Bruce Froemming, an authoritative, sometimes brusque but widely respected umpire who called the third-most games in Major League Baseball history, including four no-hitters from behind home plate, died on Feb. 25 in Milwaukee. He was 86.
His son Steve said Froemming had fallen backward on his head at his home in Mequon, Wis., near Milwaukee. He was treated for a brain bleed that doctors at a hospital in Mequon, and then in Milwaukee, could not stop.
Froemming was one of the most durable umpires of his time: a 5-foot-8, 250-pound autocrat who called 5,163 regular season games (exceeded only by Joe West and Bill Klem) over a record 37 consecutive seasons beginning in 1971. He worked nine division series, 10 league championship series, five World Series and three All-Star Games. In 1986, The Sporting News named him the National League’s best umpire.
“Bruce Froemming at work seems like a character in a Hemingway novel: the Old Ump,” Bruce Weber, the author of a 2009 book about umpires, wrote in a profile in The New York Times in 2005. “Stout and round, with ham-hock forearms and a sturdy, if tired, gait — he has caricature as well as character in him — Froemming goes about his business with a deliberate precision.”
Umpires are known for their accuracy — or lack thereof — in calling balls, strikes and outs, as well as for their on-field disputes and occasional ejections. Froemming gave the heave-ho to players, managers and coaches 125 times from 1971 to 2007, far fewer than Klem’s record of close to 300 ejections. Three managers were each thrown out by Froemming three times: Davey Johnson of the Mets, Bobby Cox of the Atlanta Braves and Joe Torre, once with the St. Louis Cardinals and twice when he skippered the Mets.
Froemming booted out his last man, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon, in the waning days of his last season, in 2007, for arguing a check swing call.
In a brouhaha during his rookie season, Froemming was umpiring at second base when he called the Philadelphia Phillies catcher Tim McCarver out for interference when he barreled over the Houston Astros shortstop Roger Metzger to break up a double play.
The Phillies’ volatile manager, Frank Lucchesi, stormed out of the dugout and engaged Froemming in a 14-minute argument as players swarmed around them. Lucchesi, who accused Froemming of cursing at his shortstop, was ejected, along with a Phillies coach. (The two had clashed before: In 1969, when they were in the minor leagues, Lucchesi was accused of kicking and bumping Froemming and was suspended; Lucchesi said he had kicked only dirt.)
In 1976, Froemming ejected the fiery Yankees manager Billy Martin in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the World Series for tossing a ball at Bill Deegan, the first-base umpire, from the dugout. Martin, claiming that Deegan had tossed three balls out of play in his direction, rushed onto the field to argue his ejection.
“It’s a touchy situation,” Froemming said afterward, “and to have Martin start something at this point is something we can’t tolerate.”
Most players and managers knew which of his buttons they shouldn’t push, Froemming told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2007. But “if they want to get into personalities, or profanities, it’s over,” he said. “A rattlesnake has a rattle to give you a warning. I don’t do that.”
Bruce Neal Froemming was born on Sept. 28, 1939, in Milwaukee. His father, Roy, was a florist, and his mother, Lucille (Glass) Froemming, managed the home. At Custer High School in Milwaukee, Bruce played on the varsity baseball team.
After graduation, he played for a semipro squad and gained a tryout with the Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians). A scout told him that he would amount to no more than a minor leaguer but suggested that he pursue umpiring — which he had been doing off and on since he was 14, earning $3.50 a game in a league of 11-to-13-year-olds.
After attending an umpire school in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1957, Froemming began a long climb up the ranks in the minor leagues, working first, in 1958, in the Class D Nebraska State League; he reached the Triple A Pacific Coast League in 1966. Along the way, he ejected Torre, as a player, six times in the Northern League; tossed out four reporters for heckling him during a game in Duluth, Minn., in 1960; and threw out Bobby Pfeil, an infielder with the Eugene Emeralds, for cursing at him and another umpire, Dutch Rennert, in 1970.
The next year, Froemming was promoted to the National League. (He umpired in that league for most of his career, until 2000, when the American and National Leagues’ umpiring staffs merged.)
In 1972, Froemming was behind the plate when the Chicago Cubs pitcher Milt Pappas was vying for a perfect game against the San Diego Padres. Pappas was one out away from achieving that gem when Froemming called balls on three close pitches to Larry Stahl, sending him to first base on a walk.
Pappas got the final out on a pop fly for a no-hitter. He calmly acknowledged after the game that the pitches had been balls, saying he had hoped Froemming would call one of them a strike to give him the perfect game. He later said he was being diplomatic, though, and he remained upset for the rest of his life.
“They were strikes or ‘that close’ to being strikes that he should’ve raised his right hand,” Pappas told ESPN in 2007. “I had the opportunity for a perfect game, and unfortunately Bruce Froemming did not help me at all.”
Froemming described the final pitch to The Times in 2010, saying: “The pitch was outside. I didn’t miss the pitch; Pappas missed the pitch.”
It was the first of the four no-hitters that Froemming called from behind home plate; the others were thrown by Ed Halicki of the San Francisco Giants in 1975; Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros in 1981 (his record-breaking fifth); and Jose Jimenez of the Cardinals in 1999. In all, Froemming was on the field for 11 no-hitters, a record for major league umpires.
Froemming was suspended for 10 days without pay in 2003 for making an antisemitic remark in a voice mail message left for Cathy Davis, Major League Baseball’s umpiring administrator. He said he thought his cellphone was off when he used a crude phrase.
After retiring in 2007, he worked for eight years as a special assistant in M.L.B.’s umpiring department.
In addition to his son Steve, Froemming is survived by his wife, Rose Marie (Loch) Froemming; another son, Kevin; two grandchildren; a sister, Cathy Seitzer; and a half brother, Johnny Glass.
Froemming was 68 when he called his last balls and strikes. The travel had become tiresome, he said, but he had remained happy and engaged on the field until the end.
“I just love walking to home plate every night,” he told The Times. “We’re all competitors, you know? The player wants to get a hit. The manager wants to get a win. I want to get it right. To tell you the truth, I just love that competition.”
Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades.
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