. My gun is watching your every black move.”

“This,” Aaron said later about the letters, “changed me.”

Aaron finished the 1973 season with 713 career home runs. The nation had to wait through another winter to witness the destruction of what many had thought was an unbreakable record.

The Braves opened the 1974 season in Cincinnati. In his first at-bat on Opening Day, Aaron homered off Reds pitcher Jack Billingham, tying Ruth. The Braves had considered benching Aaron for the first series so he could tie and break the record in Atlanta. But Aaron only sat out the second game and went 0-for-3 in the third game.

That set the stage for a grand homecoming against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“I didn’t think too much about that game,” says Davidson, who retired in 1984 due to a back injury. “We knew about the record, we knew about the big crowd, but we had a job to do. It was just another game as far as we were concerned. Don’t get me wrong. We were happy for Hank because he was such a great ballplayer, but as an individual it was all business for him. He came out to the ballpark, played great in the outfield. When it was his turn to hit, he just got up there and did his thing and didn’t say too much. That’s how he was, and that’s how we approached it, too.”

Davidson had the dish for that game. Rounding out the crew were Frank Pulli, the late Ed Sudol and the late Lee Weyer. “For every game we had Hank Aaron, before he broke the record,” Davidson recalls, “we had to rub up a bunch of baseballs specifically for him when he came to bat. They had a number on them that you could look at under an ultra-violet light and they’d know if they had the right ball or not. Every time he’d come to bat, I’d have to take out all the other balls I had in my pockets and put the specially numbered balls in. And then we’d have to empty those all out and put the regular balls back in when he was done.

“When we got there that night, I just said, ‘Well, if he hits it tonight, good. It’ll be over with and we won’t have to go through all this changing out the balls anymore.’”

As cool as the umpires were, baseball administration was anxious, and security was everywhere because of the death threats. “Oh, there were a bunch of nervous folks around from the league office,” Davidson says, chuckling. “The head of the umpires back then, Fred Fleig, came into our room and he was climbing the walls. He said to me, ‘Aren’t you nervous?’ I looked at him and said, ‘About what? It’s a game we gotta work and someone’s got to win and someone’s got to lose. If he hits it, he hits it.’ And Fred says, ‘Oh, I gotta get out of here.’ He was a real good guy but he was more nervous than all of us umpires put together.”

As the umpires took the field and saw the sheer volume of the crowd, crew chief Sudol allowed for one tiny moment of awe as he quietly stated, “I’m glad I’m here. History might be made tonight.”

Aaron’s first at-bat resulted in a walk without even so much as a swing from the prodigious hitter.

But in the fourth inning with Atlanta down, 3-1, Aaron came to bat with a man on first. The first pitch from Dodgers pitcher Al Downing came in for a ball. And then came Downing’s second pitch, a high fastball over the plate.

“Downing threw the pitch, which wasn’t that good of a pitch but Hank sure liked it,” says Davidson. “He swung at it and boy, when he hit it, I said, ‘Well, we may see history right here.’ And (Joe) Ferguson, the catcher, looks up and says, ‘Yep, history has just been made.’”

The hit was a soaring line drive that just cleared the 385-foot sign in left-center field. Aaron began a memorable home run trot, receiving handshakes from the three Dodgers infielders and an escort from second to third by two over-exuberant college students.

“I was watching (Aaron) and of course that’s when two fans came out on the field,” says Davidson. “Right away I was worried because I had no idea what they would do, and police started to come out on the field and I said, ‘Oh no, please don’t do anything funny.’ Luckily the fans didn’t do anything too stupid, and as soon as he touched home plate the ceremony started.”

While the rest of the crew went to the dressing room, Davidson, as plate umpire, stayed on the field for the 11-minute break while teammates and family congratulated Aaron.

The excitement and energy in the stadium virtually disappeared for the rest of the game, which the Braves ended up winning, 7-4. “They had a sold-out house but by the seventh inning more than half of the crowd had left,” Davidson recalls. “They were all there to see that one thing happen and – boy, I’ll tell you what – it was magic in the ballpark when he hit it.”

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No, the Pac-10 title was not on the line, but when Stanford’s Cardinal traveled to Berkeley to take on California’s Bears it was an important football game. Nov. 20, 1982, would be John Elway’s last regular-season game for Stanford, and he was in the running for college football’s prestigious Heisman Trophy. Plus, Stanford was “on the bubble,” hoping for a bowl bid.

The conference rivalry lived up to tradition. Recalls Charles Moffett, the game’s referee: “Even without those last four seconds it was a great game. There were incredible runs and magnificent catches by both teams. Elway passed for 333 yards and treated the fans to one of his patented, last-minute, come-from-behind drives capped by a 35-yard field goal. With four seconds left, Stanford led Cal, 20-19.

Those last four seconds produced college football history as one wild, improbable play would forever identify the entire contest as “the band game.”

After kicking the go-ahead field goal, Stanford’s celebration was long and loud, resulting in a 15-yard penalty. The Cardinal kickoff, from their 20, was taken by Cal’s Kevin Moen at his 43. During the next four official seconds (the actual time was considerably longer), Cal’s return team managed five backward passes.

First, Moen pitched the ball to Richard Rogers at Stanford’s 48. At the 44, Rogers passed it back to Dwight Garner, who returned the ball to Rogers, again at the 48. At the 46, Rogers pitched to Meriet Ford. He charged forward to Stanford’s 25 before making the fifth backward pass, which went back to Moen. Winding his way through the Stanford band, which was already on the field to begin its “victory” celebration. Moen ran for the winning touchdown, then smashed over a trombone player in one of college football’s most familiar TV-highlight moments.

Walt Wolf, a Pac-10 official since 1972 was the umpire on the game’s six-man officiating crew. (Pac-10 football crews expanded to seven officials in ’84.) Wolf Described the confusion after the kick-return touchdown: Charlie Moffett had a brain hemorrhage in the offseason, and after the play, when he came running up, he was absolutely totally white, and we thought he’d had another one. I knew that (line judge) Gordie Riese had a flag, but I knew that it had to be on Stanford. So we said: “Give the touchdown signal, Charlie. Everything’s okay, so give them your signal and let’s get the hell out of here!”

“But Charlie was determined to sort it out. Fans, band members, players and coaches were swarming around us. In all the hubbub, Charlie had lost sight of Moen somewhere in the band and didn’t know he had scored. Charlie asked us if anyone had blown the ball dead. Nobody had. Were all the (backward passes) legal? Yes, they all were. Then Gordie tells Charlie that Moen had scored. ‘He WHAT!?” Charlie screamed, and we all yelled again that Moen had scored.”

That midfield huddle lasted about three minutes while the officials determined that Riese’s flag was against the Cardinal and that Moen had indeed scored. “After that,” Wolf says, “Charlie turned from the huddle, somberly faced the pressbox and raised his hands into the air.” Charlie’s comment: “I thought I had started World War III.”

Wolf continues; “Charlie was mindful that the rulebook required an extra-point try. So he yelled for us to get a ball. (Field Judge) Jim Fogltance yelled back that Charlie must be crazy, that we would never get the kick off. Charlie looked around and quickly conceded, and we bolted for the tunnel some 100 yards away.” The final score: Cal 25, Stanford 20.

Some believed that the videotape of the final play showed Rodgers’ knee being down before one backward pass was released and (linesman) Jack Langley whistling the play dead. Wolf said that definitely was not the case. “He didn’t blow his whistle because he saw the ball coming out among all the defenders before the knee hit the ground. I too clearly saw that the ball was released prior to the tackle because I was only six feet away from the action.”

Actually, two penalties were called on the play: One on Stanford for having too many men on the field and other on the Stanford band for interference. If due to the band’s interference, Moen had not scored, the rules would have allowed the referee to determine an appropriate penalty, which could have included awarding a touchdown. Moffett admits that he has thought about what might have happened if Moen had not scored. “But it’s hard to speak about what ifs,” he says. “It’s probably unlikely that I would have awarded a score, even thought I could have done so. At the least, there would have been another play after the penalty was assessed. The penalty would have taken Cal down within field-goal range.”

“We finally made it to the dressing room and were totally exhausted,” recalls Wolf. “Then suddenly there came a boom, boom, boom on the door and in burst Stanford head coach Paul Wiggin, with his assistants right behind him. He was yelling that it was a debacle and not the right call. He accused us of costing Elway the Heisman and the team a bowl berth. Then Charlie stepped in, took control and finally cooler heads prevailed.”

In his evaluation, Pac-10 observer Chad Reade wrote: “The postgame conference was not held as the observer felt it would be anticlimatic.” Wolf says that later that week, “Jack Sprenger, Pac-10 supervisor of officials, talked with each of us to review the circumstances. There were no comments from Jack, either critical or complimentary. He just wanted to find out what we had seen and how we had viewed the game.”

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Umpire George Magerkurth ruled with an iron fist, which he wasn’t above wielding when challenged on a baseball diamond.

Magerkurth worked 2,808 regular-season games and four World Series in 19 major league seasons (1929-47). He was an imposing figure (6-foot-3, 230 pounds) whose boxing background often came into play during a raucous, rough-and-tumble era when disputes could turn violent in a heartbeat.

“He had bulldog features and a disposition to match,” noted renowned New York Times sportswriter Arthur Daley. “He had many faults, but he was a colorful man of unassailable integrity who made a rich contribution to baseball lore and legend.”

Magerkurth had regular run-ins with managers, players and fans, yet there was never any doubt about who was in charge on the field.

“I never gave a hang about what a Brooklyn fan thought of me today or a Giant fan thought of me tomorrow,” Magerkurth once told Life magazine. “The umpire is boss. Once his authority begins to waver, the game is in trouble.”

Magerkurth (pronounced MAJOR-kirth) logged 62 bouts as an amateur and professional boxer, which might account for his pugnacious demeanor. He also played briefly as a lineman for the Rock Island Independents of the American Professional Football Association, forerunner of the NFL. But baseball was his true love.

After finding little success in four seasons as a minor league catcher, Magerkurth returned home to Moline, Ill., and began umpiring games in a local factory league. By 1922 he was working in the Class D Mississippi Valley League, where he quickly established a reputation as someone not to be messed with. Cross Magerkurth and the response might well be a right cross, as Joe Sullivan discovered.

The Marshalltown (Iowa) catcher, a known bully, jawed with Magerkurth during a game at Cedar Rapids that season and then “advanced threateningly” toward the rookie umpire, according to newspaper accounts. In a flash, Magerkurth slugged Sullivan, sending him to the hospital with a broken jaw. That lightning-fast knockout punch prompted Belden Hill, president of the Cedar Rapids club, to telegraph the following message to league president Michael Sexton: “You have a real umpire in Magerkurth. Hang on to him.”

But Magerkurth was clearly overqualified for the low minors. He was soon promoted to the International League, where he continued to put up his dukes and relive his days in the ring when the situation called for it. Case in point: a 1924 altercation in Baltimore when Magerkurth ejected Toronto’s Eddie Onslow, who stubbornly refused to leave the premises.

“He hurled vile names at the arbiter for several minutes and finally the latter floored the athlete with a punch on the chin,” noted the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle. “Otis Miller, a teammate of Onslow, then knocked down the umpire and fists were flying thick and fast when police arrived to quell the disturbance.”

Magerkurth also worked in the American Association and Pacific Coast League before joining the NL staff for the 1929 season.

Big leaguers quickly learned what minor leaguers already knew: Magerkurth’s sense of authority was unshakable. Mild-mannered and soft-spoken off the field, once on the diamond “he takes on the mien of a top sergeant drilling a band of raw rookies,” wrote Arch Murray in Collier’s Weekly. “He snorts confidence and his voice rings out with all the power of a bellowing bull. The fellow oozes authority from every inch of his ponderous frame.”

And yet Magerkurth was occasionally compelled to physically fend off challenges to that authority. For example, he exchanged blows with scrappy New York Giants shortstop Billy Jurges during a game against Cincinnati at the Polo Grounds on July 15, 1939. A half-dozen Giants, furious that umpire Lee Ballanfant had ruled a drive into the left-field stands by the Reds’ Harry Craft a fair ball, surrounded the umpire, loudly questioning his eyesight. Suddenly Magerkurth and Jurges were nose to nose, spittle flying. “Jurges, red in the face, kept arguing with Magerkurth, then swung at him and was hit back,” wrote Harry Forbes in the New York Daily News. NL President Ford Frick fined Magerkurth and Jurges $150 apiece and suspended both for their actions.

Most of Magerkurth’s clashes involved managers, with Brooklyn’s 160-pound Leo Durocher a frequent antagonist. Watching the two tangle, Associated Press writer Whitney Martin quipped, is like watching “a terrier yipping at a St. Bernard.”

Durocher was at the center of perhaps the most memorable of Magerkurth’s many dustups, at Ebbets Field on Sept. 16, 1940. He bolted from the dugout when Magerkurth’s ruling on a play at second base in the 10th inning favored the Reds, animatedly pleaded his case for five minutes and then unleashed a torrent of expletives after Magerkurth ejected him. The atmosphere, already thick with tension, turned volatile when the Reds scored what turned out to be the winning run as a result of the call.

The umpires were walking to their dressing room after the final out when Frank Germano, a 21-year-old parolee, sprang from the stands, pounced on the unsuspecting Magerkurth from behind and took him to the ground. He pinned Magerkurth on his back and pummeled the umpire with several “hard-stinging blows” before anyone could intervene.
Police arrested Germano on a simple assault charge and hauled him off to jail, but he was not convicted for his Flatbush ambush — a magnanimous Magerkurth saw to that. When he returned to Brooklyn for the court case, Magerkurth, in a forgiving mood, withdrew the criminal complaint. “I’m the father of a boy myself,” he said by way of explanation. Germano offered his apologies and the two then shook hands.

In the fifth inning of the third game of the 1932 World Series, Magerkurth was at first base for one of the most disputed moments in baseball history. Babe Ruth allegedly pointed to the stands, then hit the next pitch into the bleachers. Magerkurth is among those who said Ruth did indeed call his shot.

Magerkurth retired after umpiring in the 1947 World Series, citing health issues and an expanding waistline. “I’m now in the buffalo class,” he said, referring to his weight. “I could still go on — I’m only 59 years old — but the old knee says, what’s the use?”
He continued to umpire college and semipro games for a time and served as a sports commentator for a Moline television station. Magerkurth died of lung cancer on Oct. 7, 1966, his legacy secure as one of the most colorful umpires in major league history. One of the most respected, too.

Hall of Famer John McGraw, who managed the Giants for 31 seasons, said Magerkurth ranked among “the best umpires I ever looked at. He’s the absolute boss out there. Nothing halfway about him. He has good judgment, and he’s so honest it scares you.”
The only thing scarier, his contemporaries might have added, were Magerkurth’s fists — and his willingness to use them.

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In other words, 2007 brought a typical season-opening nonconference mismatch in college football. Fifth-ranked Michigan of the mighty Big Ten was surely going to cruise against Appalachian State, often referred to as “Appy,” of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

Everyone was set for the blowout on a hot Sept. 1 afternoon in Ann Arbor. But the teams and officials knew better.

John O’Neill, the referee for the day, certainly did. “Appalachian State had just won back-to-back (NCAA Division I-AA and FCS) national championships,” he recalled. “Regardless of the level you play at, if you’re a national champion, let alone back-to-back, you’re pretty good.”

“We knew this wouldn’t be a cakewalk for either team,” said head linesman Brent Durbin.

So while the country prepared for a blowout, the officiating crew prepared for a football game.

Durbin felt typical Week One vibes going in. “It’s the start of the season,” he said, “and everyone’s been beating up on their own teammates, and it’s time to go out and play somebody else.” Umpire Bryan Neale noticed the same, what he called, “Week-One excitement.” “Players have been in camps, we’ve been officiating scrimmages,” he said, “and all anyone wants is a real football game.”

Because their home stadium held 16,000 fans, one might think a look at 109,000 fans filing into Michigan Stadium might have unnerved the Mountaineers. Not so, said O’Neill. As he and Neale headed to the sideline for the pregame conference with Mountaineer coach Jerry Moore, he was simply taking it all in. “He was as loose as could be,” O’Neill said. “In fact, he was telling Bryan and me that he had now been in every Big Ten stadium. He was more excited about that than about anything.”

He’d have more to be excited about when the game ended.

Michigan scored a touchdown on its first drive. “It was typical, methodical Michigan,” O’Neill said. “Grind them, grind them, and a pretty long run inside that drive. So two minutes gone and it’s 7-0. So we’re thinking, ‘OK, maybe this is going to be what everyone thinks it’s going to be.’”

Hardly. Everyone soon discovered Appalachian State was “a good speed team,” as Durbin recalls.

Their swift wide receivers turned a couple of quick slants into touchdowns, and the Mountaineers had an astonishing 28-17 lead at halftime. Viewers, both in Michigan Stadium and watching at home on the brandnew Big Ten Network, kept waiting for Michigan to take control and dominate. It didn’t happen that way. Instead, viewers were treated to a classic “muscle versus speed game,” as O’Neill called it.

As it grew late, Neale was surprised by the score. “Referees all say, ‘I don’t even know what the score is,’ but I really don’t,” Neale said. “My brain just doesn’t work that way. I’m one of those guys who gets in there at halftime and says, ‘Who’s winning?’ Even though I’ve written all the scores down on my game card. I didn’t even realize until it was getting to the end that this was actually a really close game. It didn’t even hit me.”

It surely hit the capacity crowd. Their Wolverines clawed back to take a one-point lead with five minutes left in the fourth quarter on a 54-yard run by Michael Hart. But the Mountaineers completed a drive with a couple of clutch Armanti Edwards passes to kick a field goal with 21 seconds left to take the lead, 34-32.

Even that was not the end. One more big play — a 46-yard pass from Chad Henne to Mario Manningham — set up a 37-yard field goal attempt that would win the game for Michigan. “It wasn’t a long field goal,” O’Neill recalled. “I’m thinking, ‘Michigan is going to eke out a win.’”

Until it didn’t.

“All of a sudden I see this Appalachian State kid (Corey Lynch) come in untouched,” O’Neill said. “He could have caught the ball; he was that close. He blocks the kick, and it bounces back up, and he’s got a beeline to the end zone. I’m thinking they’re going to beat Michigan by nine!”

As O’Neill and his crew chased the play down, Lynch was brought down inside the 10 yardline, solidifying the two-point victory. Just like that, the stadium took on the atmosphere of the campus library.

“It was the most eerie, weird feeling I’ve had at a game where it doesn’t match what you’re used to,” Neale said. “I mean, it was dead silent. That didn’t sound like Michigan Stadium at all on that play.” – Bryan neale

“Nobody had left because it came down to the very end,” O’Neill said. “There were 108,000 stunned-silent people and about 500 cheering — the Appalachian State contingent.”

Only after the game did the crew realize the history they had just witnessed. Neale said he really understood only as he was heading back to his Indiana home and heard sports radio gushing about the outcome. He didn’t feel a shock so much as “just ‘Wow.’ Appalachian State, which nobody knew anything about, at least up in Big Ten country, just beat one of the biggest, most storied programs ever.”

O’Neill, Durbin and Neale have all springboarded to the highest echelons of football officiating; the first two have BCS National Championship Games to their credit, while Neale now serves as an umpire in the NFL, where he is a playoff regular. Still, each is aware of what that day meant. “It was an honor to work it,” Durbin said. Neale is still brought back to that historic September afternoon from time to time. When Neale meets Michigan supporters who learn he officiated Big Ten football, they sometimes ask if he has officiated any Wolverine games. “I say, ‘I probably worked the worst game you’ve ever watched.’ They say, ‘No, you didn’t!’ They don’t even say what game it is. They know.”

