The Men in Blue: Conversations With Umpires by Larry Gerlach - 1980

Viking Press, 1980. First edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/very good. First printing. Hardcover. xiii+ 287 pp. Illustrated. Near fine, some foxing to the edges of the text block. In very good, price clipped dust jacket. Major league umpires from the 1920s through those active in 1980 tell their own stories about their usually thankless jobs--the lonliness (umpires never have "home games"), the umpire baiters among the players, the breaking of the color line, etc. Included are Beans Reardon (a Hall of Famer) , Lee Ballanfant, George Pipgras (former player), Ernie Stewart, Jim Honochick, Shag Crawford, Emmett Ashford (the first black MLB umpire) and several more.