Ashford, Emmett 1914—1980

views updated

Emmett Ashford 1914—1980

Major League Baseball Umpire

Most people can easily name Jackie Robinson as the player who broke the color barrier in professional baseball. A lesser number, but still sizable, may also be able to correctly identify Frank Robinson as major league baseball’s first black manager. But chances are, the number of correct responses would drop dramatically when asked for the name of the man who became the first black umpire in professional baseball. His name was Emmett Ashford. In 1966, aftermore than ISyears of working college games, fly-by-night leagues, and the minors, the then 51-year old Ashford was called up by the American League and broke yet another racial barrier in professional sports. With a flamboyant showmanship and animated style of calling the game, Ashford delighted crowds and created the unlikely event of an umpire--often the most hated man on a baseball diamond--being asked for his autograph. Although he only worked in the majors for five years before retiring, Ashford’s life was a model of perseverance and refusing to give up on a dream despite the odds.

Emmett Littleton Ashford was born November 23, 1914 in Los Angeles, California. His father left when Ashford was a year old leaving his mother to raise Emmett and his newborn baby brother on her own. Ashford credit’s his mother for his tenacity.“My mother was a secretary for a black newspaper, The California Eagle, formanyyears,” he reminisced to Larry R. Gerlach, author of The Men in Blue: Conversations with Umpires.“She was quite an active person, and I know I got my ambitious traits from her.”

With his father gone and being the oldest boy, Ashford took it upon himself to work after school. First by selling magazines and shining shoes, then working as stockboy and cashier at a local supermarket. Still, he managed to keep his grades up and also participated in school activities. By the time he was at Jefferson High School he was the first black student body president, the editor of the school newspaper and a member of the Scholarship Society. He even had enough energy to join the track team.

The First Time

After a brief stint at Los Angeles Community College, Ashford enrolled at nearby Chapman College. Since he was not fast enough for the Chapman track team, he played baseball for Chapman and then for a semipro team

At a Glance …

Born Emmett Ashford on November 23, 1914 in Los Angeles, California. Married Virginia. Education: B.S., Chapman College. Military: U.S. Navy, 1943–1946.

Career: Umpire in Southwest International League, July 1951-July 1952; Arizona-Texas League, August-September 1952; Western International League, 1953: Pacific Coast League, 1954–1965; American League, 1966–1970; All-Star Game, 1967; World Series, 1970.

Awards: Emmett Ashford Memorial Baseball Field, Los Angeles, California, 1982.

called the Mystery Nine, where he was the team’s worst player who spent most games on the bench. One Sunday, however, the regular empire didn’t show up so the teams recruited Ashford to take his place, since he was not going to play anyway. Begrudgingly, Ashford took the umpire’s spot.“But a strange thinghappened,” Ashford recalled to Gerlach.“By the seventh inning they loved my umpiring. They would take up collections during those games, and the collection that Sunday was extremely heavy. Thenceforth the team decreed that I should umpire.”

Ashford found that he loved to umpire. Now working at a branch of the U.S. Post Office, he would spend his free time umpiring whenever he could. For a while, during World War II, he took a break from both after joining the Navy. But his last post at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas found him working as a postal clerk and running the baseball team on the base. That was also where he heard that Jackie Robinson had been signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first black man to play professional baseball. Lying on his cot after hearing the radio announcement, Emmett Ashford told himself he was going to be the first black umpire.

After the Navy, Ashford returned to Los Angeles, his job at the post office and a more focused pursuit of umpiring. Soon he was umpiring high school games, then junior college games, then the college circuit with big universities like UCLA and USC. Soon he had a four-game tryout with the Class C Southwest International League. To avoid any potential trouble of having a black umpire they decided to have the tryout in Mexicali, Mexico where the local team was playing the club from Tucson, Arizona. When Ashford arrived the other two white umpires refused to work with him and the first game was delayed by a half hour while they searched foranother umpire to work the bases while Ashford worked the plate. When they did, Ashford umpired the rest of the games without incident and knew for sure he wanted to be an umpire.