Neale also says that afternoon changed his approach for future games. “This game forced me to amp up my research,” he said. “I wouldn’t have officiated the game any differently, but what if I knew how good Appalachian State was?”

“This game is the poster child for ‘anything can happen’ in high school or college football,” O’Neill said. “You can’t officiate to statistics. You can’t officiate to what your gut tells you. You can’t officiate to ‘there’s no way this is going to happen.’ You have to officiate every play start to finish in seven seconds.”

Because sometimes Jack does slay the giant.

Paul Hamann is a freelance writer from Vancouver, Wash.

The post Underdog Upset: App. State beats Michigan – Sept. 1, 2007 appeared first on Referee.com.

And why not?

Taiwan had won 13 of its last 14 championship game appearances. That included its three most recent title appearances by scores of 12-0, 21-1 and 10-0. In fact, Taiwan rolled up such an impressive World Series record from 1972-74, outscoring opponents, 112-2, that Little League Baseball finally had enough and banned all non-U.S. teams from competing.

The fact that Taiwan won championship games from 1971-74 by a combined 42-4 score hastened the decision. Travel costs and nationalism were the reasons given. But it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots for the actual reasons for the ban. To its credit, Little League Baseball rescinded the ban a year later.

In December 1975, Little League came up with a solution: one bracket for international teams and one bracket for U.S. teams. The thinking was with that formula, the U.S. winner would at least have a shot at the world title.

That brings us to the championship game on Aug. 26, 1989, which can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.

It was the 50th anniversary of Little League Baseball, and clear, sunny skies greeted a crowd estimated at over 40,000 jammed into Howard J. Lamade Stadium and the legendary hill beyond the outfield.

The umpires selected for this game were Mario Garrido (HP); Benito Van Der Biezen (1B); Betty Speziale (2B); Russ Sherwood (3B); Jerry Francour (LF); and Dwayne Tuggle (RF). Trailblazing pioneer Speziale — whom fans, coaches and players grew to love for her signature pigtails, became the first female umpire in Little League World Series history. Speziale also umpired the 1982 Little League Softball World Series.

She appeared on ABC prior to the game and she was asked if the rest of the umpiring crew had been supportive.

“They sure have,” the 15-year umpire veteran said. “They’ve been real good. It makes you feel a lot more comfortable when you have guys out there supporting everything you do. And they’ve been great and I thank them all for sticking behind me.”

Prior to the series, Umpire-in-Chief Frank Rizzo met with the umpires and delivered a simple message: no showboating and maintain control of the game. Rizzo also cautioned the umpires to stay focused, and no gazing into the stands. He also had some words for Garrido.

“We don’t want a walkathon out here,” Garrido recalled Rizzo saying. “Let the kids play the game.”

This was music to the ears of the 6-foot-4-inch Garrido.

“I always had a big strike zone and batters were better off hitting the ball than waiting for a walk,” Garrido said.

That fact was noted by former Baltimore Orioles pitcher and ABC announcer Jim Palmer. The 1990 Hall of Fame inductee retired in 1984.

“As we were walking off the field, Palmer signed my hat and said, ‘You know, if you were umpiring in the American League, I could still be pitching,’” Garrido said.

The umpire selections were made the night before the championship game.

“I couldn’t believe it,” was Garrido’s reaction when he was named the plate umpire. “I thought I was the luckiest guy there was. I was one of the youngest umpires there and I would have been tickled pink just to be in the game.”

Not only did Garrido, who was 30 years old at the time, say he slept well the night before the game, but he had a couple of hot dogs and a soft drink just before showtime. “I was excited, but not nervous,” Garrido said.

“The hardest thing for me,” he continued, “were the fans. There were over 40,000. I was just used to a couple of hundred.”

It didn’t take long for Taiwan to get on the scoreboard, putting up a run in its first at-bat.

In the mind of Garrido it was, “Here we go again. Like almost everyone else, I thought this was the beginning of another landside. The thought definitely crossed my mind.”

Trumbull scored its five runs in successive innings. Ken Martin hit a two-run single in the third inning, Chris Drury connected for a two-run, basesloaded single in the fourth, and Martin belted a solo home run in the fifth.

If there was a turning point in the game, it very well could have come in the top of the fifth inning. Trumbull was leading, 4-1, but was in serious trouble. Taiwan had the bases loaded with one out. A fly ball got behind left fielder Danny McGrath, who quickly retrieved the ball at the base of the wall and, from 200 feet, fired a strike to home plate.

It was a perfect throw, cutting down the Taiwan runner attempting to score from second. Garrido sold the call for all he was worth. As one might imagine, the highly partisan American crowd went wild.

“From my angle, I thought for sure they weren’t going to make the play. But they did and I thought I got the play right,” Garrido said.

Tuggle agreed about that play being the turning point.

“I think that did change the momentum,” he said. “The fans were going crazy.”

Toward the end of the game, the fans were getting more and more animated.

“The one thing I will always remember near the end of the game was everyone standing up and stomping their feet,” Tuggle, currently the mayor of Amherst, Va., recalled. “I could feel the field moving beneath my feet. You could actually feel the field moving. As long as I live, I will never forget that.”

Garrido still had that play at the plate on his mind as he walked off the field, and he will never forget the experience.

“I get a thrill every year as I watch the Little League World Series and it brings back the joy of working it,” he said.

The team from Trumbull finished that historic 1989 tournament season with a 15-1 record, its only loss coming in round-robin play at the district tournament. To this date, it’s the last team from Connecticut to win a Little League World Series championship.

The win also marked the first U.S. championship since 1982. The game’s biggest star was Drury, who went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a steal while pitching a complete-game victory. Drury would go on to play Olympic hockey and was the 1998-99 NHL Rookie of the Year with the Colorado Avalanche. He is also a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

At the Eastern Regional in Bristol, Conn., coach Ed Wheeler made the kids a promise: If the team went to Williamsport, he would let them shave his head at home plate after the final game at Bristol.

Mission accomplished as the team clobbered Wilmington, Del., 15-5, in the Eastern Regional championship game, and they did shave his head.

And at Williamsport? Connecticut 5, Taiwan 2. Mission accomplished.

Ken Allan, Diamond Bar, Calif., a retired 30-year D-I umpire, is the California state rules interpreter for high school baseball.

The post You Are There: Trumbull Upsets Taiwan in 1989 LLWS Final appeared first on Referee.com.

Lisa Mattingly is one of three referees working the game. This is not going to be just another game, not even just another playoff game. This is a game that Lisa Mattingly will never forget.

During a timeout early in the second half, Mattingly and fellow referee Roy Gulbeyan look over to the scorer’s table and see their third official, Bill Stokes, lying on the ground. He has suffered a heart attack.

The noisy arena, with 9,540 fans present, falls silent. The Comets’ trainer and team doctors go to work on Stokes right away. “Thankfully they had an AED (automated external defibrillator) there,” says Mattingly. They use paddles to shock Stokes’ back to life. Eventually he is loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled off the court. Mattingly and Gulbeyan follow.

“They closed the door in our face,” says Mattingly, upset she can’t stay with her fellow official.

Stokes, who has been a referee in the WNBA since the league begins in 1997, is taken to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital.

“The game was on national TV,” recalls Mattingly. “It went off the air. My voicemail blew up.”

Val Ackerman, president of the WNBA, is at the game. She has a difficult decision to make. Finish the game now or suspend it until a later date. There is 15:33 left to play.

“They had a timetable to keep,” says Mattingly. “There are only so many days the arena is available and this is the playoffs. We’re told we’ve got to finish the game. They took some heat for it. Val did what was best for the league.”

Ackerman leaves the arena to be with Stokes.

The players would probably have preferred to go home. Same with the referees.

“We didn’t want to do it,” says Mattingly, worried about her friend Stokes. “It was very hard. I didn’t know if I could do it. I was a mental wreck.”

Everyone is back on the court. “All the players were in tears,” remembers Mattingly. Someone begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer and the crowd stands in unison and joins in. “It brought some humanity to the game,” she says.

Twenty-five minutes later the game resumes with Mattingly and Gulbeyan as the only two referees. “I hadn’t worked a two-person crew in years,” she says. “I was all over the court to start, but we finally got settled in. We finished the game under duress. It was very hard. It’s about like being in a car wreck.”

Utah wins, 75-72, to advance to the Western Conference finals vs. the Los Angeles Sparks, the eventual champions.

Mattingly goes immediately to the hospital to check on Stokes. He is in critical condition. She begins calling Stokes’ family and friends. She and Stokes have been friends for a decade and referee many college games together, as well as WNBA games.

Mattingly must work another playoff game days later in Utah. But she returns to Houston to visit Stokes in the hospital.

Ten days after the heart attack, Stokes, after undergoing bypass surgery and having a defibrillator installed in his chest, is released from the hospital, but he never officiates again.

Mattingly, one of the top female officials in the country, continued to referee for another 16 years. The last game she worked was the 2018 women’s Final Four. After 28 years as an NCAA Division I referee, plus 10 years in the WNBA, she retired to become supervisor of officials for the SEC, WAC, Sun Belt, Southland and Atlantic Sun conferences.

Mattingly, now 56, has homes in Clearwater, Fla., and Nicholasville, Ky. She says for the first month or two, when she attends college games as a supervisor, she will probably bring her official’s gear along, “just in case they need a third referee.”

The post Partner’s Heart Attack on the Court is Never Forgotten appeared first on Referee.com.

“He did not have a reputation as a headhunter,” said retired MLB umpire Larry Young. “But he definitely had a reputation of working inside.”

The overwhelming number of hit-batter situations were fairly routine. That was not so with the last batter he hit in his career, Chicago White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura.

It was game three of a four-game series between the White Sox and the Texas Rangers, Aug. 4, 1993, in Arlington, Texas. Working the contest were Dale Ford, plate; Young, first base; the late Chuck Meriwether, second; and crew chief Rich Garcia, third.

The two teams had met eight times earlier in the season, with the White Sox winning six, including a three-game sweep in Chicago in June.

MLB currently has a “heads up” procedure which requires a crew chief to notify the league office whenever a situation occurs that has the potential for future trouble between two teams. MLB then contacts the appropriate crew the next time the two teams meet. However, Young, who is now an MLB umpire supervisor, pointed out, “Apparently, there had been some tensions between the two teams, but we did not have that program in 1993, so we had no way of knowing if there were issues between the teams.”

Garcia agreed. “Back then, the league hardly got involved with umpires,” he said. “However, we did hear a rumor that the White Sox made a pact that if Ryan hit someone during the series, that batter would charge the mound. I was aware of that, but didn’t think much of it.”

The White Sox got off to a fast start, scoring two runs in the first inning, including one on an RBI single by Ventura. In the second inning, Rangers’ leadoff hitter Juan Gonzales was plunked by Alex Fernandez. No harm, no foul as he was erased on the front end of a double play.

With one out in the third, Ventura was up again. This time, Ryan, who never hesitated working the inside of the plate, hit Ventura with the first pitch. Ventura took three steps toward first base, then made a hard left and reached Ryan in just under three seconds.
And it was on.

Garcia smiled when he recalled, “I always wondered if Ventura started toward first base, then remembered the pact.”

Unfortunately for Ventura, he ran right into a headlock and Ryan began raining punches to the top of Ventura’s head. It was only the second time in Ryan’s career that someone charged the mound on him. The first time was when Ryan was playing with the Houston Astros and San Diego Padre Dave Winfield came out to express his displeasure of being hit.

“It was just self-preservation,” Ryan was quoted as saying after the game. “I didn’t expect that to happen. I was just trying to pitch him inside. I am not a big believer in fights but we’ll do what it takes to win.”

Ventura didn’t quite see it that way. “If you don’t think he did it on purpose, you don’t know the game,” he said.

In seconds, both dugouts emptied, which resulted in mostly pushing and shoving. Rangers’ coach Mickey Hatcher seemed to get the worst of it with a cut above his right eye.

“First of all, a batter charging the mound is an automatic ejection,” Young said. “And when both teams get into it, we are told to just get back and take numbers.”

Ventura’s exit was obvious and was administered by Ford. “Robin was not someone who was known to get into a lot of fights, either as a player or later in his six-year stint as manager of the White Sox,” Young recalled. “He had a good disposition and rarely had problems with umpires.” Garcia felt the same. “The last guy I would pick to charge the mound would be Ventura,” he said.

Also ejected was White Sox Manager Gene Lamont. It seemed that things had quieted down when Lamont had some choice words for Ryan, and that reignited the scrum. Lamont was also highly animated in his conversation with Garcia, claiming Ryan should have been ejected for throwing at Ventura.

“No way that was going to happen,” Young related. “We discussed it as a crew and we all concluded that Ryan was not deliberately throwing at Ventura.”

There were some questions about why Ryan was not ejected for fighting. “The crew wasn’t even considering that,” Young said. “Ryan never left the mound and we are not going to eject someone for standing there and defending himself.”

From Garcia’s viewpoint, that was definitely the right thing. “We are not going to have people charge the mound and get the pitcher thrown out of the game,” he said. “That’s just not fair. We try to be as fair as we can, although it may not always look that way.”
According to Garcia, Lamont was ejected for saying something he should not have said. That was as far as Garcia would go in explaining Lamont’s departure.

“It might have looked like Lamont was calm, but take my word for it, he was not,” Garcia remembered.

Some people might have thought that because of Ryan’s onfield intimidating manner, umpires would be reluctant to eject him for throwing at a hitter. That is not true in the case of Garcia. Ryan had one ejection in his entire 27-year career. That was Aug. 6, 1992. Garcia ejected him for throwing at Willie Wilson of Oakland.

There was an amusing incident involving Young and Lamont. They had been friends for years. During the melee, Lamont started hanging on Young. “Gene, let me go, stop hanging on me,” Young begged the White Sox skipper. “I can’t,” came the reply, “I just threw my knee out and I can’t stand up.”

Young was asked how this hit-batter situation compared with others in his career.
“The unique thing about this,” Young replied, “was that Ryan got Ventura into that headlock and started pounding his head.” There was no evident harm to Ventura, who escaped from the pileup at the mound, stood back and watched his teammates go at it with the Rangers.

Texas and Ryan wound up winning the game, 5-2. The White Sox went on to win the AL West by eight games over the Rangers, but lost the AL Championship Series to the eventual World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays, four games to two.

So, it was the 46-year-old Nolan Ryan against the 26-year-old Robin Ventura. And the winner? Nolan Ryan.

By a head.

The post Nolan Ryan’s Final Hit Batter: August 4, 1993 appeared first on Referee.com.

Earlier that day at Yankee Stadium, the then 31-year-old McClelland became the focal point of one of the national pastime’s great controversies simply by enforcing a rule. It was an obscure, easily misunderstood and somewhat silly rule, yet when McClelland applied it that 82-degree afternoon in New York, he was to soon find himself on the front page of every sports section in the country.

35 years later, that memorable showdown between the Yankees and Royals is remembered as “The Pine Tar Incident.” And what a mess it was, both in terms of George Brett’s bat and longterm ramifications.

That Sunday afternoon before a crowd of 33,944, Brett had hit a two-run homer with two outs in the top of the ninth inning to give the Royals an apparent 5-4 lead. That is until Yankees Manager Billy Martin protested that Brett should be ruled out because he had applied pine tar to his bat that exceeded the 18-inch limit spelled out in rule 1.10 (b).

McClelland, who worked home plate that day, measured the bat and conferred with crew chief Joe Brinkman, and crew members Drew Coble and the late Nick Bremigan before ruling that Brett was out. That meant the game was over, since Brett became the third out of the inning, and the Yankees won, 4-3.

Considering both teams entered that afternoon two games out of first place in their respective divisions, McClelland’s ruling could have had an enormous impact on the playoff picture that October. Brett, realizing the potential ramifications, sprinted out of the dugout toward the umpires, saucer-eyed and with his arms flailing, in what was one of the most memorable tirades ever caught on film.

The seeds of that great controversy were actually sown two weeks earlier when Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles noticed excessive pine tar on Brett’s bat during a game at Kansas City. The word was passed on to Martin, who decided to save that tip for the most opportune occasion. It didn’t remain tucked away in Martin’s memory bank for long. With the Yankees leading, 4-3, with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, the Royals’ U.L. Washington singled off Dale Murray. Relief ace Rich Gossage was brought in to face Brett, who sent Gossage’s second pitch into the rightfield bleachers. “Brett was running the bases and Martin yelled from out of the dugout, ‘Get the bat! Grab the bat!’” said McClelland. “(Yankees catcher Rick) Cerone had thrown it to the bat boy for Kansas City, so he went and grabbed it from the bat boy and handed it to me. By that time, Martin was out at the plate area and was saying, ‘He’s got too much pine tar on his bat! You’ve got to call him out!’” The umpires ultimately decided to measure Brett’s bat on the 17-inch wide home plate and, when they did, they had no choice — Brett was out. “Once I called him out, George came charging out of the dugout,” McClelland said. “Joe Brinkman grabbed him, and a couple of players were around us at the time. “As that was going on, (Royals pitcher) Gaylord Perry, being the man of foreign substance that he was, grabbed the bat out of my hands and tossed it to Rocky Colavito (a Royals coach). I took a couple steps toward Colavito and he raised the bat like he was going to hit me with it. So I stopped and he tossed it to somebody else.

“I’m not sure who the last guy was to get it, but it was about two or three passes and then they ran it up the tunnel to the clubhouse. Joe Brinkman and I chased them up and there was a security guard at the top of the tunnel. He stopped the last guy, and Joe got the bat.”

Case closed? Hardly. As this melodrama played out, it was then-AL President Lee MacPhail — and not McClelland — who had the final say. Four days later, MacPhail issued the peculiar statement that while the umpires were technically correct, Brett’s bat did not violate “the spirit of the rules.” MacPhail went on to point out that the intent of the rule was to discipline batters using a doctored bat, “to increase distance potential, but not to treat pinetar excesses in the same manner.”

“That was where I had a little problem,” said McClelland. “We don’t umpire on the spirit of the rules. We umpire on the letter of the law, and the rules said that we needed to call him out. If I would have turned to Billy Martin and said, ‘Billy, you know you’re right by the rules, but come on, he just hit a home run in the ninth inning and it’s not in the spirit of the rules,’ Billy Martin would have protested and we would have lost the protest. I’ll probably be the first one to admit that it wasn’t a good rule, but we can’t rule on the good ones and not rule on the bad ones.”

MacPhail’s decision restored Brett’s home run, meaning the game had to be completed. That happened on August 18 at Yankee Stadium, where the last four outs of the game were uneventfully played out and it went in the books as a 5-4 Royals victory. McClelland, Brinkman, Coble and Bremigan were not even on hand, working their regularly scheduled game at Anaheim that night.

The possibility of a second such incident was eliminated that winter when Major League Baseball changed the rule to read: “If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to (the pine tar rule) until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out or ejected from the game.”

“There’s no penalty anymore, so you can do whatever you want to do,” Brinkman said. “You can use a bat with pine tar all the way to the end if you want.”

The post The Pine Tar Incident: Brett v. McClelland – July 24, 1983 appeared first on Referee.com.

The April 5, 1993, game in the Superdome in New Orleans was a tight, well-played nail-biter, just as you would have expected. “Believe me, of all the games I’ve done, that was not a hard one, because it was so well-played, and you could let them play through a lot of contact without blowing the whistle,” said Tom Harrington, one of the officials who worked the memorable contest. Ed Hightower and Jim Stupin were the other officials for the game.

Michigan was leading, 67-63, with 4:32 remaining. UNC then went on a 9-0 run, capped with a dunk by seven-footer Eric Montross with only 58 seconds to play, putting the Tar Heels up, 72-67.

