Umpires are so overlooked, baseballreference.com does not have an umpire register -- or if it does, I can't find it.
Bruce Froemming is in his last year and was behind the plate in tonight's All-Star game. The Fox commentators mentioned him a couple of times, but why no feature story? Why no interview? He was umpiring games while Tim McCarver was still behind the plate.
Hmmm. Maybe that's why. :)
Froemming began umpiring games in 1971. Can you imagine how many bruises he's gotten over the years? He's seen a lot of great baseball. More than 5,000 regular season games, 32 Division Series games, 52 LCS games, 22 World Series games, and now, his third All-Star game. Out of those 106 post season games, he has been behind the plate only 16 times, but that's primarily because there are 6 umpires in post season games.
In his first All-Star game (1975), he was at third, standing next to Ron Cey and Graig Nettles. The National League won that one behind Reuss and Sutton. The NL scored three runs in the top of the ninth to take the game 6-3. Madlock singled with the bases loaded, scoring two, and Rose hit a sac fly. Hank Aaron made his 24th appearance, tying Stan Musial and Willie Mays, who was honored in tonight's game. Interesting tie-in.
He was behind the plate in the '86 All-Star game. Clemens and Teddy Higuera dominated the first 6 innings. You don't see the starters going 3 innings each anymore. The second basemen did the damage for the AL: Sweet Lou Whitaker and Frank White each homered.
He was umpiring at second base for Gibson's famous World Series home run in 1988. He was at first for Johnny Bench's two homers in game 4 of the 1976 World Series. There are other such moments.
As for no-hitters, he was umpiring at first for the Dennis "El Presidente" Martinez and Kevin Gross games, second for the Bud Smith (who?), Burt Hooton and Darryl Kile games, third for the Phil Niekro and Bob Forsch games, and was behind the plate for Milt Pappas, Ed Halicki, Jose Jimenez (who?) and Nolan Ryan #5.
(Data compiled from Retrosheet)