The following week, while at his job at the post office, the president of the league called Ashford to see if he wanted to finish the season. As soon as he hung up the phone, he marched into the postmaster’s office and got a leave of absence for three months. Although he was umpiring, it was hardly the realization of Ashford’s dream. The white umpires shunned him and he could rarely stay in the same hotels and eat in the same restaurants. Ashford simply made it part of his routine to get to a location early and scout out a place to stay and places to eat.

Followed His Dream

The next season the league offered Ashford a contract to work the whole year.“The postmaster was under political fire at the time, and I couldn’t get that leave of absence again,” he reminisced to Gerlach.“So I had to make the decision which everybody has to make in his life sometime. How many men go to their graves without ever doing what’s in their hearts?”Ashford stunned just about everyone he knew by resigning from the post office in 1951, giving up a steady paycheck and 15 years seniority to umpire in a Class C baseball league. Midway through the season, the league folded.

Because there were so many leagues, however, Ashford was only out of work for a short time after knocking around the Class C league for a while made it to the Class A Western International League in 1953. The next year he got called up to the Pacific Coast League, a Triple-A league one stop away from the majors, although Ashford was realistic.“Just let nature take its course,” he told Laurence Davies of the New York Times in 1954. Right now I’m learning and I hope to graduate to the majors on my ability--that and nothing else.”When asked if he anticipated trouble from players, Ashford replied, “Ball players are a peculiar lot. The game is their bread and butter. If you call ’em right—the strikes and balls and the base decisions--that’s all they want. They don’t care whether you’re white or black, Eskimo or Indian.”

Ashford went along with the Pacific Coast League hoping his day would come when he get the call to move up to the major leagues. Meanwhile, white umpires he trained were passing over him to work in the big stadiums of the National and American Leagues. By the end of the 1965 season, Ashford was 50-years old and ready to call it quits. Then he got the call he’d been waiting to get for 15 years. He was now an umpire for the American Leagues; the first black umpire in professional baseball.

The First Game

His first game would be the Cleveland Indians at the WashingtonSenators on April 11, 1966. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was slated to throw out the first ball and because of the Secret Service, Ashford and his wife were almost not let into the stadium when he told them he was an umpire, even though it had been in all the papers. Eventually, he was let in and although he only had one call the whole game while working third base, he had made it.“The players came up and shook my hand and I received an armload of telegrams from nice people,” he told Ebony after the game.“Of course, I was a little nervous at first, but wild horses couldn’t have kept me out of there. I waited 15 years for this and now I’m finally there.”

Some criticized Ashford for dancing around and being a showboat, words which rolled right off him.“I’m an individual,” he explained to Ebony. The league president has told me to be myself. I’m different, of that there’s no doubt. But as long as I am competent, what does it matter? Everyone should keep some boyish enthusiasm in their hearts and use it in their work.”For his five years in the major leagues, Ashford was a fan favorite who’d receive cheers with his animated calls even if they were against the home team.

In 1967 Ashford was chosen to work the All-Star game but his crowning achievement was working the 1970 World Series between Baltimore and Cincinnati. Ashford did not get to work home plate during the series, however, as it only went five games and he was slated to be behind the plate on the sixth game. Still, it was theculmination of his life’s dream and he retired at the end of the season.“Trying to top the exceptionally good year and the thrilling events of the 1970 World Series would be superfluous and anticlimactic,” he told Joe Durso of the New York Times. “Hence the decision to depart on top.”

After retiring Ashford kept his hand in baseball, first by umpiring an amateur summer league in Alaska, as well as working for then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn as his West Coast representative. In that role, Ashford took his exuberance around the world as a goodwill ambassador for baseball, which he did until illness prevented it and then his death in 1980. Few knew better than Emmett Ashford the importance of stepping up to the plate one more time when the game seemed hopeless. As he confessed to Gerlach, “I feel proud having been an umpire in the big leagues not because I was the first black man, but because the major league umpires are a very select group of men. But the greatest satisfaction I’ve gotten is the feeling of accomplishment in doing what I set out to do in the first place when they said it couldn’t be done.”