Michigan’s Ray Jackson hit a jumper, slicing the lead to 72-69. And then Michigan called a timeout — its last timeout of the game.

After the break, UNC’s Brian Reese turned the ball over on the ensuing possession. Michigan’s Jalen Rose missed a shot, but Webber was there to get the rebound and score on the follow-up. It was 72-71 with 36 seconds left.

Michigan then fouled Pat Sullivan. He made the first free throw but missed the second, giving UNC a 73-71 cushion. With the Wolverines trailing by two, Webber skied for the rebound on the missed UNC free throw with 19 seconds remaining. His eager teammates — all of them — scooted upcourt, leaving him momentarily alone. Flustered, Webber briefly signaled for a timeout, but Stupin, the referee trailing the play, didn’t see it.

Hightower explained none of the referees expected a timeout call, because they had already informed Michigan that it was out of timeouts.

Next, Webber started to make a pass to Jalen Rose, who had come back to help, but a Tar Heel blocked the path, and Webber took a step and possibly slid his pivot foot before clumsily starting to dribble upcourt. The UNC bench saw what looked like a travel, though, and erupted in protest. Harrington was already under the Michigan basket downcourt.

“You think that he’s going to pass it, and he doesn’t,” Harrington said. “You see the bench leap up, and you say, ‘Oh, God, what did I miss?’”

“I was across the court,” said Hightower, a 12-time Final Four official who worked the 2008 NCAA men’s basketball championship game. “You don’t say it’s not your call, because the rule of thumb is, anyone who sees it calls it. But I was not looking at the situation as I was coming down the court in the center. But you never pass the buck.”

Bewilderment was rampant at that point. The six-foot-nine Webber dribbled the full length of the court and got trapped in the corner near his bench. He then called the timeout. Harrington blew his whistle and actually started to award the timeout, then quickly switched to signal a technical.

“Exactly right — I forgot (that Michigan had no timeouts),” he admits. “Because first of all, it’s not really up to us to know. If the officials are aware of (timeout status), they will tell the coach. But it’s the players’ responsibility to remember.”

Webber’s timeout request brought up a gray area in adjudication that has been addressed by more recent rules changes. His infraction gave UNC two free throws and the ball. Today UNC would only get the two shots; Michigan would then regain possession where the infraction occurred.

The rule in place in 1993 made officials somewhat hesitant to call the foul. “Especially if you’re talking about calling it on a coach in a crucial time, you might just bite on the whistle knowing that two shots plus possession could be the end of the game,” Harrington said.

But call it Harrington did.

“Everyone was in shock,” Hightower said. “Certainly we were, because for a moment it runs through your head, ‘Do I need to adjudicate this?’ But we came together and we had to adjudicate the rule. It’s one we actually had discussed throughout the season. We were not to ignore the excessive timeout anymore, but to recognize the timeout (attempt) and call the technical. You wouldn’t ignore a legitimate timeout, so you don’t ignore this either.”

Harrington, now retired and living in his hometown of Greenwich, Conn., says he can count on one hand the times in his career — before and after the edict to get strict — he actually called the infraction.

Hank Nichols, then-NCAA supervisor of officials for men’s basketball, paid his customary visit to the crew in its locker room after the game. Harrington recalls him referencing the possible missed calls in the final seconds (Webber’s first timeout request and traveling) saying, ‘You guys did a great job, but like always, sometimes you have to be lucky, because if UNC had lost that game, they’d be talking about us.’”

UNC hit both free throws after the technical, and two more a few seconds later after a desperation Wolverine foul, and suddenly UNC was up by six with only eight seconds left, sealing the Tar Heels’ victory, 77-71.

Multiple attempts to reach Stupin were unsuccessful, but Harrington described the role luck plays in an official’s career. “You have to understand that luck will play a part,” he said, “because you know guys who have had something happen to them and you think, ‘That could have happened to me.’ That’s just the nature of the beast, and you have to know it could happen.”

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The Indiana basketball coach blew his top on Feb. 23, 1985, some 19 centuries after the mountain did.

The Hoosiers and Purdue were five minutes into a Big 10 Conference showdown when the fiery “General” famed for throwing tantrums made national headlines by throwing a chair. It clattered across the floor at Assembly Hall, an indelible image that Phil Bova, who officiated the game, replays in his head every time he returns to Bloomington.

“When I walk on that floor,” Bova said, “it’s kind of like a flashback thing.”

Knight exploded after the Hoosiers were called for their third foul in a span of 59 seconds. He uttered an obscenity, resulting in the first of three successive technicals, then picked up a red plastic chair with both hands and flung it onto the court. Jaws dropped throughout Assembly Hall. “It caught everybody by surprise,” said Bova, one of three officials who simultaneously tossed Knight for his toss. “The chair went across the floor almost into the handicapped section. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it came awful darn close. Awful darn close.”Bova and his fellow officials — Fred Jaspers, now deceased, and London Bradley, who declined comment for this story —struggled to maintain order in the highly charged atmosphere of Assembly Hall. They were forced to contend with Knight’s wrath and his refusal to leave the premises; a din so deafening they had to shout to make themselves heard while huddled at the scorer’s table; and a shower of coins pelting the floor, courtesy of irate fans.

The sequence that triggered Knight’s legendary tirade began when Indiana’s Steve Alford was whistled for a foul with 4:01 elapsed. Less than a minute passed before teammate Marty Simmons was called for a foul during a scramble for a loose ball —a play, Knight insisted, that should have resulted in a jump ball. When Daryl Thomas was charged with a foul on the ensuing inbounds pass, Knight went off like a Fourth of July firecracker. An audible obscenity drew a “T” from Jaspers.

Purdue’s Steve Reid had just arrived at the line to shoot the free throws when he caught something out of the corner of his eye as it whizzed by.

“I couldn’t believe it was a chair,” Reid said. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen. I was shocked.”

So were the officials. While familiar with Knight’s short fuse and colorful vocabulary, they never expected him to rearrange the furniture. The act seemed beyond the pale even for the temperamental Knight.

“You’ll see guys taking a towel or a  jacket and throwing it up in the air, or maybe kicking a bench,” said Bova, a vocational director at Buckeye High School in Medina, Ohio, who is wrapping up his 30th season as a Big 10 official and his 38th season overall in the collegiate ranks. “But seeing a chair come out, that was unique. I guess it was his way of making a statement, of showing his disgust.”

All three officials immediately gave the “T” sign and headed toward the scorer’s table, where Knight continued to rant.

“He was pretty wound up, to say the least,” Bova said. “We expressed to him that he was ejected for that technical foul. Then, during our conversation, he used some language that obviously you can’t print. So that was the third technical.”

But Knight stubbornly refused to depart as requested. The crowd of 17,279, already loud and boisterous, turned more raucous as the impasse dragged on.

“It being a rivalry, it was an intense game anyway,” Bova said. “And when the home team’s head coach gets thrown out, that kind of escalates things. Then, when he didn’t leave, that brought it to another level. I remember there was a crescendo of chants: ‘Bobby, Bobby, Bobby.’“

It seemed like an eternity, but it took us probably seven to 10 minutes to get him out of there. The Indiana athletic director, Ralph Floyd, came down onto the floor and was very concerned about what happened. He was wondering why we ejected Bob Knight. I said, ‘Mr. Floyd, you can’t toss a chair across the floor. That’s an automatic ejection.’ ”

By then the rain of coins had commenced. One reportedly struck the wife of Purdue Coach Gene Keady in the eye.

“There were nickels and dimes and quarters thrown onto the court,” Bova said. “I tell people that by the time we got Knight off the floor I had collected about $2.50.”

The game resumed after Knight exited to a standing ovation from the Indiana fans. The Hoosiers, who trailed 11-6 when play was interrupted, battled back to briefly take the lead late in the first half. But Purdue regained the advantage before the break and pulled away in the second half for a 72-63 victory.

“Thank goodness we were able to finish the game,” Bova said. “When the antics took place on the sidelines and Mr. Floyd came down, we had to explain to him that, hey, this was not acceptable. We need to get this game moving before things escalate. We had to make it very clear that if his coach didn’t leave, then the game would be forfeited.”

A contrite Knight later apologized for pitching a fit — and a chair.

“I do not think that my actions in the Purdue game were in any way necessary or appropriate. No one realizes that more than I do,” said Knight, who drew a one-game suspension from the Big 10 for his sideline histrionics. “I think sometimes you get in a situation where you obviously let some frustrations go out, and maybe you shouldn’t have.”

Knight has since moved on to Texas Tech and at the time of this writing was on the verge of becoming the winningest coach in Division I history. And Bova? He’s gained a place in college basketball history, too, as one of three officials who simultaneously tossed a coach for tossing a chair.

Bova encounters constant reminders of the incident, even when he’s not working a game at Assembly Hall. “People still talk about it all the time,” Bova said. “I’ve given talks at service clubs in the area and at officials gatherings and that game inevitably will come up. It was something unique to be part of.”

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With intense media interest and a fan frenzy surrounding the “Game of the Century,” Jerry Markbreit recalls the point when the anticipation reached its peak.

“The crowd was stunned,” Markbreit said. “There was absolute silence. When we (the officiating crew) ran out of the stadium, you could hear a pin drop. We got back to the student union and the fans had not moved. They were still in the stadium … waiting for something.”

There was no need for Markbreit and the rest of the crew to hustle out of Michigan State University’s Spartan Stadium to beat the crowd on Nov. 19, 1966. Many of the 77,000 fans in attendance were stapled to their seats after witnessing a 10-10 tie.

The atmosphere surrounding the game between top-ranked Notre Dame and second-ranked Michigan State had been decidedly different leading up to that moment of silence. Before the BCS and the “Game of the Century” became a part of college football’s landscape, the Fighting Irish and Spartans slugged it out.

“Back in those days, we dressed at the hotel,” said Markbreit, who served as the back judge. “The teams were one-two and it was like a national championship.”

That reality was not lost upon the late Howard Wirtz, who headed that Big Ten crew, which included Bob Hepler (umpire), Bill Makepeace (head linesman) and Ed Bronson (field judge), all of whom are deceased.

In a 1985 interview, Hepler, who spent 12 years in the Big Ten and Mid-American conferences before retiring in 1974, commented on the crew’s mentality for the game.

“Early in the season we had some difficulty coordinating our coverage,” Hepler explained. “This was the first year we were assigned as teams (crews) and for some reason we were hesitant in our calls and coverage. I guess each of us was so intent on impressing the other crewmembers, we became overly cautious. I felt we were improving though, for at the Minnesota-Purdue game in Minneapolis the week before we seemed much more comfortable. I knew the game the following week would really test our mettle and be the ultimate criterion on which our performance as a skilled crew would be judged.”

According to Markbreit, the crew had the right referee leading them into the big game. “Howard was a great leader,” Markbreit said. “He knew how important it was. When he walked out, everyone knew it would be done well. He’s the reason our crew got that game. In the pregame meetings, he said, ‘We have to represent all officials in this league and the country.’”

There was no shortage of talent representing the universities. Four players from 9-0 Michigan State were later selected within the first eight picks of the 1967 NFL draft. All-American defensive lineman Bubba Smith and running back Clint Jones went as the first two picks. Linebacker George Webster went fifth and receiver Gene Washington eighth.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame brought its own collection of skill to East Lansing. However, the Irish ranks were depleted both before and during the game. Notre Dame running back Nick Eddy aggravated a shoulder injury when he slipped on ice while stepping off the train in Michigan.

When the teams took the field, the crowd noise was intense, according to Hepler.

“The roar that came down from that upper deck was deafening,” he said. “It reminded me of a combination of wind and thunder in a gigantic storm.”

During the game, a tackle by the Spartans’ Smith sent Notre Dame star quarterback Terry Hanratty out of the contest. While players were pushing for every inch of position in a low-scoring struggle, Wirtz’s crew moved step for step with the action.

“I was too young to get caught up in the hype,” said Markbreit, who was 31 years old at the time. “I was with a wonderful crew and I didn’t realize until later how big the game was. I don’t think I was more nervous than any other game. I was excited. I was a second-year guy in the Big Ten and in the biggest game in 50 years and I was ready for it.”

Both defenses made sure there wasn’t much offensive firepower in the cold environment. Michigan State managed to build a 10-0 advantage, but Notre Dame closed the gap with a 34-yard touchdown pass by backup quarterback Coley O’Brien.

The Irish evened the score when Joe Azzaro made a field goal early in the fourth quarter. When Azzaro later lined up for another field goal attempt to possibly push Notre Dame to a lead, the margin between success and failure was paper thin. “It was just wide,” Markbreit said. “Those days, there was one guy under the goalpost instead of two.”

Later, Notre Dame took possession at its own 30 with a little more than a minute remaining. The Irish elected to run down the clock and preserve a tie.

“The fans felt like they should go for it, but Ara (Parseghian, the Irish’s coach) was a good coach. He knew what he was doing,” Markbreit said.
When the clock expired, the roar of the crowd — the fans who had banners that read “Bubba for Pope” — was replaced by stunned silence.

“The teams were so good and somebody had to win, but nobody won and that’s what makes sports wonderful,” Markbreit said.

One of Markbreit’s great satisfactions was the lack of noise directed at the game officials.

“Both teams played great and a lot of games back then ended in ties. I felt exhilaration. There were a myriad of great players on both teams and not a peep about the officiating. We had no effect on the outcome.”

Personally, Markbreit calls the “Game of the Century” a great cornerstone. “Games like that give you the experience and wherewithal to do anything,” he said.

Wirtz’s watchful eye played a big part in the smooth flow of the game. “Howard had us ready like a fighter,” Markbreit said. “He paid so much attention to me. If I had made mistakes, guys would have said, ‘Why put a second-year guy on that game?’ Howard Wirtz was the Tommy Bell of college officiating.”

Markbreit felt exhilaration at game’s end, but the teams were hit by exhaustion and pain. In his book, Fighting Back, Notre Dame halfback Rocky Bleier described the postgame. “Almost everybody was crying. The emotion of the game, the hitting and violent contact, was converted into the emotion of the locker room,” Bleier related.

The Irish bounced back and went on to defeat USC the following week and claimed a national championship.

Many on the field at Spartan Stadium went on to pro careers. Smith played with the Baltimore Colts and later forged an acting career, starring in TV roles and in the Police Academy movies. Notre Dame defensive lineman Alan Page was a member of the Minnesota Vikings and went on to a Hall of Fame career. His legal career has also had success. Page is a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Markbreit is now retired. He worked 23 years in the NFL, including four Super Bowls. He now trains officials and also speaks to various groups.

“I speak at a lot of organizations and they always mention the 1966 Notre Dame and Michigan State game when they introduce me, but nobody is old enough in the audience to remember,” Markbreit said.

When Markbreit sees footage of the game that was a predecessor to the BCS and launched so many careers, he has a brief reaction.

“Geez, I look 15 years old. I looked young,” he said.

CAPTION: Michigan State quarterback Jim Raye throws a pass as Notre Dame’s Pete Duranko closes in. Michigan State built a 10-0 lead in the classic 1966 match-up, but Notre Dame came back to even the score late in the fourth quarter.

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But this time, it was different. Really different.

They were about to be part of history, being involved in a contest so unique that the match-up between perennial powers North Carolina and Michigan State was probably the least-talked about aspect of the entire evening.

The three highly regarded officials — all with military backgrounds — had been chosen to do a game in which the court was positioned on the deck of a 1,092-foot-long aircraft carrier, played outside in late afternoon with mostly military personnel among the 7,000 in attendance. Oh, and the President of the United States was going to be there and speak to all those present.

Other than that, it was just a typical college basketball game.

In retrospect, the contest was a footnote to an experience that no one, particularly the three officials, will soon forget. The record book will show the Tar Heels earned a 67-55 victory in the inaugural Carrier Classic, but the game isn’t what will be remembered.

For what took place on 11/11/11 on the USS Carl Vinson off the coast of San Diego was a celebration of American patriotism and spirit, and the three officials were smack dab in the middle of it.

Yes, they played a basketball game on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, the same ship that had months earlier dumped the body of Osama bin Laden into the sea off its deck. There was a flyover of jets and a lowering of the flag, a daily ritual at military installations, during the first half that gave everyone goose bumps.

“To be surrounded by soldiers and sailors as they lowed the flag and to be standing on that ship that is such an amazing symbol of what America is all about was truly unbelievable,” said Breeding, a former Air Force staff sergeant. “I have to admit, I got the chills.”

Greene agreed.

“The whole experience was surreal,” said Greene, who served in the Air Force for eight years. “I must admit, I thought of my parents (both deceased) when they had the flyover. I thought, ‘Here’s your baby boy.’ It was a good moment, and I felt like a true American.”

The officials got wind of the contest in the spring when John Adams, NCAA national coordinator of men’s basketball officials, sent out an email asking for those people who had military backgrounds to reply. They didn’t know President Barack Obama would be there until later.

“They told us the president is going to come on to the ship and we’d like you to be on the court ready to go when he comes on. So we basically went out onto the court earlier than normal and kind of waited for him,” explained Reed, a retired serviceman who served 23 years as a US Army recruiter for the National Guard. “It was kind of funny because when he came on the floor, immediately he came to us.

“He just kind of said, ‘Hi, guys, how are you doing? Can we stand next to you?’ The president is asking if he can stand next to us,” Reed said. “It’s like, are you serious? You can stand anywhere you want.”

Did the president offer advice to the officials?

“Yeah,” Greene added. “He said, ‘Let ’em play. I don’t want any ticky-tack fouls called.’”

Obviously, security was tight.

“Security was paramount,” Breeding said. “Anything of this nature is going to have a lot of security to begin with, and then you add the president, it becomes more of a target. But I’ve never felt safer in my life. At the same time, we were smart enough to know not to ask a lot of questions.”

The president might have been the headliner, but there was still a game to play. To go along with the occasion, each team wore uniforms with a camouflage design. And instead of their names on their jerseys, the word “U.S.A.” was embroidered on the back.
Tip-off time was at 4:15 p.m. (PST) so the first half was played in natural light before the stadium-positioned lights were needed in the second half.

“Other than playing outside, it was no different,” Breeding said. “In fact, we had more space than we do at a lot of gyms.”
Before the contest, players, coaches and officials expressed concern with the windy conditions, fearing it would play havoc with shooting. But that wasn’t the case. Had the weather been a major problem, however, contingency plans were in place to move the contest to a hangar below.

“If you got outside of the arena they built, the wind was blowing hard on the deck,” Reed explained. “But in the confines of the stadium, it wasn’t.”

The only concern — and it wasn’t really a problem — was the damp court. Occasionally, a player would slip on the surface that became wet because of moisture in the air.

“We had one young man fall down at halfcourt,” Reed said. “I don’t know whether that was because of the wetness on the floor or the sticker they had in the middle of the floor, but that was the only issue that we had during the game. Everything else, everybody just played basketball.”

All three officials said the crowd had a different feel than a normal arena.

“It was like doing a football game,” Greene said. “The noise wasn’t as compressed as it is in some arenas. But the game went very well. During the pregame talk with the captains, I told them that the Navy SEALs would throw them overboard if there were any technical fouls. Their eyes got real big before they realized I was joking.”

“It was a different type of loud,” Reed added. “Usually, when you’re working in an arena, every time you blow your whistle somebody’s got something to say. Not in this game. Usually you feel as a referee sometimes you don’t have a lot of friends. But I felt that every soldier and sailor in that arena was my friend.”

So the three will have stories to tell for a lifetime. And you can bet they won’t get tired of telling them, either.

“I’ve never worked in the Olympics, but this has to be the closest feeling because that night I really felt as if I was refereeing for my country,” Reed said. “It was truly an awesome experience.”

