THE BOYS IN BLUE

EDITOR’S NOTE--A major league umpire tries to be the unnoticed man on the field. But a situation like the one that led to the 30-day suspension of Pete Rose makes the men in blue men in the news. On the road for seven months, alternatively ignored and vilified, they make split-second decisions hundreds of times a game. To get an idea of what it’s like, national writer Fred Bayles spent five days with an American League crew.

Tim Welke strips off his sweat-soaked T-shirt, revealing a purpling circle on his chest that describes the impact of a 70-mph fouled pitch. The young umpire, unmindful of the bruise, is describing an encounter with Red Sox catcher Rick Cerone over a balk call.

“He kept it up, so I went over and dusted the plate and I said ‘Another word and you’re out.’ And you know what? He didn’t say another word.”

It’s not always so easy in the world of major league umpiring, a world of hotels and airplanes and balls and strikes, of boredom and screaming intensity, of anonymity and high profile scrutiny.

And meet the umpires of Joe Brinkman’s crew:

There’s Terry Cooney of Fresno, at 55 a powerfully built, serious man who held jobs from classified ad salesman to a prison guard before an inmate suggested he would make a good umpire. “I like to tell people I was conned into umpiring,” he says.

Tim Welke, at 30, a veteran of six years in the majors. An amateur umpire in his hometown of Kalamazoo, Mich., Welke went to umpire school hoping the players and coaches would stop yelling. “I used to hate to be yelled at,” he says. “Now I’m used to it.”

There’s Durwood Merrill, the preacher’s son from Texarkana, Ark., with an endless catalogue of tales told in a donkey’s bray. But Merrill speaks with quiet deliberation about umpiring. “Making that call is so much of a high because it’s all in your control and in your heart you know you’re right,” he says.

And there’s crew chief Joe Brinkman, a sharp observer of mankind whose easy-going nature belies an intense dedication to the Zen of officiating. A man of sharp wit, Brinkman offers few amusing on-field anecdotes.

“What we do really isn’t very funny,” he says.

There are seven four-man umpire crews in the American League, six in the National League, working almost constantly from March to October. It’s a perpetual roadtrip broken only by a two-week vacation.

Umpires know they are in a no-win situation. Fans boo. Players, managers and sportswriters abuse them. League officials second guess.

When umpires showed up for the first game at the Minnesota Twins’ new stadium they discovered they had no dressing room. They had to change in a closet.

“They spent $100 million and forgot about the officials,” says Cooney.

But some things have improved. Before their 1979 strike, the umps had no vacation. Pay ranged from $17,000 to $50,000 and $40 a day was expected to cover food and lodging.

Today rookies make $42,000 a year; a 20-year veteran earns $105,000. The per diem has jumped to $155.

“We talk about the old days a lot,” says Brinkman, a strike leader and a board member of the Major League Umpires Association. “It seemed we were second-class citizens in a first-class world.”

Sunday. After the Red Sox lose to Seattle, 11-7, there is a frenzy of preparation in the umpires dressing room. Tomorrow is a rare day off--one of six in the season--and Welke and Merrill rush to catch flights home, Welke to start his vacation, Merrill to see “Mom,” his wife of 27 years. Brinkman and Cooney will stay in Boston with their wives, in for a visit, before rejoining Merrill on Tuesday in Baltimore.

Brinkman collects $18 each from the crew, a dollar for each run scored. They ante up after each game and divide the money at season’s end.

Welke talks about the hockey playoff game he saw at Boston Garden last night. He is particularly impressed with the officials.

“When they came out the crowd applauded them. Imagine that,” he says, awed. “But I tell you, they worked their butts off. I’d like to shake hands with those guys.”

To watch umpires work is to view a game within a game.

While base coaches and catchers give their signs and signal, the umpires are also signaling, deciding who will watch the outfield for foul balls and trapped flies and who will shift where to cover the bases. They move on each play in an intricate, ever-changing choreography.

“It’s all timing and positioning,” Cooney says.

The plate is the most demanding job. The umpire must decide instantly if a 90-mph fastball has passed through a vague rectangle bounded by the batter’s chest and knees and the 17-inch width of home plate.

The umpire crouches over the catcher, exposed to wild pitches and foul balls that carom off the bat so hard you can smell the cowhide scorch.

“Every time they don’t swing at a pitch, there’s a decision to be made,” says Merrill. “There may be 230, 240 pitches a game and when it’s over, you feel it.”

Monday. Brinkman slumps in his seat on the drive to the golf course, recovering from 3 a.m. Sambucca and pizza with the crew that replaced his.

Golf is an essential. It’s a chance to get out of the hotel and unwind. Brinkman, a scratch player, was one of the first to bring clubs on the road. It caused disapproving clucks from league officials.

“They told me it wasn’t right, that I should spend my time thinking umpiring,” says Brinkman. He ignored them; now many umps golf on the road.

At 44, Brinkman says he has cooled the competitive fire in him. He ejected 26 players his first year umpiring. “I’d get fired for doing that now,” he says.

Now he operates an umpire school at his home in Cocoa, Fla., one of two in the nation. He gives speeches, has written a book and plans to produce a video.

His wife, Karen, says Brinkman has shed the shell many umpires develop against the onslaught of coaches and players.

“They build this wall around them on the field that they sometimes carry with them,” she says. “There were times when we argued that he would fold his hands and walk away.”

Umpires do have a following among the waitresses, hotel clerks and golf pros they meet on the road.

Unlike the teams, whose travel is handled by the club, umpires fend for themselves. They become wizards of airline schedules. They develop a network of hotel executives and restaurateurs who often give discounts or pick up tabs.

In Boston the crew shifted hotels for a cheaper price. In Baltimore, thanks to his connections, Brinkman gets rooms at a third the going rate.

