umpires

Ron Luciano

Bill Thompson

They say baseball is a funny game. No, really, it’s a funny game full of funny characters.

In the 1980s, one of the best chroniclers of those characters was former Major League umpire Ron Luciano.

Luciano umpired in the American League from 1969 to 1979. And along the way, he collected hundreds of stories about some of the most colorful characters in Major League Baseball, past and present.

I met Ron Luciano in 1989, as we talked about his book Remembrance of Swings Past.

So here now, from 1989, Ron Luciano.

Ron Luciano died in 1995. He was 57 years old.

Dave Pallone

Bill Thompson

A little bit of backstory: in 1979 major league baseball umpires went on strike. MLB hired substitutes — scabs, as m,any call them — and veteran minor league umpire Dave Pallone was offered a big-league job.

He remained in the National League for ten years.

But as he told in his 1990 book “Behind the Mask,” his fellow umpires disliked him. And he developed a reputation for being quick-tempered.

In April 1988, Pallone had a very high-profile confrontation with someone else who had a reputation for his temper: Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose. During an argument over a controversial call, Rose shoved Pallone — a very serious offense in baseball — and was suspended for 30 days.

Dave Pallone was forced to resign from baseball in September 1988.

I met him two years later, when he published his book.

Here now, from 1990, Dave Pallone.

“Behind the Mask” was a New York Times best-seller

Dave Pallone is 68 now, and does diversity training for corporations, as well as NCAA colleges, universities and athletes.

And he’s in the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.