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Down 7-6 and facing a fourth-and-10 situation at their own 40 yardline, Pittsburgh’s third-year quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, took the snap, scrambled to his right and, with Raiders defensive end Horace Jones hot in pursuit, caught a glimpse of Steelers running back Frenchy Fuqua by himself downfield. Raiders safety Jack Tatum, seeing Fuqua work himself open at about the same time as Bradshaw did, pulled away from the tight end he was covering and closed hard on his new target. At the precise moment Bradshaw’s pass arrived, Tatum violently collided with Fuqua and the ball ricocheted back toward midfield.

Meanwhile, Harris, whose assignment on the play was to pass-block the Raiders’ outside linebacker, instinctively ran downfield and into history. Without breaking stride, Harris made a shoestring catch of the pass at the Raiders’ 42 yardline and sprinted across the goalline with 15 seconds to play as trailing back judge Adrian Burk signaled touchdown.

Could the Steelers have pulled off the impossible?

At issue was the NFL’s now obsolete double-touch rule (it was changed in 1978), meaning the play boiled down to this: If Bradshaw’s pass made contact with Tatum after striking Fuqua, then it was still a live ball when it got to Harris. However, if Tatum did not make contact with the ball, Harris’ catch would have been illegal since the rules specified at the time that two offensive players could not touch the ball consecutively.

Stunned fans rushing onto the artificial turf thought it was a touchdown, but Swearingen couldn’t yet be certain. As referee, his responsibility during the play was to keep an eye on Bradshaw and watch for a roughing-the-passer infraction.

Because of his vantage point on the field, Swearingen did not immediately realize that the double-touch rule would be an issue. Once he became aware of the situation, though, he had to hope someone else on his crew had a decisive angle during the split-second impact between Fuqua and Tatum.

“It took some time to get the officials together because we were scattered all over the field,” said Swearingen, an NFL official from 1960-80. “When I got them all together, I polled them one by one.”

Head linesman Al Sabata, line judge Royal Cathcart and field judge Charlie Musser didn’t know who touched the ball last. “Pat Harder, the umpire, said, ‘I think the defense hit it.’ Adrian Burk, the back judge, said, ‘Well, I think the defense hit it, too,”‘ said Swearingen. “I asked them a direct question: ‘Are you sure?’ and they both said, ‘No.’ OK, so I’ve got three guys who said, ‘I don’t know’ and two who said, ‘I think.’ Of course, I didn’t see the play, so how am I going to make a decision?”

The play in question was over in seconds, but for Art McNally, then-NFL supervisor of officials, the ensuing conference between his officiating crew went on for what seemed like eternity. McNally, seated in the press box overlooking the Steelers sideline, grew restless as his officials continued to deliberate while a monumental game hung precariously in the balance. Finally, he decided to take advantage of a walkie-talkie system that was set up between the press box and the sidelines and radioed Bob Bostwick, who was a member of the Steelers’ staff.”

I said, ‘Bob, look, if I need information, I want you to contact the alternate official,’ who, by the way, was Fred Wyant,” McNally said. “I repeated it to him a second time. I said, ‘Let’s make it clear. If I need information, I’ll get back to you and ask you to get Fred Wyant.’ I said, ‘Don’t go after him unless I tell you!’ He said, ‘OK, fine.”‘

Just after McNally returned to his press box seat, he was astonished to see Swearingen walking to the sideline dugout, which was equipped with a telephone to the press box. In the confusion of the moment, Swearingen said he was led to believe by Steelers representatives that McNally was summoning him. McNally said he was told afterward that while the officials were deliberating, a decision was made to consult McNally, which Swearingen denies.

“I never heard that,” Swearingen said. “In fact, I don’t know if the crew realized that McNally was in the press box.”

Swearingen picked up the phone, which, he says, is his one regret to this day from that historic game.

The problem? Just after Swearingen emerged from the dugout, he raised his hands to signal touchdown, giving the impression that he made his ruling from the benefit of an instant replay in the press box (instant replay was still 14 years away from being implemented for the first time by the NFL).

“Art and I had no conversation about the play whatsoever,” Swearingen said. “If I remember right, Art said, ‘Everything’s all right. Let’s get them off the field and finish the game.’ That’s about all we talked about. I never even thought about instant replay, which I was accused of. Art was accused of watching the monitor and then making the call. That is not true at all.

“As the crew chief, I was supposed to back up (Burk’s touchdown) call after the conference and I did. I came back onto the field to confirm that we did, indeed, have a touchdown.”

McNally recalled his conversation with Swearingen this way: “The first thing Fred said was, ‘Two of my men ruled that the ball was touched by opposing players.’ I thought all he wanted to do was get verification of the rules, so when he said that, I said, ‘You’re fine. Go ahead. Everything is OK.’ That was the end of the conversation. For years later, the thinking was this was the first use of instant replay and it really wasn’t. Swearingen never asked me the pertinent question of, ‘What do you think of the play?”‘

That game would prove to be the beginning of the end of Swearingen’ s NFL career. He would not be assigned any playoff games for the next two seasons and his career came to an end following the 1980 season when his contract was not renewed. Swearingen said, “I asked McNally why (I wasn’t assigned playoff games in 1973 or ’74) and he said, ‘Because of all the controversy surrounding the Immaculate Reception game.”‘

McNally, denying there was anything held against Swearingen, said, “The system has always been the same. You are judged by what you do in any given year. If you don’t make too many mistakes, you’re going to be in the running for the playoffs and possibly even the Super Bowl. But you don’t go back and say, ‘A year ago, you did this or that, in which case we’re not going to put you in a playoff game.’ No way! I have never operated that way at all.”

When asked to evaluate his crew’s performance on that game, McNally singled out only one incident. “I thought that his coming to the sideline was wrong, that’s for sure,” said McNally, then 72 and living in Morristown, Pa., still an NFL associate supervisor. “But to this day, I always felt the correct decision was made. NBC showed the film clip the following Saturday or Sunday at another playoff game and they had a shot where I was convinced the ball did strike Tatum in the chest.”

What would Swearingen change from that day if he had it to do over?

“I would never have gone to the phone in the dugout,” he said. “I had never done that before and the only reason I did go into that dugout was this man said that Art wanted to talk to me.” Regardless of the varied perceptions and regrets of that historic game, it’s hard to imagine anything topping those final few seconds on Dec. 23, 1972.

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AL umpire Terry Cooney could do no right that day – Oct. 10, 1990 at least, according to then-Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens.

It seemed much too early in the ballgame for emotions to boil – bottom of the second inning in game four of the 1990 AL Championship Series (ALCS) between Boston and the surging Oakland Athletics. But Cooney, working behind the plate in the third and final ALCS of his 18-year major league career, saw the warning signs of the soon-to-be bumping incident involving himself and Clemens.

“Whatever I called (his pitches), he thought they were the opposite,” Cooney said of Clemens, now with the New York Yankees. “If I called strikes, he thought they were balls. If I called balls, he thought they were strikes.”

Even before the bumping incident with Cooney, it had been a trying week for Clemens. His team was trailing in the series, 3-0. He had bruised his right hand in a clubhouse altercation – there were reports he had ongoing feuds with several coaches and teammates – in addition to coming off a nagging tendonitis injury in his right shoulder. Adding freak circumstance to injury, Clemens unintentionally struck a fan in the head with a pitch when it wildly sailed into the right-field stands during the game four warmups. Not to mention the fact that he was facing Oakland pitcher Dave Stewart, a longtime nemesis who had cleaned Clemens’ clock in seven of eight meetings prior to game four. Regardless, Clemens had the look of a man ready to go to war that day.

In the second inning, after Clemens walked Oakland batter Willie Randolph on a two-out, 3-1 pitch – which Clemens considered to be a strike – the high-strung right-hander snapped.

“When I walked (Randolph), Clemens’ whole demeanor changed,” Cooney, 68, said recently from his Clovis, Calif., home. “He was cursing and looking dead into the plate. So I said to the catcher (Tony Pena), ‘I hope he wasn’t talking to me.’”

Clemens was, in fact, talking to Cooney and his expletive-laden dialogue – heard by Cooney, Oakland batter Mike Gallego and others from 60 feet away – was far from complimentary (Cooney revealed Clemens used the phrase “gutless c—————“). So Cooney ejected the Red Sox’s ace thrower, inducing a 15-minute melee in sold out Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Clemens later admitted to using profanity but said it was not directed at Cooney. He also said Cooney yelled at him first in an attempt to initiate an argument, but witnesses said Clemens taunted Cooney to remove his facemask.

“When I ejected him, all hell broke loose,” Cooney said.

“Everybody seemed to get together near the mound. I was going out there to explain to (Boston Manager) Joe Morgan why I had ejected Clemens. Morgan was out there stomping around. Clemens acted as if he didn’t know he was ejected. Then Morgan told him, and that’s when he really got angry and came over telling me that wasn’t what he said. That’s when he bumped me.”

Despite being restrained by teammates, Clemens pushed umpire Jim Evans during his attempt to clear a path to Cooney. The tirade later earned him a five-game suspension and a $10,000 fine, which he unsuccessfully appealed in the offseason. Boston reserve infielder Marty Barrett, ejected for heaving two Gatorade containers and a bucket of candy and sunflower seeds onto the field, joined a livid Clemens in the locker room.

“If I called strikes, he thought they were balls. If I called balls, he thought they were strikes.”

-Terry Cooney

When play resumed, Cooney still had seven innings of baseball to work – and an hour-long postgame press conference to host – before punching out for the day.

“It was a different kind of situation than I had ever been in before,” Cooney said. “Those were the most difficult seven innings I’ve ever worked in my lifetime. That was a situation that happens very rarely in playoff situations, especially a person of his stature. I had to bear down on every pitch.”

Oakland went on to win the game, 3-1, completing the four-game sweep for the AL pennant and earning its third straight berth in the World Series. As Cooney changed in the umpires’ room after the game, nervous AL officials paced around him before ushering Cooney into the highly anticipated media interview session, held in the stadium’s basement.

“Some of them were telling me to hurry and change. Some were telling me to just take my time,” said Cooney, who later had to be escorted by local police officers from the stadium to his car. “So I went in there with a cool demeanor, dressed in a suit, answered all the questions that were asked of me and left it at that.”

After the incident was reviewed, Cooney absorbed criticism for failing to give Clemens a warning before removing him and for the clumsiness of his ejection gesture (some reporters felt Cooney’s thumb did not come across very self-assured). In response, Cooney said his refusal to remove his mask was a warning in itself to Clemens. “I’ve never second-guessed myself,” he said. “I know I was right. When you make a call, you have to stick to it. And I don’t know who would get the idea that I wasn’t demonstrative when I threw him out. I did it very emphatically. That’s the only way I ever threw anybody out.”

While the Athletics proceeded to be swept by the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series, Clemens prepared to throw a few curveballs at the hearing to appeal his punishment on April 19,1991. His defense representatives arranged for a deaf woman named Deborah Copeland to read his lips during a video recording of the incident – a futile attempt at vindication. In the end, however, Major League Baseball upheld the “Rocket’s” sentence after concluding he failed to provide clear and convincing proof of his accusation that Cooney and Evans falsified their incident reports.

“He’s never to blame for anything,” said Cooney, who coincidentally worked first base during Clemens’s first game back from serving his suspension, at Chicago’s Comiskey Park on May 3, 1991. “He won’t accept responsibility for anything he does. He’s a great pitcher; don’t get me wrong. But he acts like, 1 couldn’t have done that.’”

Cooney retired from baseball in 1993 after conceding defeat in an ongoing battle with knee problems. He had knee replacement surgery on his left knee in the summer of 1995 – just six months before being diagnosed with colon cancer. But after enduring eight months of chemotherapy, Cooney is back in good health. Each year, around playoff time, Cooney receives a few letters from fans in reference to the Clemens incident. And though he has dutifully responded to the approximately 100 letters and autograph requests, Cooney spends much of the time working in the garden with his wife, Joanne, and visiting his six children and six grandchildren. He has not spoken to Clemens since the infamous game, and he says he put the past behind him long ago.

“I’m out of baseball, and I have another life now,” said Cooney. “But I guess I’ll always be remembered for that game.”

*Terry Cooney died March 4, 2022*

The post You Are There: Cooney Launches the Rocket appeared first on Referee.com.

L

abor disputes have been a part of American life since shortly after John Hancock put his pen to parchment. Whenever workers have felt mistreated, they have banded together and ceased operations while demanding shorter hours, better conditions, increased pay, retirement plans, more vacation or other benefits.

Labor strife has ended friendships, torn apart families and led to violence. Fisticuffs and firearms are not uncommon on picket lines. As early as 1905, three leaders of the Western Federation of Miners were accused of a plot that led to the death of the former governor of Idaho, a union foe.

Strikes have shut down or slowed virtually every type of industry in the United States, including those dealing with coal, steel, the U.S. mail, air traffic control, railroads, sanitation collection, auto production and law enforcement.

So, it’s no surprise that sports have been rife with lockouts or strikes. And not just the players, but officials and umpires as well. Arbiters in five of the major leagues in North America have sat down or been sat down in disputes with their employers.

Before proceeding, here’s a primer on the important distinction between strikes and lockouts. A strike is initiated by the employees and occurs when the workers cease work. Lockouts are initiated by the employer and are a denial of employment.

As in other industries, sports leagues haven’t been thrilled with the idea of their employees — in this case, officials — unionizing. The mere threat of it ended the careers of two AL umpires.

NL umpires had formed the National League Umpires Association in 1963. Five years later, at a meeting in Chicago, AL umpire Al Salerno was told that if he could get all 20 of his AL compatriots to agree, they could join the union. Salerno recruited crewmate Bill Valentine to contact the five AL crew chiefs about the offer. Within three days AL President Joe Cronin got wind of it and fired Valentine and Salerno, alleging their onfield incompetence. Although sportswriters and major league managers disputed that claim, the pair never worked another game in the majors.

As an aside, the umpires from both leagues — perhaps emboldened by the unfair treatment of Valentine and Salerno — got together anyway and formed the Major League Umpires Association (MLUA).

The history of strikes and lockouts involving referees and umpires is a long one, filled with memorable moments and colorful characters. Let’s review the others in no particular order.

Where’d They Go?

When labor pains involve the officials, the games — even playoff games — go on. The MLB umpires’ first intentional walk kept them off the field for the opening games of both league championship series in 1970. That came in the wake of the Salerno-Valentine case and resulted in the AL and NL recognizing the MLUA as the umpires’ representative in future negotiations.

The umpires have been the most active when it comes to union uprisings. Much of that can be traced to 1978, when the MLUA hired a Philadelphia attorney named Richie Phillips to serve as its general counsel and executive director.

For 21 years, Phillips ran the MLUA with an iron fist aimed squarely at MLB’s jaw. Any slight was met with a sharp rebuke from Phillips. If a manager or player consistently gave umpires trouble, Phillips would announce that individual would receive zero tolerance in future games. He was so persuasive he even got the union members to agree to have his air transit company transport the umpires’ gear from city to city.

He pulled his clients off the field four times (1978, 1979, 1984 and 1991). Two of the strikes lasted one day (one was halted by a court order). Another dragged on for 45 days. The 1984 job action kept umpires off the field for all but one game of the NL Championship Series and every game of the AL series.

In 1995, MLB changed the playoff format from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven. But the umpires’ salaries weren’t adjusted for the additional games. Phillips threatened to have his members work only the number of games called for in the contract. MLB balked. The issue was settled by that paragon of truth and character, Richard M. Nixon, who was approved by both sides as a mediator. Nixon ruled that 40 percent more games was worth 40 percent more pay. The parties agreed and the umpires worked the games.

You can argue Phillips’ methods but you can’t argue with the results. Those walkouts resulted in more pay, more per diem, paid vacation and other benefits that seemed like pipe dreams before Phillips came along.

Phillips overplayed his hand in 1999, orchestrating a mass resignation strategy he hoped would foil Commissioner Bud Selig’s attempts to unify the NL and AL staffs and bring control of the umpires to his office. Instead, Selig accepted 22 of the resignations, the MLUA crumbled and Phillips was fired.

The after-effects of that situation lasted for years. The World Umpires Association (WUA), the successor of the MLUA, inked a new four-year pact with MLB in 2000. The agreement, however, contained no provisions for rehiring any of the 22 fired umpires.
In 2001, arbitrator Alan Symonette ordered baseball to rehire Gary Darling, Bill Hohn, Larry Poncino, Larry Vanover and Joe West, as well as Drew Coble, Greg Kosc, Frank Pulli and Terry Tata. Coble, Kosc, Pulli and Tata were allowed to retire with back pay. Bruce Dreckman, Sam Holbrook and Paul Nauert had given up their right to back pay when they were rehired in August 2002.

In late 2004, the WUA and MLB signed a five-year agreement, and the fate of more of the 22 fired umpires was addressed. Three of the fired umpires — Bob Davidson, Tom Hallion and Ed Hickox — were promised the next openings on the major league staff after going back to the minors.

Six umpires received severance pay and health benefits for themselves and their families. Jim Evans, Dale Ford, Eric Gregg, Ken Kaiser and Larry McCoy got $400,000 each, and Mark Johnson, who had less service time, got $325,000. Kaiser, Gregg and Johnson have since died.

Sub-Standard Subs

Any time referees or umpires have been on strike or locked out, leagues have tried to make do with replacements. Whether they came from the college ranks, were coaxed out of retirement or were promoted from the minor leagues, the results were universally abysmal. Everyone from team management to players to fans to media expressed disenchantment with the substitutes.

Exhibit one came when the NFL locked out members of the NFL Referees Association (NFLRA) for the last week of the preseason and opening week of the 2001 season. It was repeated when the league enforced a lockout that lasted the entire preseason and first three weeks of the 2012 campaign.

The first dispute ended at least partially because of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. A different kind of disaster ostensibly brought the second to a close.

A nationally televised Monday night game ended when replacement official Lance Easley ruled a last-second play in the end zone was a game-winning touchdown for Seattle instead of a Green Bay interception. Jaws dropped from coast to coast at the obvious blunder.

Easley used the call, which was dubbed the “Fail Mary,” as a springboard to personal fame. He authored a book, made appearances, was interviewed on local and national television, and was a star on social media (Easley himself uploaded the clip of his guest spot on The NFL Today to YouTube; so much for officials being invisible).

But celebrity has its price. Easley later claimed he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. He told Yahoo Sports he contemplated suicide and had spent time at a psychiatric facility.

Perhaps coincidentally (but perhaps not), the NFLRA and the league came to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) soon after the disaster in Seattle. When Gene Steratore and his NFL crew walked onto the field for the first game with the regular officials, the fans in Baltimore gave them a rousing standing ovation.

Replacements were also used by the NBA in 1977, 1983, 1995 and 2009. Twenty-four referees went on strike the last day of the regular season in 1977. Phillips was the lawyer for the striking officials. The strike ended 15 days later after using replacements in some playoff games. The settlement included an increase of $150 a game for referees the rest of the playoffs. Both sides also agreed to collective bargaining after the playoffs.

In September 1983, after the expiration of the previous CBA, the NBA hired replacement officials during the preseason and beginning of the regular season before a three-year CBA was reached in December 1983. In 1995, the NBA announced a lockout of referees because of a “no-strike clause” in the CBA proposal. The league used officials from the Continental Basketball Association and pro-am leagues as replacements. The preseason opened with 41 referees and the league was forced to use two-official crews, instead of the standard three. In December 1995, the National Basketball Referees Association (NBRA) and NBA signed a five-year agreement, and the referees resumed officiating games. NBA officials in 2009 went on strike when the league couldn’t come to terms on a CBA with the NBRA. The league used a roster of 62 replacements in the preseason, plucked mostly from what was then known as the NBA Development League and the WNBA. But in the nick of time, the sides agreed to a two-year contract that provided increases in yearly salary and the playoff pool. After a three-day training camp, the referees returned in time for opening night.