Favors are often returned in the currency of game tickets. Each umpire is entitled to six tickets a game. An attentive desk clerk in Baltimore gets one. There is also a form of umpire groupies, usually successful men who value an ump’s friendship. In Boston, Lenny Brodney, a retired businessman, drives them to the game, arranges for theater tickets, takes them to dinner and even helps Cooney’s wife find an eye doctor. “There are people like Lenny in a lot of the cities,” says Brinkman.

To Brodney, the umpires are “great guys who have a tough job.”

“They’re the only people expected to be perfect the first day and improve from there,” he says.

Tuesday. Brinkman and Cooney fly to Baltimore for three games between the Orioles and Angels, the league’s worst teams.

The two, briefcases in hand, are indistinguishable from other business travelers. They rent a car and load their own luggage--the suit carrier and suitcase apiece they live out of for seven months.

Merrill arrives later. His connecting flight from Texarkana to Dallas was delayed by mechanical problems.

“They had to take that plane up and fly it around to see if it was safe,” he says. “A lot of folks didn’t want to get on, but I said I had to get to Dallas.” Umpires are docked salary and fined for missing a game.

They are joined by Chuck Meriweather, an AAA League umpire from Nashville, called up to fill in for an ailing umpire. Meriweather, 31, quiet, self-ssured, a nine-year veteran of the minors, is being groomed for the big leagues.

The sky lets loose torrents a half hour before game time. The crew sits in their underwear for two hours, watching television in the small dressing room at Memorial Stadium. The game finally is rescheduled as a twi-night doubleheader on Thursday.

Merrill, a non-drinker who studies military history, returns to the hotel. The rest go to a favorite haunt in Little Italy with three umps from the Carolina League, teachers at Brinkman’s school, who tell of a recent game where a 93-year-old grandmother sang the Star Spangled Banner.

“She did all right up to ‘the rockets’ red glare,’ but then she started to sing about her grandchildren and finally just hummed,” says one. “All the players were bent over, laughing.”

At the next table, some Angels team members eat their dinner quietly. They stop at the umpires table to joke about the weather. The talk is tentative and brief.

An umpire’s history is split into two epochs: when he was “down” in the minors, and when he escaped purgatory to come “up” to the majors. Until then he lives with what Brinkman calls the “maybes.”

Maybe you’ll move up quickly to a AAA league. Maybe your wife will put up with more years of poverty in hopes that you’ll catch fire with the league supervisors. Maybe one of the 60 major league spots will open up.

“It takes a lot of hope and love of the game to hang in there,” says Brinkman.

Brinkman also did time in the Dominican League, where guards armed with machine guns were called to quiet the fans. Brinkman’s toe was broken there when fans stoned the umpires after a disputed call.

Meriweather, married with one child and another on the way, calls his first years in the minors “a sudden awakening.”

“If you don’t like the game, if you don’t like the job from day one, it’s not for you,” he says.

Wednesday. The rain stops a half hour before the game. Cooney is behind the plate, he prepares by rubbing canned mud on 60 balls to take off the slippery sheen. Meriweather is at third, Brinkman at second and Merrill at first.

Each umpire has a distinctive style. Merrill is a dramatic flourish of gestures; Cooney makes calls with slow deliberation. Brinkman gestures strikes as if he were using a punching bag.

Even Meriweather, who moves languidly on obvious outs, whipsaws his long arms on close plays.

“You all start out learning the same motions in school, then you develop your own techniques. It’s whatever feels right to you,” says Cooney. “On close plays you have to be dramatic. You have to sell the call to everyone so there is no room for doubt.”

There is an etiquette in talking to umpires. If you dispute a call and say, “Strike? You call that (long complicated string of expletives) pitch a strike?” you’re likely to continue playing. If you say, “Strike? You’re a (simple expletive) jerk,” it’s usually time for a shower.

“If it’s personal you have to eject them, because it opens so many doors,” says Brinkman.

Unlike football and hockey referees who can call penalties, or basketball refs who maintain discipline with foul shots, umpires have no other penalties other than “running” a player.

“It’s harder not to run someone,” says Brinkman. “There’s no in-betweens. Sometimes it seems too harsh. Othertimes it’s not harsh enough.”

Thursday, Merrill prepares for the plate by putting on customized knee supporters. Above the knee he has written “Strike.” Below the knee is written “Ball.” In between is a zone labeled “Not Sure.”

Merrill also puts on longjohns, a cup, shin guards and pants, an inside chest protector, shoes with steel plates and a mask with a plastic throat protector.

The armor is barely enough. A foul tip catches the inside of his leg, causing the knee to swell painfully the eight hours he is on the field.

The first game lasts 10 innings. It is nearing midnight by the end of the second game. A few hardcore fans remain, including three who think it is fun to spit beer and wear popcorn boxes on their heads.

“Hey ump,” the trio of merry makers calls over and over again. “What are you doing?”

It’s a wet and lonely 1 a.m. when they leave the stadium. The teams are gone; so are the fans. The crew is tired and sore. Merrill limps to the car on his bad knee.

The crew catchs a few hours sleep before flying to New York for a weekend series at Yankee Stadium. Meriweather returns to Omaha and the limbo of AAA ball.

A better epilogue comes on the sunny Sunday outside Fenway Park. Brinkman and Cooney walk out of the players’ gate, unnoticed by fans waiting for a Clemens or Boggs. Cooney stops at the crowd’s edge and hands a scuffed ball to a kid of eight. Cooney does this occasionally, bending low to say in his gruff voice, “Now don’t let me hear you say nothing bad about umpires.”

Today he says nothing, just walks on to hunt for a cab back to the hotel, leaving the kid to stare at this cowhide version of a silver bullet, to guess who was that stranger and to wonder if he should have thanked him.