You’d think the Beautiful Game would be immune from such ugliness. You’d be wrong.

The 2004 MLS season began with — you guessed it — replacement referees when the Professional Referee Organization (PRO), which manages officials for the U.S. Soccer Federation and MLS, and the Professional Soccer Referee Association failed to reach an accord on their first CBA. So, PRO executed a lockout that lasted the first two weeks of the season.

And don’t think this sort of thing only happens in The Show. In 2006, the Association of Minor League Umpires went on strike seeking higher wages and per diems. The umpires skipped spring training and were on picket lines when the season began April 6.
Replacement umpires were used in the interim (of course) and were deemed inept. One manager pulled his team off the field when he didn’t think substitute umpires handled a beanball war correctly. Outfielder Delmon Young was suspended for 50 games for throwing a bat that struck an umpire.
After contentious negotiations that included intervention by a federal mediator, a majority of the umpires ratified a contract that provided a $100 a year raise and a $3 increase in per diem. The umpires went back to work June 12.

Forced to the Sidelines

When the players walk out or are locked out, it may or may not be business as usual for the officials.

MLB players went on strike in 1972 and ’81, sidelining the umpires for portions of those seasons. For those who hold the national pastime near and dear to their hearts, the unthinkable happened in 1994. The entire season — including the World Series — was wiped out by a players’ strike. No games meant no umpires.

The NFL has been the most resourceful in putting a product on the field (albeit not up to usual standards) despite labor woes. When players went on strike in 1987, owners suited up replacement players for three weeks. (One week of games was canceled, resulting in a 15-game season.)

Plenty of good tickets were available for those contests as fans stayed away in droves. Fans in Chicago called their faux warriors the “Spare Bears.” But at least the regular officials worked the games and were paid.

NHL referees and linesmen weren’t that lucky when owners locked out the players and there was no 2004-05 season. The men in stripes were forced to find real-world jobs to support themselves and their families.

They could have worked games for pay at other levels of hockey, but collectively decided they wouldn’t. “It’s not even something we had to debate,” said linesman Scott Driscoll. “(The other officials are) doing it to get to the next level, not for a living.”

“Yes, we all have families to provide for, and we need jobs and an income right away,” referee Don Van Massenhoven said. “But we decided not to do that at someone else’s expense.”

In fact, Van Massenhoven took the policy a step farther. When he approached a car dealer to apply for a sales job, he insisted he would take the position only if he did not take the position away from a “real” salesman.

It was déjà vu eight years later when another NHL lockout occurred. Fortunately, the officials had learned the hard way from the previous lockout. They heard the drumbeats of owner-player unrest and had money set aside to tide them over.

Making a Point

Officials have shown their displeasure with management in ways other than work stoppages.

The most recent example came in August 2017. MLB umpires wore wristbands to protest what they felt was a wrist-slap to a player who had demeaned umpire Angel Hernandez.
According to a statement from the umpires, “The Office of the Commissioner’s lenient treatment to abusive player behavior sends the wrong message to players and managers. It’s ‘open season’ on umpires, and that’s bad for the game.”

The next day, Commissioner Rob Manfred agreed to a meeting with the umpires and the wristbands went away.

In 2004, the NBA suspended second-year referee Michael Henderson for erroneously calling a shot clock violation in a Denver-Los Angeles Lakers game. The officials conferred and decided to rule it an inadvertent whistle and ordered play to resume with a jump ball. L.A. won the tip and hit the game-winning shot with 3.2 seconds left.

After the suspension was announced, all but two referees worked their next game with their shirts turned inside out and Henderson’s number 62 inscribed in marker on the back. The league warned that any official who did so would be subject to discipline. That apparently didn’t happen, but the issue didn’t die.

The five-year CBA that was agreed upon later that year had what was known as the “Michael Henderson Anti-Disruption Clause.” Under a section titled, “No Strike Provision and Other Undertakings,” officials are specifically banned from participating in any strike or “other interference or disruption whatsoever.” According to the CBA, the penalty for such an action is a reduction of the marketing money and/or the playoff pool money by an amount not exceeding $1 million and an additional $50,000 for each official who participates in the action.

Labor Day isn’t just a holiday in September.

The post A History of Strikes and Lockouts appeared first on Referee.com.

Their casual discussion comes to a halt when, on the screen, the game ends with one of the most controversial calls in NFL history. Replacement officials rule a simultaneous catch, giving a touchdown to Seattle rather than an interception to Green Bay. Within seconds, their cell phones are buzzing with calls from NFLRA members watching the game, certain that the egregiously incorrect call will hasten their return to the field.

They also take a call from the NFL, confirming that negotiations will resume in the morning. Two days later, the sides reach a tentative agreement on a new eight-year collective bargaining agreement (CBA), ending the lockout.
Here is how it all went down.

The Negotiations

Triplette spoke exclusively to Referee on the record on behalf of the union. Jeff Pash, NFL executive vice president and chief legal counsel, presented the league’s viewpoint. It was one of few interviews he granted.

The two sides began formal negotiations in October 2011. Triplette said the existing CBA called for talks to begin in the spring of 2011, but at that time the league’s focus was on agreeing to a CBA with the NFL Players Association. “When they got that settled in the summer (of 2011),” Triplette said, “we finally got together for our first session.”

Lead negotiators for the officials were Triplette; Green; Arnold; Tim Millis, NFLRA executive director; and back judge Tony Steratore, who serves on the association’s board and its negotiating committee.

Representing the NFL were Pash; Ray Anderson, executive vice president of football operations; David Gardi, NFL legal counsel; F. David Coleman, director of officiating; and Doug O’Connell, vice president of compensation and benefits. Carl Johnson, vice president of officiating, was not part of the negotiating team because it is not part of his duties. “Similar to coaches not negotiating player contracts,” explained Greg Aiello, NFL senior vice president of communications.

Others, including Commissioner Roger Goodell and representatives of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, sat in at various times as well.

Pash also represented the league in the two previous negotiations with the NFLRA. The last CBA, signed in 2006, was achieved with relative ease. The 2012 situation was similar to 2001, when the league locked out the officials and replacements took the field.

“The thing about 2001 is it was overshadowed by the (9/11) terrorist attacks,” Pash said. “We had the terrorist attacks early in the regular season, then we took a week off, and … in that two-week interim, we reached an agreement with the (NFLRA) to bring them back.”

As in any CBA, compensation was a part of the 2012 discussions. In particular, the officials’ game fees and the type of pension were at issue. But that was the tip of the iceberg.

“Economic issues tend to dominate the discussion, on the outside, at least,” Pash said. “But from the perspective of the owners, the non-economic issues were actually more important. Those included things like the proposal we had to hire some number of full-time officials (and) the proposal we had to hire additional officials to sort of serve as a bench, if you will, as a training development tool.”

The “reserve squad” was a contentious issue. According to profootballtalk.com (PFT), Anderson broached the topic at a Sept. 4 meeting with NBC producers and broadcasters.

Arnold responded to that report by contacting PFT via email. “The concept of hiring an additional 21 officials was raised for the first time by the NFL by a letter dated July 19, 2012,” Arnold wrote. “It proposed that the NFL could hire 21 additional officials but not pay them — it wants the current 121 officials to pay them. This is not fair or reasonable and demonstrates that it is a negotiating ploy not a serious proposal.”

The NFLRA also desired codification of issues apart from finances. “We spent a good bit of time talking about the training program that had started under Bill Lovett, and preserving and enhancing that program for existing officials,” Triplette said.

The training program is under the auspices of nine former NFL officials, covering each officiating position and representing a combined 265 years of total service. Prominent on the training staff are legendary referees Jerry Markbreit and Red Cashion.

“All of these retired NFL officials were kind of a confidential training resource for officials on the field,” Triplette said. “So that if you had a problem or you wanted to talk to someone that wasn’t a supervisor and evaluating you, there were some folks that had great expertise. We wanted to be able to continue that program.”

While Triplette said the league didn’t indicate it wanted to eliminate the trainers, there was discussion about modifying the program.

“The league felt, ‘If we’re paying for this, we at least ought to have some input into who the trainers are,’” Triplette said. “They had some ideas how they wanted it to evolve, and of course we had some other ideas. Our big one was to preserve the confidentiality, and make sure there were no written reports. The training program was not something that would be used to figure out how you terminate somebody.”

Another sticking point was an NFLRA proposal to remove Goodell from the loop when it comes to disputes involving officials.

“The commissioner … has a very significant authority with respect to disciplinary matters, and with respect to dispute resolution,” Pash said. “There were proposals basically to eliminate that authority or very sharply limit it in certain contexts. That was something that was just not going to be acceptable to our ownership, because they felt as though everyone should be operating under a common set of rules — owners, coaches, team staff and game officials. They were not prepared to change that simply for one category of employee, so that was a significant issue that we had to work our way through.”

The sides met periodically throughout the fall and winter. Storm clouds began to form in spring of 2012. The NFLRA negotiating committee met with owners Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons), Bob McNair (Houston Texans) and Clark Hunt (Kansas City Chiefs).

“The meeting didn’t last very long,” Triplette recalled. “Both sides had stated their positions, and at that point it looked like we were pretty far apart on some pretty significant issues.”
The CBA expired on May 31. The lockout was on.

The Replacements

The NFL began looking for replacements before the lockout began. ESPN reported that Ron Baynes, officiating recruitment coordinator, sent an email to scouts on May 3, directing them to contact collegiate officials who had either retired or who had not been rehired by their leagues, or other potential candidates. Ironically, Baynes was looking to hire officials to step in for his sons, Rusty and Allen, who were among the locked-out NFL officials.

According to Aiello, “We began the process of hiring and training replacements to ensure that there would be no disruption to NFL games. … The non-union officials were all experienced football officials at various levels.”

Before the season, Green gave a warning. He told USA Today, “The folks that are going to be on the field are not NFL-quality officials that fans, players and coaches are used to seeing. … If calls aren’t being made, there will probably be additional things going on out on the field and that potentially could lead to … player-safety issues.”

Most of the replacements in 2001 were officials from the major collegiate conferences. The NFL could not dip into those ranks this time, in large measure because several of the coordinators of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) conferences are current or former NFL officials. To assist the NFL by signing on as a replacement would mean losing 2012 assignments and possibly beyond.

Each replacement signed an officiating agreement dated June 2, 2012, that included the following provisions:

• $5,000 if the official attended league training clinics, passed a physical and passed a background check.• $500 per day for each clinic or training camp session attended.
• $2,000 per preseason game. An official who worked a preseason game was guaranteed three more game fees. (For the regular season, replacements signed a different contract. Game fees for the regular season were raised to $3,500 for referees, $3,000 for the other six officials and $2,000 for alternates.)
• Coach airfare, ground transportation, hotel rooms and $75 per diem.
• Two tickets per game.
• Two hats, two shirts (one long-sleeved, one short-sleeved), one pair of officiating pants, a pair of shoes, flags and beanbags. (The agreement specified the replacements were to return those items when their employment ended. The league later rescinded that order.)

In July, the NFL conducted three training clinics for the replacements, two in Dallas, one in Atlanta. There were approximately 300 applicants.

Starting with the preseason, to help the replacements navigate the NFL’s complicated penalty enforcements and timing rules, the league put an eighth official, another replacement, on the sideline. Information and instruction from a member of the NFL officiating department stationed in the press box was relayed to the onfield officials through the alternate, who was outfitted with a headset.

When training camps opened, the NFL issued a memo to players, coaches and other team personnel that it was “imperative that your entire staff welcomes these officials and provides them with an environment that maximizes their training opportunities and encourages their development.” The memo also had talking points — scripted responses — that could be used when comments on the lockout were sought by the media.

Criticism of the replacements began right after the preseason opener. In an interview on WSCR-AM in Chicago, Fox Sports officiating analyst and former NFL vice president of officiating Mike Pereira had pointed comments about one referee in particular.

“They’ve tried to say that Craig Ochoa, who worked the (Hall of Fame) game, was a (major college) official, that he worked in the Big Ten,” Pereira said. “He didn’t work in the Big Ten. He’s not been a major college official.”

Ochoa is the highway commissioner for the township of Hanover, Ill. His biography on its website lists him as a “professional football and basketball referee working mostly in the Big 10 Football Conference.”

The Big Ten Conference confirmed that Ochoa was never a member of its football officiating staff.

Aiello told ESPN that the replacements “have backgrounds similar to current NFL officials.”

Arnold, in the same story, disputed those assertions: ”It is unfortunate that as referees’ responsibilities are expanded that the NFL would jeopardize player health and safety and the integrity of the game by seeking amateur, under-qualified referees to administer professional games.”

Pereira added that further proof of Ochoa’s unfitness to work in the NFL was that he had been fired from the Lingerie Football League (LFL), a circuit featuring scantily clad women playing an indoor version of the game. LFL Commissioner Mitchell Mortaza didn’t name names but released a statement that read in part, “Due to several onfield occurrences of incompetent officiating, we chose to part ways with a couple (officials who) apparently are now officiating in the NFL.”

Another hire that raised eyebrows  was the selection of Shannon Eastin, who became the first woman to officiate an NFL game. In her 16 years as an official, the highest level she had worked was the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, a Football Championship Subdivision league one step below the Football Bowl Subdivision.

But what alarmed many was the fact that Eastin was a professional gambler. She had participated in a number of tournaments, including a 17th-place finish in an event during the 2007 World Series of Poker. The CBA that expired in May included a prohibition against gambling by officials. The subject was not covered in the agreement with replacements. But in this post-Tim Donaghy world, the idea of even a replacement official with a gambling history led many to question whether Eastin should be working in the NFL.

The league was aware of Eastin’s gambling. Michael Signora, NFL vice president of football communications, told PFT, “Past participation in an event such as a poker tournament does not disqualify a person from consideration as an NFL official.”

Two other officials came under fire for perception problems. Jeff Sadorus worked a Seattle game although he had been on the team’s payroll as an official for scrimmages. There is no evidence that Sadorus showed favoritism to the Seahawks in the game. Brian Strapolo was pulled from his New Orleans-Carolina assignment on gameday because his Facebook page indicated he was an unabashed Saints fan.

Referee requested an interview with the NFL’s Anderson for information on the selection, training and qualifications of the replacements, but the request was declined.

The Regular Season

The replacements received kudos from the top for their work in the first week of the regular season. “Our officials did a more than adequate job last night,” Goodell said after the Thursday night season opener. “I think we’ve proven we can train officials, get them up to NFL standards, and we’ve done that in a three-month period. These officials will get even better as time goes by.”

As the rest of the first week played out, TV announcers, while not effusive in their praise, did not heap criticism on the replacements, either. After the lockout ended, however, at least one analyst said that was by design.

On Dan Patrick’s radio show, Fox’s John Lynch said the NFL encouraged broadcast teams to “go easy” on the officials. “I know Week 1 the league kind of duped every network and called and said, ‘Hey we’re close to a deal so have your guys go easy,’” Lynch said. “And so that was kind of the edict from up top.”

But as the season progressed and the lockout dragged on, the era of good feeling came to an abrupt halt. Calls were dissected, scrutinized and ultimately demonized by fans, media, coaches and players.

Emotions boiled over during games on Sept. 23. New England Coach Bill Belichick was fined $50,000 for making contact with an official following his team’s loss to Baltimore and Washington Offensive Coordinator Kyle Shanahan was fined $25,000 for chasing officials off the field after the Redskins’ loss to Cincinnati. Other coaches were shown on telecasts berating officials, though none was fined.

That led the league to issue a memo reminding teams that unsportsmanlike conduct would not be tolerated. Anderson told ESPN, “We contacted them to remind them that everyone has a responsibility to respect the game. We expect it to be adhered to this weekend and forevermore.”

Play became increasing rough in the intervening weeks. Some of the hits were flagged and others were not. The perceived inability of the replacements to control the games led the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) to send two letters to the league, urging a resolution to the lockout.

A letter to Pash dated Sept. 5 from Tom DePaso, NFLPA general counsel, asserted the NFLRA would “take appropriate action to protect our members” if the union determined the replacements could not ensure the health and safety of the players.

A second missive, titled, “Your Lockout of the NFL Referees and the Negative Impact on Football,” was posted Sept. 23. NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth and New Orleans quarterback and NFLPA vice president Drew Brees were among those signing the letter, which read in part, “Your decision to lock out officials with more than 1,500 years of collective NFL experience has led to a deterioration of order, safety and integrity.”

The NFL’s Johnson declined a request to discuss the evaluation and performance of the replacements. However, Pash said the league was pleased. “Our own perception is that the replacements performed really in an entirely satisfactory way, and about what you would expect,” he said. “I think no one could have possibly expected them to perform at the level of the regulars. We certainly didn’t.”

The Salvos

Pash and Triplette acknowledged the negotiations had a sharper, nastier edge than those in 2006. “Sometimes in a negotiation things get said, and you probably wish they hadn’t been said,” Triplette said. “I think both sides probably had some of those on occasion.”

For the most part, NFLRA members avoided public comment on all things lockout. “We decided early on that it was probably best that Mike Arnold be the principal spokesperson for us,” Triplette said. “We made sure that those were strategic in nature and very specific when we wanted to have that happen,” Triplette added. “It’s more or less along the lines of controlling the message that we wanted to convey, and having a single person do that for us.“

The NFL wanted the nine position trainers — Markbreit, Cashion, Ron Botchan, Ben Montgomery, Dean Look, Tom Fincken, Bill Schmitz, Jim Quirk and Sid Semon — to assist in the clinics. But when they refused out of loyalty to the NFLRA members, they were told their services were no longer needed.

When word of that action broke, Markbreit was besieged by interview requests. The trainers are not voting NFLRA members and thus had no official spokesman. Markbreit became the de facto voice of the trainers as well as the union and sharply criticized the league for the lockout. His strongest comments appeared in an interview with USA Today published Sept. 21. Markbreit said the replacements’ inability to keep games under control jeopardized player safety. “My only conclusion,” Markbreit said, “is that (NFL executives) just don’t care.”

Negative comments were being issued by the league as well. PFT reported that at the aforementioned September meeting with TV personnel, Anderson claimed some officials become complacent once they know they won’t get a postseason assignment and that, while some officials are in condition when the season begins, they gain weight and fall out of shape by the end.

Anderson wrote a guest editorial for the Sept. 26 edition of USA Today. Anderson offered that the “short-term discomfort” caused by the player lockout of 2011 led to a harmonious settlement. “We have approached the dispute with the game officials union with a similar game plan to achieve long-term stability and improve our officiating,” Anderson wrote.

Anderson took aim at the NFLRA members when he added, “No one wants to see the outcome of a game determined by an official’s call, but it has happened several times in the past. Officiating is never perfect.”

On Sept. 24, it was far from perfect, and it resulted in the most talked-about and debated call in recent memory.

The Call

Week 3 of the season concluded with that nationally televised game between Green Bay and Seattle. Green Bay held a 12-7 lead with eight seconds remaining in the game. Seattle had the ball, fourth and 10, at the Packer 24 yardline.

Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson took a shotgun snap, dropped back, then sprinted to his left. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, he heaved a pass to the end zone. In football parlance, it’s known as a Hail Mary: throw the ball and pray a teammate catches it.

In the end zone were four Green Bay defenders and two Seattle receivers. As the ball neared the cluster of players, Seattle’s Golden Tate gave Packer Sam Shields a two-handed shove from behind, sending Shields to the ground. Green Bay’s M.D. Jennings, the player in the rear of the grouping, leaped and got his hands on the ball. Tate in effect caught Jennings, wrapping his arms around the opponent and getting at least a partial grip on the ball.

Side judge Lance Easley arrived at the pile a few seconds ahead of back judge Derrick Rhone-Dunn. Easley looked at the pile, glanced at Rhone-Dunn and threw his hands in the air to signal a touchdown. At the same instant, Rhone-Dunn gave the stop-the-clock signal. While time had expired, that signal is proper when an official believes he and a crewmate need to confer before arriving at a decision. Bedlam broke out with Jennings and Tate still grappling while Seattle players swarmed the end zone to congratulate their teammate.

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Instant replay is used on all scoring plays; thus, the call was subject to being reversed. However, referee Wayne Elliott determined there was no indisputable visual evidence to overturn the call on the field. The touchdown stood and Seattle won.

The NFL released a statement three days after the game, affirming the call but noting that Tate should have been called for offensive pass interference for shoving Shields.

Despite the NFL’s affirmation, few non-Seahawk fans believed it was a correct call. For the next 48 hours, it was impossible to watch TV, pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio without seeing or hearing about the call.

Not only was Easley seen over and over covering the play, he later made appearances on The NFL Today and the Today Show. Any time he has been interviewed, he has maintained his call was correct.

The national outrage reached a fever pitch. Ending the lockout became not so much a wish as a demand.

The Agreement

Negotiations had been ongoing for more than a week before a final deal was struck.

“We had been meeting I would say for the better part of 10 days,” Pash said, “close to on a daily basis, either meeting or phone conversations. My own feeling is that we were very likely — not 100 percent — but we were very likely to come to an agreement that week.”

Triplette agreed, saying, “We were in very sensitive negotiations prior to that Monday night. … We were on the road to probably reaching an agreement. Was it the agreement that we ended up with? That’s hard to say.”

In a nutshell, these are the key points of the new CBA:

• Five-year continuation of the defined benefit retirement plan.
• A ratification bonus of $2.5 million to be distributed based on seniority, either as a 401k deposit or cash. The payment equaled what the league saved by using non-union officials.
• An average defined contribution of $22,000, based on seniority, starting in 2017 and continuation of the current 401k match contribution of $3,750 per year.
• Hiring of seven NFLRA members as full-time employees. “In terms of who the full-time officials will be, that’s up in the air,” Pash said. “I don’t know who they are at this point. I would expect it’s much more likely that it will be implemented for the 2013 season.”
• Continuation of the trainer program in its previous form.
• Formation of a labor-management team to handle disputes and work together on officiating improvement.

There will be a “reserve list” of officials, but they will be officials identified as future prospects. Triplette said the idea of sitting “struggling” officials died. “Officials don’t get better sitting on the sidelines. You also don’t sit down Peyton Manning when he throws three interceptions. When it got serious in the last week, I think the commissioner came to the realization that we, just like him, want to see the game get better. There are ways we can do this without using a hammer.”

The agreement is for eight years, longer than any previous CBA. Both sides see benefits in that.

“The league wanted a longer term deal than we wanted, but we got some things that we wanted in exchange for that longer term deal,” Triplette said. “The league has … stability, and our members have stability in knowing this thing is not going to last just five or six years.”

Said Pash, “We’re more and more moving toward longer term deals with key partners and participants in our business. I think, frankly, we would’ve signed a longer deal if they had wanted to. It would give us enough time so that everyone could get their blood pressure back to a normal level before we had to gear up for another round of negotiations, and also because we had a longer term deal it allowed us to say to our ownership, we can go another year or so on maintaining the pension plan in place to allow a longer period of time to transition out.”

The league was able to get the NFLRA to back off its demand that Goodell be taken out of the officials’ discipline loop. Triplette said the union wanted those cases heard by someone more independent of the league heirarchy as opposed to the man at the top. But practicality ruled the day in that case. “The commissioner said, ‘I don’t understand why we’re spending time on this. I’ve been the commissioner six years and I’ve never heard one of these grievances,’” Triplette recalled.

The CBA had yet to be approved by the NFLRA members, but the association’s board unanimously endorsed it. Goodell insisted that, in order to reach an accord, the regular officials had to work all Week 4 games, including the one the next night in Baltimore. That posed a potential problem for both sides. If the NFLRA did not ratify the CBA at its Sept. 28-29 meeting in Dallas, seven members would have worked while the others remained sidelined. The league could have faced a situation in which NFL officials worked one game but replacements worked the other 14. Moreover, with a Saturday vote, the league would not have had time to dispatch replacements to cover the remaining games.

Gene Steratore’s crew was assigned the Thursday game, in part because of proximity and convenience; he could drive from his home near Pittsburgh to Baltimore. Some other members of his crew, however, were unable to work due to business or other commitments. Several late-night phone calls were made and the openings were filled.

“(The NFL) had identified several crews that were in close proximity, where most of the crew members could probably get there on an early morning flight to get to the game site,” Triplette said.

Steratore and his crew were greeted with a thunderous standing ovation from more than 70,000 fans. Two days later, the officials approved the CBA by a 112-5 vote.

The replacements were paid for Week 4 despite the settlement. They returned home to work high school or college games. Many, like Easley, did interviews to describe the experience. When asked by The New York Times about the criticism heaped upon the replacements, Sadorus evoked a higher power. “Everyone wanted perfection,” he said, “but come on. The last guy who was perfect, they nailed to a cross. And he wasn’t even an official.”

The Aftermath

There was joy and relief among the officials that they were going back to work, but there was anger and bitterness as well. Anderson, whose comments throughout the lockout infuriated the NFLRA, was not greeted warmly in Dallas.

An official at the meeting, who requested anonymity, said Anderson’s comments kept the union unified and committed to its positions. And the hard feelings toward him will not go away any time soon.

“Ray spoke when we voted on the ratification and we came back on that Saturday morning for the vote,” the official said. “Immediately after the vote they had a mini clinic for a couple of hours. He spoke at the beginning of that clinic, and there was dead silence in the room. That tells you all you need to know.”

PFT reported it is likely Anderson will be reassigned and given different responsibilities which do not include officiating. Referee was unable to speak to Anderson to confirm or deny that report.

As in Baltimore on that Thursday night, fans in other cities greeted the regular officials with applause and signs welcoming them back. The Oct. 8 issue of Sports Illustrated heralded the settlement with a cover photo and feature story on uberbuff referee Ed Hochuli. The cover carried the line, “Oh, Now You Love Us.” Indeed, those inside and outside the game were pleased to see NFLRA members return to the field. From Triplette’s view, that includes the NFL.

“In my opinion, they have a better appreciation for what we do,” he said. “They were very complimentary even before the lockout of our work and what we do. It wasn’t that we were bad. In the end, everybody probably learned something out of this.

“We learned that we have to do a good job and a better job of not only working the game on the field, but also helping folks understand the difficulty of what our job is,” Triplette added. “It’s like in anything: When you do it well, folks get accustomed to you doing it well and they don’t appreciate how well someone does it until you don’t do it anymore.”

The post Locked Out appeared first on Referee.com.

Underdog N.C. State had the ball with the game tied at 52 and was racing up the court as the officiating crew of Hank Nichols, Joe Forte and Paul Housman kept an eye on the action. Almost 30 feet from the basket, N.C. State’s Dereck Whittenburg threw up a desperation shot that fell short of the rim only to have teammate Lorenzo Charles grab the ball and slam it into the hoop to give his team a 54-52 win. The unlikely ending set off a mad celebration, one that left us lasting footage of not only the winning dunk but also N.C. State coach Jim Valvano running around the court looking for someone to hug. Valvano wasn’t going to hug Nichols, Forte and Housman as they had quickly left the court.

“Truth was, it wasn’t that good of a game,” Nichols said, as indicated by the low final score. “Houston got a sizeable lead, N.C. State started fouling in the second half and Houston couldn’t make their free throws.” All of a sudden it was tied and N.C. State had a chance to win.

Nichols, now 84, recalled running with the teams down court for the winning shot. “I was watching Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon under the hoop because he was a great shot-blocker and I was thinking that I might have to be ready for a possible goaltending call,” Nichols said. But he wouldn’t have to make that call, or any, as the shot by Whittenburg clearly fell far short of the hoop and Charles was able to catch it and slam the ball in. “I remember feeling relief that it was a simple no-call,” he said.

His crewmate and buddy Forte also had a great view of the final shot. “I was to the side of the court and had a perfect view of the shot and it came nowhere near the hoop, which was good for us,” Forte said. “We didn’t stick around after the game ended but I do remember seeing Valvano running around. We checked with the scorer’s table and got into the locker room fast.”

The game was played at The Pit in Albuquerque, N.M. on April 4, 1983, and no one thought N.C. State had any chance of upsetting a team that was led by future NBA star and Hall of Famer Olajuwon. Houston, a heavy favorite, was top-ranked and the No. 1 seed while 10-loss N.C. State got into the tournament only by winning the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and was a No. 6 seed. But the Wolfpack continued its string of upsets in the NCAA tournament, beating Georgia in one Final Four game, while Houston (nicknamed Phi Slama Jama) topped Louisville in the other.

Housman, who died in 2019, Nichols and Forte had a back story of their own, Forte said. The three were working at different sites in the initial rounds of the NCAA tournament. When it came time to assemble a crew for the Mideast Region finals in Knoxville, Tenn., the NCAA tabbed the three as a crew.

Forte, now 76, went on to work in the NBA for 22 years and lives in Eatonton, Ga. He now serves as a men’s basketball officials coordinator for Conference Carolinas. When he got the call to go to the regional final at the University of Tennessee with Nichols and Housman, he chuckled.“We were friends and had worked the ACC together,” he said. “I made a bold statement at the time that we should keep our bags packed after the regionals because we were going to Albuquerque.”

While Nichols and Housman had their doubts the NCAA would send what was basically an ACC crew to do the Final Four with N.C. State involved, Forte stuck to his prediction. Then, he got the call from the NCAA that the three men were indeed headed to Albuquerque for the Final Four. “Vic Bubus, the NCAA tournament committee chairman at the time, was a great man,” Forte said. “I think he probably told the other committee members, ‘Look, this is the best crew and I feel comfortable having them work together in the Final Four.’ I don’t know entirely what went into the selection process, but I really did think we were the best crew to send and had earned it after the regionals.”
Nichols also knew the crew earned the Final Four no matter what conference they were primarily aligned with during the regular season. “We had worked a number of games together and in many ways it was a very relaxed feeling that I had when I heard we were selected for the Final Four,” he said. “I told myself that there was nothing to worry about because I was working with two of the best refs in the country.”

Nichols recalled that while there was some chatter from Houston fans and on talk shows about the “ACC crew” working the championship game, the three just put their heads down and knew they were in the right place at the right time. “Guy Lewis (the Houston head coach) didn’t say a word about it,” Nichols said. “He knew we were the most competent crew the NCAA had at that time.”

Nichols later became the first NCAA national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating and was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. He officiated 10 Final Fours and was the first official to work both the NIT and NCAA championship game in a single year.

Like Nichols, Forte, who officiated four Finals Fours and one other championship game, recalled a smooth final contest, except for the number of fouls N.C. State committed to send Houston to the free-throw line. “People don’t understand that in championship games referees usually don’t get a lot of complaining about calls,” he said. “You will get some of that stuff during regular-season games, but the stakes are so high at the Final Four the teams and coaches are on their best behavior. And the NCAA makes a point of that to the coaches and players.”

The 1983 championship game gave N.C. State and Jim Valvano, who died of cancer in 1993, a shining moment. It also gave buddies Nichols, Forte and Housman a lasting memory of their own part in the contest.

The post The ‘Stuff’ Dreams Are Made Of: NC State vs. Houston – April 4, 1983 appeared first on Referee.com.

As the Packers prepared for their penultimate game of that season, a Dec. 22 Monday Night Football date with the Oakland Raiders at Network Associates Coliseum, their playoff hopes were flickering. They needed to win their last two games and hope their division rivals, the Minnesota Vikings, would lose their final game.

But the Packers’ postseason chances and Favre’s incredible streak of 205 consecutive starts were suddenly at risk. The day before the game, Irvin Favre, Brett’s father, high school coach and biggest fan, had suffered a fatal heart attack in Kiln, Miss. Packers fans, teammates and coaches all wondered: Would the mentally tough but emotional Favre be too broken up to play?

Meanwhile, the officiating crew assigned to the game — referee Tony Corrente, umpire Darrell Jenkins, head linesman Aaron Pointer, line judge Mark Steinkerchner, back judge Don Carey, side judge Doug Toole and field judge Craig Wrolstad — were going through their usual pregame preparations. At some point, they also learned of Irv Favre’s death.

“I remember all the media coverage of how close he and his father were, and all the speculation,” Corrente said. “We prepared as if he was going to play. Our preparation did not change. We don’t talk about the ‘what if.’”

Even though Favre took the field with his teammates for the pregame warmup, the quarterback’s participation in the game wasn’t assured. As kickoff approached, Corrente had a feeling Favre would play.

“When he came out that night you could feel something in the air,” said Corrente, who was in his eighth year in the league and fifth as a referee. “It’s the magic of the competition, so to speak. There are those events that you feel there’s a little electricity in the air.”

Wrolstad on the other hand was wrapping up his first year on the NFL staff. This was his first game under the Monday Night lights. But it wasn’t his first visit to Oakland, where the fans are known to be especially enthusiastic. They arrive wearing elaborate makeup and costumes, occupying a section of the grandstand known as the Black Hole. Visiting players and officials are not appreciated there. But Wrolstad noticed a different attitude that night, at least as far as the opposition was concerned.

“When they introduced (Favre), they actually cheered for him, and I thought that was pretty classy of the fans, especially fans that are known as being pretty hard on the other team,” Wrolstad said. “I’d been to Oakland before and they really weren’t that friendly.”
But once the game began and Favre began hitting his targets with uncanny precision, the fans resumed their hostile attitudes. Favre completed his first nine passes for 184 yards. The first touchdown was a diving catch by tight end Wesley Walls with 9:18 left in the first quarter. Four minutes later, Favre connected with Javon Walker from 23 yards away. Walker and David Martin caught scoring strikes in the second quarter. For the game, Favre was 22 for 30 for 399 yards. Eight of his completions went for 20 yards or more. The Packers prevailed, 41-7.

“He couldn’t do anything wrong,”

Corrente said. “He’d be rushed, he’d take a step and the passing lane would open.”

Wrolstad was amazed at Favre’s accuracy. “As a deep official, we don’t follow the flight of the ball. We watch the players where the ball is going to come down. We officiate the players. As he’d throw the ball, we’d look at the players and I was thinking, ‘This guy’s not open.’ Sometimes you’ll see a guy wide open and you’ll go, ‘The receiver is going to make this catch.’ You kind of think that in your mind’s eye. But a number of these passes, his receivers were not open, and I think even double-covered, and it seemed like every pass he threw, the ball came down into his receiver’s hands or the receiver went up over a guy and made a catch. It was actually pretty amazing.”

Just as the Raiders fans have a somewhat unsavory reputation, so does the team. Oakland traditionally ranks at or near the top of the league in yards penalized. One might think a defense being carved up like a Christmas ham would try to disable or at least bruise an opponent having a field day against it. Corrente saw none of that. In fact, the Raiders were penalized only three times for 25 yards.

“The defense never really kind of said, ‘We’ve got to get after this guy even more.’ He’s smart enough (to say), ‘If you’re going to come after me and you’re going to blitz me or whatever, (I’m) going to dump the ball quicker,’” Corrente said.

From his perspective, Wrolstad said the Raider secondary didn’t play poorly. It was just one of those nights when a team played with extra motivation. “Sometimes you have good coverage and the quarterback is so good that he can still slide the ball into open spaces, and the receivers are so good that they can sometimes go up over the top and make the catch and things like that,” he said. “I think the Raiders defensive backs had really good coverage most of the night. Just where the ball came in, they just maybe didn’t make a play on the ball, or they weren’t able to make the play, or whatever. The receiver might have had a better shot at it.”

“I knew that my dad would have wanted me to play,” Favre said after the game. “I love him so much, and I love this game.”

Favre went home to Mississippi for his father’s funeral, then returned and led the Packers to a victory over Denver in the regular-season finale. Meanwhile, Nathan Poole caught a 28-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the game to give the Arizona Cardinals an 18-17 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. That gave the Packers the NFC North title.

Divine intervention? Only big Irv Favre knows for sure.

The post Favre’s MNF Dad Game – Dec. 22, 2003 appeared first on Referee.com.

Notre Dame Basketball Coach Digger Phelps, the son of an undertaker, had just overseen the burial of the longest winning streak in the history of U.S. team sports.

But all referee Rich Weiler could think of was his safety. Dwight Clay canned an 18-foot jumper from the corner to give the second-ranked Irish a riveting 71-70 victory over number-one UCLA at the Athletic and Convocation Center in South Bend, Ind., on Jan. 19, 1974. Clay’s bucket not only toppled the Bruins from their perch atop the polls, it brought to a crashing halt UCLA’s monumental 88-game winning streak.

Weiler, who officiated the game with partner George Solomon, took cover when the final horn sounded.

“Pandemonium broke out, I ran for the stanchion on the basket and stood there so I wouldn’t get run over. The fans came out of the stands like bumblebees.”

“Pandemonium broke out,” recalls Weiler. “I ran for the stanchion on the basket and stood there so I wouldn’t get run over. The fans came out of the stands like bumblebees.” They swarmed the Irish, who had vanquished what Phelps called “probably the greatest college basketball organization ever put together.” That wasn’t hyperbole: The Bruins had won the last seven NCAA championships and 222 of their previous 227 games. They were the Harlem Globetrotters to everyone else’s Washington Generals. “UCLA never lost,” says Weiler, who retired in 1987 after 23 seasons as a college official. “For them to lose … if UCLA lost two games in a year, that was a disaster, you know?”

In fact, Coach John Wooden’s Bruins hadn’t tasted defeat in nearly three years, not since Jan. 23, 1971. The opponent? Notre Dame. The site? The Athletic and Convocation Center. And in a delicious bit of irony, Weiler worked the game. He served as a bookend of sorts for UCLA’s record streak, officiating in the only two losses suffered by the Bruins in a 90-game span.

Not that Wooden ever broached the subject with Weiler.

“He never said a word,” Weiler recalls. “I just had wonderful dealings with Coach Wooden, always had a good relationship with him. Even today, I’ll see him at a tournament or something and we’ll say hello.”

Saying goodbye to UCLA’s streak occupied Phelps’ thoughts the day before the game. He hauled ladders onto the floor at the close of practice and instructed his players to climb up and pantomime cutting down the nets. “You’re going to be able to tell your grandchildren about this,” Phelps said.

It was an especially bold prediction, given that UCLA had won its last four games against the Irish by an average margin of 32 points. The Bruins stomped Notre Dame, 82-63, in the teams’ previous meeting in South Bend a year before, thereby eclipsing the NCAA record of 60 consecutive victories set between 1954 and 1956 by the University of San Francisco.

The rematch followed a familiar script at first. All-America center Bill Walton, wearing an elastic corset because of a sore lower back, helped UCLA bolt from the starting gate. The Bruins built a 17-point bulge, lulling the 11,343 fans in attendance and a national television audience into believing they were witnessing the latest in a long line of UCLA victories.

The Bruins still led, 70-59, with a little over three minutes left, their 89th consecutive victory seemingly secure. But the tide was about to turn.

“You know what Yogi Berra says – it ain’t over ’til it’s over,” says Weiler. “You make a turnover, miss a couple shots, the other team takes advantage and before you know it, they’re on a roll and the momentum swings a little bit. Now all of a sudden you’ve got a ballgame.”

The Bruins, renowned for their discipline, began to crumble like Poe’s House of Usher. They committed five turnovers and missed all five of their shots in the final three minutes. The collapse was utterly out of character, as if Mr. Rogers had thrown a tantrum.

Center John Shumate triggered Notre Dame’s game-ending 12-0 run, feathering a hook shot over Walton with 3:07 remaining. He then stole the ensuing inbounds pass and made a layup, slicing the deficit to seven. When Adrian Dantley followed with a steal at midcourt and drove the lane for another bucket, the decibel level inside the Athletic and Convocation Center approximated that of a 747 at takeoff.

Guard Gary Brokaw, who scored a game-high 25 points, canned back-to-back shots to bring the Irish to within one. When Ray (Dice) Martin drew a charge on UCLA’s Keith Wilkes moments later, the stands shook as if an earthquake had struck.

“I can’t recall that play,” says Weiler when asked if the call was beyond dispute or not. “But I don’t remember either coach coming after us that day. When you leave an arena after you work a game, you know if you’ve done a good job. I’d be the first one to admit I made a mistake, but I felt pretty good after that game.”

Wooden never complained about the call. He sat stoically on the bench, gripping a rolled-up program in his hand. He didn’t even budge when Clay took a pass from Brokaw in the corner and, with 29 seconds left, sank the shot that gave Notre Dame its first lead of the afternoon.

The Bruins had plenty of time to respond, but they misfired on a flurry of shots before Shumate grabbed the rebound that sealed UCLA’s fate.

The Bruins’ unparalleled stretch of perfection – one of the most extraordinary achievements in sports history – became history on that midwinter Saturday at South Bend. But the following week, UCLA faced Notre Dame again – this time on the Bruins’ home court. The next day’s Daily Bruin headlines read, “Bruins Exorcise Irish, 94-75.”

Coincidentally, the Bruins suffered a disproportionate number of milestone defeats in Weiler’s presence. He worked the first of his five Final Four assignments in 1974 and was on the floor when North Carolina State outlasted UCLA, 80-77, in a double-overtime semifinal thriller, ending the Bruins’ record streak of 38 consecutive NCAA tournament victories. Weiler also worked the 1980 title game, in which Louisville snapped UCLA’s 10-game winning streak in NCAA finals, 59-54.

But neither of those losses, it can be argued, was as shocking as the Bruins’ defeat at the Athletic and Convocation Center in 1974. Notre Dame’s stirring comeback ended a streak that will likely never be threatened, much less surpassed.

“I don’t think you’ll ever see anything like that again,” Weiler says. “It’s like DiMaggio hitting in 56 consecutive games. Some records will just never be broken. I can’t see a Division I college team ever winning 88 straight games again.”

The post You Are There: UCLA Streak Snapped appeared first on Referee.com.

Their opponent would be Oklahoma, which came into the matchup with an 11-2 mark after winning the Big 12 Championship Game.

Bill LeMonnier headed the Big Ten officiating crew that included umpire Rick Nelson, head linesman Brent Durbin, line judge Dana McKenzie, back judge Tom Herbert, field judge Mike Cannon and side judge Jon Lucivansky. Nelson, Herbert and Lucivansky had been part of LeMonnier’s crew during the regular season.

LeMonnier notes that at least one member of the crew was concerned the game would be a blowout.

“When we were doing the conference call before we went out to Phoenix, one of the officials made the comment, ‘Gosh, we’ve got Boise and Oklahoma,” LeMonnier recalled. “The general feeling was, ‘Why is Boise State in this game? Why are they in the Fiesta Bowl? I just hope they can play with them for a quarter or a half.’”

Instead of a blowout, what fans got on the night of Jan. 1, 2007, was one of the most memorable bowl games in history.

Prior to kickoff, LeMonnier and Nelson visited with Boise State coach Chris Petersen and, per custom, asked him if the Broncos had any unusual plays the crew should be aware of. LeMonnier remembers Peterson’s response as, “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

The game did start as a blowout, but it was Boise State that took command by building a 28-10 lead with 8:05 remaining in the third quarter.

LeMonnier says the fact the underdog Broncos took an early lead helped the crew maintain its focus. “If Oklahoma had come out and taken that big lead, it probably would have just confirmed what we felt about them coming in,” he said.

Over the last quarter and a half of regulation, however, it was Oklahoma that took command. The Sooners scored 25 consecutive points and took a 35-28 lead when Marcus Walker intercepted a Jared Zabransky pass and returned it 33 yards for a score with 1:02 remaining in regulation.

At that point, LeMonnier thought the issue was settled. “I’m saying to myself, ‘Man, Boise really came close,’” he recalled. “‘Great ballgame, but that’s a shame they came so close.’ Little did I know.”

Following the kickoff, the Broncos had 54 seconds to cover 72 yards. A long completion moved the ball to the Oklahoma 42 yardline, but a sack pushed the Broncos back to midfield, where they found themselves facing fourth down and 18 with 18 seconds remaining.

On the next snap, Zabransky connected over the middle with Drisan James, who caught the ball at the 35 yardline and executed a perfect hookand- ladder play by tossing a backward pass four yards behind him to Jerard Rabb. He raced to the end zone with seven seconds remaining in regulation. A successful extra point tied it.

Boise State won the toss before overtime and chose to start on defense, allowing Adrian Peterson to give the Sooners the lead when he dashed 25 yards for a touchdown on the first play. The extra point gave Oklahoma a 42-35 lead.

Now it was the Broncos’ turn. After six plays, they found themselves facing fourth and two from just outside the five yardline.

With the game on the line, Petersen reached into his bag of tricks once again. Wide receiver Vinny Perretta moved into the backfield to take a direct snap while Zabransky, the quarterback, went in motion to the left side. Perretta took the snap, rolled to his right and found tight end Derek Schouman on the right side of the end zone for a touchdown. With his team now trailing, 42-41, Petersen made the decision to go for two points. The Fiesta Bowl would be decided in the next few moments.

“I think they purposely went for two, not just because they had one more trick play up their sleeve,” LeMonnier said. “I think maybe Coach Petersen realized that, ‘At this point in the game and the way things are going, maybe the big boys have got us now. We need to put it all on the table.’”

Which the Broncos certainly did. With the ball just inside the left hashmark, Zabransky took the snap from under center. He took a three-step drop and cocked his arm as if to throw to his right before tucking the ball behind his back and handing off to running back Ian Johnson on a Statue of Liberty play in the opposite direction. Johnson had nothing but open space in front of him as he sprinted to the end zone to give the Broncos a 43-42 victory.

“I can remember that play like it was yesterday,” LeMonnier recalled. “It looked like it was in slow motion. I saw the fake and what caught my attention was the back (Johnson). If this was really going to be a true pass play, he would have stepped up in front of the quarterback and not stayed behind. That caught my attention immediately, it was like slow motion to me.

“My back judge told me that everybody, including the officials, bit on the fake and everybody went to the right corner, then all of a sudden they were like, ‘Where’s the ball?’”

Following the game, Nelson put an exclamation point on the evening. “We were in the locker room,” LeMonnier said. “Rick Nelson said to me, ‘Coach Petersen was right, we have seen all those plays. We never saw them all in one ballgame though.’”

The result of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl had significant ramifications. It gave added weight to the push for a true Division I football playoff, which became a reality after the 2014 season.

LeMonnier, who worked more than two decades in the Big Ten before retiring in 2014, remembers the game for a more personal reason. His family was with him in Phoenix for the game and the morning afterward they exchanged gifts in a belated Christmas celebration. At one point, LeMonnier’s son and daughterin- law announced they had one more gift for him and his wife.

“They handed each of us a tissue-wrapped thing with a bow on it,” LeMonnier said. When LeMonnier opened his, he found a baby’s bib. That was how he learned his daughter-inlaw was pregnant with his first grandchild.

“That game was one of my most favorite experiences ever on a football field,” LeMonnier said, “but the next morning was even more special.”

Rick Woelfel is a freelance writer from Philadelphia. 

The post You Are There: Boise State’s Statue of Liberty vs. Oklahoma 2007 appeared first on Referee.com.

“At halftime, we joked a bit about whether the planes were running on time at the airport because we thought about going home early,” said 19-year NFL official Dale Orem, who served as the line judge on what would become a historic day in NFL history, with a chuckle. “It was a great day in Buffalo and the weather was actually pretty decent.”

It was a relatively pleasant Saturday afternoon, at least by the standards of western New York in January. The field was free of snow, the winds were mild when they blew at all and the temperature at kickoff was 38 degrees. For the officiating crew, the gloves some members wore were a convenience rather than a necessity.

Umpire Bob Boylston, a 21-year NFL official, had a better-than-front-row seat for Houston’s first-half dominance, positioned as he was, just a few yards off the line of scrimmage on the defensive side of the ball. Pick your statistic of choice: the Oilers scored a touchdown on each of their four first-half possessions, they nearly tripled Buffalo’s time of possession, they outgained the Bills, 290 yards to 75, and Houston quarterback Warren Moon was 19-for-22 with four touchdown passes.

“As officials, we were always aware that we had to be ready for a comeback any time we go out there,” noted Boylston. “You just never know what is going to happen.”

“In games like that you always discuss the fact that we have to officiate like it is 0-0,” added Orem. “You’ve got to keep to your routine and procedures as closely as you can even in a game like that.”

While theoretically possible, a Buffalo comeback seemed highly unlikely. Buffalo’s star linebacker Cornelius Bennett and Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly were both injury casualties and hadn’t even dressed for the game. Backup quarterback Frank Reich, now head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, was making his first start of the entire season, and on Buffalo’s first possession of the third quarter, one of his passes was deflected into the arms of Houston’s Bubba McDowell, who galloped into the end zone to give the Oilers a 35-3 lead. Following the interception, Reich and the Bills scored on each of their next four possessions.

“The game just made a complete turnaround after that,” explained Orem. “Houston was so efficient in the first half, but in the second half, the efficiency switched teams. The enthusiasm of the players and coaches changed on a dime.” In less than seven minutes of game time, Buffalo had closed to within 35-31, and finally took a 38-35 lead with Reich’s fourth second-half touchdown pass and his third to Andre Reed.

“It was two completely different games,” said head linesman Terry Gierke. “As Buffalo began to come back, the crowd really got into it and it was both unforgettable and unbelievable.”

It was the best of times for Gierke, who was stationed along the Houston side of the field for the first half and the Buffalo side for the second half. Thus, for the entire afternoon he was among players and coaches who were piling up points faster than a pinball machine. It was the worst of times for line judge Orem; thanks to the fact that the line judge and head linesman switch sidelines at halftime, he spent his first half with an increasingly morose group of Buffalo players and coaches and his second half among an increasingly astonished and desperate group of Houston Oilers.

Numerous crew members mentioned that Buffalo’s second touchdown in the third quarter, which made the score 35-17, triggered an astonishing shift in momentum. That word was no longer simply a broadcaster’s crutch, it was a near-physical presence in the stadium reinforced by a mammoth wave of crowd noise that Gierke described as “literally deafening.” Even though the Bills still trailed by 18, with 22 minutes of game time remaining, their comeback was taking on an air of inevitability.

That particular touchdown was the source of some intrigue, according to referee Gerald Austin. He believes the drive that produced it may have started by accident. In the 1990s, the league office sent its officials game tapes (recorded on VHS cassettes!) and the crew members usually received them the following Wednesday. While studying the game tape, Austin saw Buffalo kicker Steve Christie’s plant foot appear to slip, turning what was supposed to be a conventional deep kickoff into an impromptu onside kick that Christie himself recovered. Buffalo head coach Marv Levy indirectly validated Austin’s observation when he maintained in a 2013 interview that the play was, in fact, a flub.

While Buffalo’s second touchdown was important, it was one key play among many. “There was no one big play or ‘a-ha’ moment in the game,” recalled Orem. “But it became more and more obvious to (the officials) that we have to stay in control because it was going to be one heck of a game.” Umpire Boylston noted that as the game tightened up in the third quarter, the chatter between players along the line of scrimmage diminished.

“In playoff games there’s less chirping than there is in the regular season anyway, and during this game the chirping fell away as it got closer,” he noted. The crew’s control and management of the game was such that despite the unprecedented reversal of fortunes in the second half and the resulting swings of emotion, there were no post-whistle personal fouls or unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called the entire game.

Houston caught the Bills with 12 seconds left in regulation when the Oilers kicked a tying field goal. Christie subsequently won the game for Buffalo with a 32-yard field goal in overtime, completing the largest comeback in NFL football to that date.

Orem noted the entire crew was “very proud to be part of a game like that. It is quite a conversation piece to be able to say we were there on the field for the greatest comeback in history.”

Austin, a practical man, mentioned one other prominent memory of that amazing afternoon — the Buffalo fans simply didn’t want to leave the stadium at the end of the game. Their extended celebration meant empty streets for the van that took the officials to the Buffalo airport, a trip that was usually a tangled and tedious process. Austin was pleased to note that even with the overtime, each of his crew members made his scheduled flight home.

Van Oler is a freelance writer from Milford, Ohio. *

Had the now ubiquitous “Win Probability Chart” been a thing in 1993, the Buffalo Bills and their fans would not have been happy with what it showed at halftime of their AFC Wild Card playoff game on Jan. 3 of that year. As the Bills shuffled off to their locker room, they trailed the visiting Houston Oilers, 28-3, and the real-time tracking line of the chart would have been about as close to “Houston = 100 percent” as it could be without the game actually being over.

“At halftime, we joked a bit about whether the planes were running on time at the airport because we thought about going home early,” said 19-year NFL official Dale Orem, who served as the line judge on what would become a historic day in NFL history, with a chuckle. “It was a great day in Buffalo and the weather was actually pretty decent.”

It was a relatively pleasant Saturday afternoon, at least by the standards of western New York in January. The field was free of snow, the winds were mild when they blew at all and the temperature at kickoff was 38 degrees. For the officiating crew, the gloves some members wore were a convenience rather than a necessity.

Umpire Bob Boylston, a 21-year NFL official, had a better-than-front-row seat for Houston’s first-half dominance, positioned as he was, just a few yards off the line of scrimmage on the defensive side of the ball. Pick your statistic of choice: the Oilers scored a touchdown on each of their four first-half possessions, they nearly tripled Buffalo’s time of possession, they outgained the Bills, 290 yards to 75, and Houston quarterback Warren Moon was 19-for-22 with four touchdown passes.

“As officials, we were always aware that we had to be ready for a comeback any time we go out there,” noted Boylston. “You just never know what is going to happen.”

“In games like that you always discuss the fact that we have to officiate like it is 0-0,” added Orem. “You’ve got to keep to your routine and procedures as closely as you can even in a game like that.”

While theoretically possible, a Buffalo comeback seemed highly unlikely. Buffalo’s star linebacker Cornelius Bennett and Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly were both injury casualties and hadn’t even dressed for the game. Backup quarterback Frank Reich, now head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, was making his first start of the entire season, and on Buffalo’s first possession of the third quarter, one of his passes was deflected into the arms of Houston’s Bubba McDowell, who galloped into the end zone to give the Oilers a 35-3 lead. Following the interception, Reich and the Bills scored on each of their next four possessions.

“The game just made a complete turnaround after that,” explained Orem. “Houston was so efficient in the first half, but in the second half, the efficiency switched teams. The enthusiasm of the players and coaches changed on a dime.” In less than seven minutes of game time, Buffalo had closed to within 35-31, and finally took a 38-35 lead with Reich’s fourth second-half touchdown pass and his third to Andre Reed.

“It was two completely different games,” said head linesman Terry Gierke. “As Buffalo began to come back, the crowd really got into it and it was both unforgettable and unbelievable.”

It was the best of times for Gierke, who was stationed along the Houston side of the field for the first half and the Buffalo side for the second half. Thus, for the entire afternoon he was among players and coaches who were piling up points faster than a pinball machine. It was the worst of times for line judge Orem; thanks to the fact that the line judge and head linesman switch sidelines at halftime, he spent his first half with an increasingly morose group of Buffalo players and coaches and his second half among an increasingly astonished and desperate group of Houston Oilers.

Numerous crew members mentioned that Buffalo’s second touchdown in the third quarter, which made the score 35-17, triggered an astonishing shift in momentum. That word was no longer simply a broadcaster’s crutch, it was a near-physical presence in the stadium reinforced by a mammoth wave of crowd noise that Gierke described as “literally deafening.” Even though the Bills still trailed by 18, with 22 minutes of game time remaining, their comeback was taking on an air of inevitability.

That particular touchdown was the source of some intrigue, according to referee Gerald Austin. He believes the drive that produced it may have started by accident. In the 1990s, the league office sent its officials game tapes (recorded on VHS cassettes!) and the crew members usually received them the following Wednesday. While studying the game tape, Austin saw Buffalo kicker Steve Christie’s plant foot appear to slip, turning what was supposed to be a conventional deep kickoff into an impromptu onside kick that Christie himself recovered. Buffalo head coach Marv Levy indirectly validated Austin’s observation when he maintained in a 2013 interview that the play was, in fact, a flub.

While Buffalo’s second touchdown was important, it was one key play among many. “There was no one big play or ‘a-ha’ moment in the game,” recalled Orem. “But it became more and more obvious to (the officials) that we have to stay in control because it was going to be one heck of a game.” Umpire Boylston noted that as the game tightened up in the third quarter, the chatter between players along the line of scrimmage diminished.

“In playoff games there’s less chirping than there is in the regular season anyway, and during this game the chirping fell away as it got closer,” he noted. The crew’s control and management of the game was such that despite the unprecedented reversal of fortunes in the second half and the resulting swings of emotion, there were no post-whistle personal fouls or unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called the entire game.

Houston caught the Bills with 12 seconds left in regulation when the Oilers kicked a tying field goal. Christie subsequently won the game for Buffalo with a 32-yard field goal in overtime, completing the largest comeback in NFL football to that date.

Orem noted the entire crew was “very proud to be part of a game like that. It is quite a conversation piece to be able to say we were there on the field for the greatest comeback in history.”

Austin, a practical man, mentioned one other prominent memory of that amazing afternoon — the Buffalo fans simply didn’t want to leave the stadium at the end of the game. Their extended celebration meant empty streets for the van that took the officials to the Buffalo airport, a trip that was usually a tangled and tedious process. Austin was pleased to note that even with the overtime, each of his crew members made his scheduled flight home.

Van Oler is a freelance writer from Milford, Ohio. *

The post Inside “The Comeback” – Buffalo vs. Houston 1993 appeared first on Referee.com.

It is June 14, 1998, at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. The Chicago Bulls are playing the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Dan Crawford is one of the referees.

The Jazz are leading by one with the ball, 20 seconds away from forcing a Game 7 at home. Utah’s Karl Malone sets up in the low post on the left side of the lane. Teammate Jeff Hornacek, guarded by Michael Jordan, runs to the right corner, drawing Jordan away from the play. Crawford is on the baseline.

“Michael peeked back and saw the pass go into Malone,” says Crawford.

Jordan sneaks along the baseline and slaps the ball away from Malone, his fourth steal of the game.

“That’s a pressure cooker,” says Crawford, who had a clean look at the play. “Michael hit all ball. The ball went straight down (and up to him).”

Utah’s Bryon Russell is shadowing Jordan as he dribbles up court. Jordan starts driving to his right, pulls up, puts out his left arm to fend off Russell and pours in a jumper with 5.2 seconds to play.

The Bulls win 87-86, Jordan’s sixth and final championship.

But did Jordan shove Russell away to clear room for the winning shot?

“Did he push off ?” says Crawford, 20 years later. “You tell me.

“Fifty percent of the people will say he did, and 50 percent say he didn’t.”

Crawford is located on the right side of the court on the play.

“Michael stuck out his left arm,” says Crawford. “The official on the other side of the court (Dick Bavetta) had the best view. The call belonged to him.”

No whistle.

Some NBA fans who believe that Jordan pushed off and don’t know anything about officiating have suggested star treatment — no way a referee is going to call a foul on the great Michael Jordan on the deciding play.

“We really don’t think that,” said Crawford, now 65 and living in Naperville, Ill. “The referee has to make the call in two-tenths of a second.” There is obviously no time to determine which player should get the benefit of a foul call.

Crawford is focused on Russell on the play.

“The fans look at the guy with the ball all the time,” he says. “The referee is looking at everything else. I’m looking at the defensive guy. You’re a fan, the coach is the coach and I’m the referee. We’re looking at three different games. It’s totally different.”

Jordan scores 45 points in the game. Toni Kukoc, with 15 points, is the only other Bull to reach double figures.

“It was a classic,” says Crawford. He adds that the excitement of the game does not influence how you referee. “You don’t open yourself up to ‘this is a great game’ because it can scare you. The ideal thing is to treat all games the same. (As an official) you don’t turn the volume up or down.”

Crawford remembers the crowd being intense, even for the NBA Finals. He names Utah and Portland as the toughest places to referee in the league, maybe because the NBA is the only one of the four major sports in those two cities.

“You block out the crowd, the way a foul shooter won’t see the people in the crowd behind the basket waving their thunder sticks,” he says.

Virtually everyone involved is exhausted after the decisive game.

“You’re so mentally drained,” says Crawford. “You don’t sleep well.

You’re still wired from that game. The pressure is so great.”

It is two days before Crawford watches a replay of the game. How did he do?

“I could watch the video and pick up something I didn’t call,” he says. “You have to put it behind you. There’s never been a game where the referees were perfect. The key is to not make a mistake down the stretch. I was pretty good down the stretch in that game.”

It is Feb. 4, 2018, Super Bowl Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The Philadelphia Eagles are playing the New England Patriots.

Gene Steratore learns after the conference championship games, two weeks ago, that he has been chosen to referee Super Bowl LII. “It’s humbling,” he says. Referees face similar challenges as the players in preparing for the Super Bowl. They spend hours obtaining tickets and helping to arrange travel plans for loved ones who want to attend the game.

“I needed tickets for 22 Italians,” says Steratore. “Not all of my seven brothers and sisters were able to attend, thank God. You can’t get hotel rooms (Super Bowl week) for $89 or with Marriott points. We had a whole wing at the hotel.”

Officials try to act as if every game is the same. But deep down they know it’s not. This isn’t just another game. It’s THE SUPER BOWL!

“You can’t treat it like any other game,” says Steratore. “It’s not realistic.”

Steratore admits to being nervous taking a shower the morning of the game. He is not worried about blowing a call. He is not worried about making a mistake at a crucial time. Would you believe he’s worried about the coin toss?

He rides a shuttle bus to the stadium, arriving 3-and-a-half hours before kickoff. Now his nerves are fine. “That buildup is a calm, relaxed feeling,” he says. “You’re comfortable and confident. The coin toss is the only part that’s scripted.”

The NFL is honoring 94-yearold Woody Williams, one of the few surviving Medal of Honor winners from World War II, at the coin toss. Steratore blows the script.

“I called him Woodrow Wilson,” says Steratore. “Then two other names I can’t remember. I called him by the wrong name three times.”

Fortunately, the rest of the day goes much smoother for Steratore and his crew. There are only seven penalties enforced for a grand total of 40 yards in the game. The Patriots are flagged just once for five yards. It is a clean game.

“They say the refs put the flags in their pockets in the postseason,” says Steratore. “I think the players subconsciously don’t want to make a mistake. They said later, ‘You did a great job. You let them play.’ They just didn’t foul.”

The Eagles and Patriots are both moving the ball at will. There is only one punt in the entire game. Philadelphia quarterback Nick Foles, filling in for the injured Carson Wentz, is having a superb day. So is Tom Brady.

Late in the second quarter the Eagles are leading 15-12 and facing a fourth-and-goal at the New England one yardline, just 38 seconds left in the half. Steratore anticipates the Eagles will attempt a field goal. “Mentally you’re putting the kicking ball on the field,” he says. But the Eagles line up to go for it with Foles in the shotgun.

Foles begins to walk toward his center, then pauses. He breaks outside and there is a direct snap to Philadelphia running back Corey Clement. “Did he get set?” Steratore asks himself. “I hope all of that was legal.”

Clement pitches to tight end Trey Burton, who finds Foles alone on the right side of the end zone and tosses him a pass. Touchdown! Eagles lead 22-12.

Steratore, who is 55 and lives in Washington, Pa., near Pittsburgh, knows he makes the right decision by not calling a foul on Foles.

“You don’t get to where you need to be as a ref in terms of experience until about your late 40s or 50,” says Steratore. “It’s a lot of years. You should be at your peak. About then Father Time kicks in. You have to push your body. You have to have the ability to concentrate and focus.”

The Eagles go for another fourth down in the fourth quarter. They are trailing 33-32, facing a fourth-and-two from their own 45 with 5:39 to play.

Foles goes through a long count. “He’s not going to snap it,” thinks Steratore. “They’re going to milk it to a second or two, then call timeout, or take (a delay of game) penalty. I have to ask Coach Belichick if he wants to accept it.”

It’s the biggest play of the game. If the Eagles don’t make it, New England will have the ball, the lead and the momentum.

“Of course, there’s pressure,” says Steratore, insisting he is comfortable and relaxed. “It’s what you do with the pressure. You either swallow it or embrace it. It becomes your best friend. Sometimes I laugh too much on the field.”

The ball is snapped and Foles completes a two-yard pass to Zac Ertz for the first down. Seven plays later Foles connects with another pass to Ertz for an 11-yard touchdown. Philadelphia goes on to win 41-33.

The teams combine for a Super Bowl record 1,151 yards of total offense. Brady throws for 505 yards and three touchdowns. Foles completes 28 of 43 for 373 yards, throws three touchdown passes and catches one more.

Steratore doesn’t watch a tape of the game for two months.

“I know things went OK,” he says. “I didn’t see anything that (we missed that) jumped off the screen. This is really an exciting game, which you don’t think about during the game.”

It is Aug. 20, 2002 and the WNBA is becoming firmly entrenched as a professional league, now in the playoff s of its sixth season. The Houston Comets, who won the championship the first four years, are facing the Utah Starzz in the deciding game of a best-of-three playoff in the Western Conference semifinals at the Compaq Center in Houston, formerly known as The Summit.

Lisa Mattingly is one of three referees working the game. This is not going to be just another game, not even just another playoff game. This is a game that Lisa Mattingly will never forget.

During a timeout early in the second half, Mattingly and fellow referee Roy Gulbeyan look over to the scorer’s table and see their third official, Bill Stokes, lying on the ground. He has suffered a heart attack.

The noisy arena, with 9,540 fans present, falls silent. The Comets’ trainer and team doctors go to work on Stokes right away. “Thankfully they had an AED (automated external defibrillator) there,” says Mattingly. They use paddles to shock Stokes’ back to life. Eventually he is loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled off the court. Mattingly and Gulbeyan follow.

“They closed the door in our face,” says Mattingly, upset she can’t stay with her fellow official.

Stokes, who has been a referee in the WNBA since the league begins in 1997, is taken to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital.

“The game was on national TV,” recalls Mattingly. “It went off the air. My voicemail blew up.”

Val Ackerman, president of the WNBA, is at the game. She has a difficult decision to make. Finish the game now or suspend it until a later date. There is 15:33 left to play.

“They had a timetable to keep,” says Mattingly. “There are only so many days the arena is available and this is the playoff s. We’re told we’ve got to finish the game. They took some heat for it. Val did what was best for the league.”

Ackerman leaves the arena to be with Stokes.

The players would probably have preferred to go home. Same with the referees.

“We didn’t want to do it,” says Mattingly, worried about her friend Stokes. “It was very hard. I didn’t know if I could do it. I was a mental wreck.”

Everyone is back on the court. “All the players were in tears,” remembers Mattingly. Someone begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer and the crowd stands in unison and joins in. “It brought some humanity to the game,” she says.

Twenty-five minutes later the game resumes with Mattingly and Gulbeyan as the only two referees. “I hadn’t worked a two-person crew in years,” she says. “I was all over the court to start, but we finally got settled in. We finished the game under duress. It was very hard. It’s about like being in a car wreck.”

Utah wins, 75-72, to advance to the Western Conference finals vs. the Los Angeles Sparks, the eventual champions.

Mattingly goes immediately to the hospital to check on Stokes. He is in critical condition. She begins calling Stokes’ family and friends. She and Stokes have been friends for a decade and referee many college games together, as well as WNBA games.

Mattingly must work another playoff game days later in Utah. But she returns to Houston to visit Stokes in the hospital.

Ten days after the heart attack, Stokes, after undergoing bypass surgery and having a defibrillator installed in his chest, is released from the hospital, but he never officiates again.

Mattingly, one of the top female officials in the country, continued to referee for another 16 years. The last game she worked was the 2018 women’s Final Four. After 28 years as an NCAA Division I referee, plus 10 years in the WNBA, she retired to become supervisor of officials for the SEC, WAC, Sun Belt, Southland and Atlantic Sun conferences.

Mattingly, now 56, has homes in Clearwater, Fla., and Nicholasville, Ky. She says for the first month or two, when she attends college games as a supervisor, she will probably bring her official’s gear along, “just in case they need a third referee.”

It is Feb. 3, 2008, in Glendale, Ariz. The New England Patriots are attempting to become the second undefeated team in pro football history, matching the 1972 Miami Dolphins, by beating the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.

Mike Carey is the referee for what will become one of the most memorable games in Super Bowl history.

“It’s a completely different environment,” says Carey. “You get there four days early. There are a lot of activities that the NFL provides. You’re not with your regular crew. (The NFL chooses top-rated officials at each position.) It’s time to get to know each other.

“It’s the only game of its kind. The eyes on you are memorable. You try to work every play like it’s the last play of the Super Bowl. But once the ball is kicked off , it’s like any other game.”

An estimated 97.5 million will watch the game on TV, in addition to the 71,101 in attendance. That’s a lot of eyes on the referee.

Carey has been a part of some wild games. He was the side judge in a January 1993 playoff game when the Houston Oilers led Buff alo 35-3 early in the third quarter and the Bills rallied to win, 41-38, in overtime, the biggest comeback in NFL history.

New England, at 18-0, is a 12-point favorite over the 13-6 Giants in 2008. “I learned long ago that doesn’t mean anything,” Carey says of the betting line.

Tom Brady completes a touchdown pass to Randy Moss with 2:42 left to give the Patriots a 14-10 lead. Carey is prepared for the Giants to make a long kickoff return.

He also worked the Patriots vs. the Giants at the Meadowlands in the last game of the regular season, which New England won, 38-35. “The Giants didn’t have to play (hard with their playoff situation already decided),” says Carey. “But they did. The return game was big.” New York’s Domenik Hixson returned a kickoff 74 yards for a touchdown in that game.

This time Hixson returns the kick just 14 yards before being stopped cold by New England’s Raymond Ventrone.

“The Patriots just thumped them at the (17 yard) line,” says Carey. “Those are the things that take the steam out of somebody. It didn’t bode well for the Giants.”

New York is 83 yards from victory with 2:39 to play. Tough assignment against the New England defense. One remarkable play derails New England’s perfect season and makes this game one of the most exciting of all time.

With 1:15 remaining, Giants quarterback Eli Manning is facing a third-and-five from his own 44 yardline.

“I’m prepared for a hard count (with the Giants attempting to draw the Patriots off sides),” says Carey. But the ball is snapped. “The Giants protection breaks down immediately. I did something you’re not supposed to do. I’m on Eli’s right, his passing arm side. Everybody covers up Eli. I run around to his left side.”

Patriot defenders Jarvis Green and Richard Seymour get their hands on Manning, but can’t bring him down. Somehow Manning spins out of the tackles and fi res a deep pass. Some think the Patriots had Manning “in the grasp” before he let go of the ball.

“I got lucky to get a good look at it,” says Carey. “It was as close (to being in the grasp) as I’d like to have it. It just didn’t meet all the criteria. It wasn’t one where I hoped I was right.”

Carey is positive he is right not calling it a sack.

The Giants’ David Tyree makes a spectacular catch, clutching the ball against his helmet with one hand as he falls to the ground for a 32-yard gain. “I could tell from (back judge) Scott Helverson’s body motions something big had happened,” says Carey. “He said it was an unbelievable catch.”

Four plays later Manning connects with Plaxico Burress for a 13-yard touchdown that wins the game, 17-14.

Carey and his crew know immediately they have been part of something special.

“It was like we played the game,” he says. “It was euphoria. I don’t remember seeing anything to ask the officials to do diff erently. That’s very rare. Every year at the Super Bowl somebody asks me about that game. I didn’t make it memorable.”

Carey retired following the 2013 season after 24 years as an NFL official, the last 15 in the referee’s spot. He is 69, living in San Diego and still CEO of a company that manufactures snow sports equipment.

“I have some phenomenal memories,” he says. “I had a storybook career.”

It is March 13, 1984, in the Dayton Arena. Morehead State and North Carolina A&T are meeting in a fi rst-round game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Tie game. Twenty-six seconds to play.

Mickey Crowley, one of the three referees on the All-Big East crew, calls a foul on a Morehead State player.

“I committed a cardinal sin for a referee.” says Crowley. “I turned my back (on the play) to make sure the clock stopped.”

Nowadays, referees often wear a belt pack that automatically stops the clock when they blow the whistle. But not in 1984.

No. 23, Eric Boyd, steps to line for A&T. The Aggies uniforms are yellow with white numerals, making the numbers tough to discern. Boyd is A&T’s second-leading scorer and a 66 percent foul shooter.

“Wayne Martin (the Morehead State coach) comes out and says, very politely, ‘Mickey, I think you’ve got the wrong shooter.’”

Crowley confers with his fellow officials. “I went to (Jim) Burr and say, ‘Do I have the right shooter?’ He says, ‘I’m not sure.’ I went to (Tim) Higgins and he says, ‘Don’t ask me.’”

Crowley goes to the alternate referee at the scorer’s table. He isn’t sure either. Next, he turns to the television announcers. He figures they can replay it.

“I ask the announcer and he says, ‘We should have it,’” says Crowley. “He looks at it.”

The announcer tells Crowley that No. 21, James Horace, should be the shooter. “I never looked at the TV monitor,” says Crowley.

Years later someone asks Crowley if he thinks the Aggies switched shooters on purpose. “No comment,” he replies.

Horace, a 51 percent foul shooter, goes to the line. “Nobody on the A&T bench complained,” says Crowley, confirming in his mind that the correct shooter is now at the line. Horace makes one of two free throws. The Aggies lead by one.

Morehead State’s Guy Minnifield makes a shot with four seconds left to give the Eagles a 70-69 victory.

Crowley creates a stir by using a television replay to help make the correct call. “You weren’t allowed to go to the TV (in those days),” he says. Crowley is unaware he is making a landmark decision that will change the way sports are officiated.

“When we got back to the hotel, the phone is jumping off the hook,” he says. “My wife calls and says you shouldn’t have done that. I ask her, ‘Did we get it right?’ She says, ‘Yes.’”

Technically, Crowley is not suspended. But he does not advance to the next round of the tournament. An NCAA spokesman claims the referee assignments are made before the tournament starts and Crowley is not scheduled to work any more games.

“I did take some heat,” says Crowley. “I got a lot of criticism.”

He works a full schedule of games in the 1984-85 season, plus the Big East tourney. He is not asked to work the NCAA Tournament that season. The following year Crowley is invited back to referee in the NCAAs.

“Imagine if I got it wrong,” says Crowley, now 84 and living in Calabash, N.C. “It would have been bigger news.”

In the last 20 years, most sports have adopted replay systems to determine close calls. “Now if you burp, they go to the TV monitor,” says Crowley with a laugh.

Crowley refereed NCAA Division I basketball games for 31 years. He worked his last game in 1991, when Duke beat Kansas to win the national championship. “I wanted to go out on top,” he says. He spends another 15 years as supervisor of officials for the Atlantic 10, Patriot League and Ivy League conferences.

But it is that 1984 Morehead State-North Carolina A&T game that will be remembered for changing how sports are officiated. “I will defend what I did as long as I live,” says Crowley. “We got it right!”

It is Oct. 6, 2010, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. The Phillies are facing the Cincinnati Reds in the first game of a best-of-five NL Division Series. Roy Halladay is pitching for Philadelphia and John Hirschbeck is umpiring home plate.

Hirschbeck can tell early in the game that Halladay has his best stuff. But he doesn’t realize that Halladay is pitching a no-hitter until he looks at the scoreboard after the fifth inning.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Hirschbeck tells himself. “Don’t change anything. Don’t let it come down to anything you do.”

Hirschbeck, now 64 and still spending summers in North Lima, Ohio, says he doesn’t feel any extra pressure because of the possible no-hitter. He believes he is having a good game, too. “I was seeing the ball well,” he says.

The drama of a playoff provides all the pressure Hirschbeck needs to be sharp. “There’s a difference between a spring training game and a regular-season game, and a regular-season game and a playoff game,” he says. “Everything gets turned up a little bit. You try not to get amped up with the crowd.”

Halladay’s chance at a perfect game ends when Cincinnati’s Jay Bruce walks in the fifth inning on a 3-2 pitch. It is the Reds’ only baserunner of the game.

The Reds’ Brandon Phillips is the final batter in the ninth inning. He hits a tapper in front of the plate. Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz fi elds the ball and throws out Phillips at first.

“I was prepared to call interference,” says Hirschbeck. “(Phillips) ran out of the 45-foot lane on the infield grass.” But Ruiz makes the play on Phillips. No need to make the interference call. The Phillies win, 4-0. The no-hitter is only the second in playoff history, joining the perfect game the Yankees’ Don Larsen threw in the 1956 World Series. Halladay throws 25 of 28 first-pitch strikes and 104 pitches total. The game is completed in a delightful two hours and 34 minutes.

There is more to this day for Hirschbeck than the no-hitter. He receives a call from his Cleveland Clinic doctor that morning before the game telling him that he has prostate cancer. He has already survived a bout with testicular cancer the year before when he has his right testicle removed.

“I couldn’t do anything about it (right away),” he says. “I tried to tell myself I’m not going to worry about it unless it’s something (serious). I will take care of it after the season.”

Hirschbeck’s son, Michael, 22 at the time, makes the trip with him to Philadelphia. He often travels with his father to games around the Northeast. When Michael is younger, he sometimes serves as a batboy for one of the teams.

The no-hitter is one of those special father-son days that neither will forget. Michael Hirschbeck passed away in 2014 from ALD, the second son that John lost to the disease.

After the game Hirschbeck asks the umpires’ clubhouse guy to get Halladay to autograph a picture from the game. Halladay does it willingly.

Halladay, who died in a plane crash in 2018, makes Hirschbeck’s job easy. “He threw strikes,” Hirschbeck said. “I was a pitcher’s umpire. I could call a ball, a strike. Never call a strike, a ball. I was consistent. I had the same strike zone all the time.”

It was the only time Hirschbeck worked home plate for a no-hitter. He was at first base when the Yankees’ David Wells threw a perfect game against Minnesota in 1998 and on the field for two of Nolan Ryan’s no-hitters.

Hirschbeck was also behind the plate when Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run, surpassing Henry Aaron. He retired after working the 2016 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians, his third World Series and his 34th year in Major League Baseball.

“I was fortunate,” he says. “It’s fun when you look back.”

Gene Duffey is a sportswriter from Houston.

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