Last call: Remembering Max McLeary

Max McLeary makes the call
at Consol Energy Park.

One of the best things about covering the Frontier League for the past 13 years is the number of unique people you meet. One of those umpire was Max McLeary, who worked the Frontier League for the vast majority of its existence.

McLeary was unique for many reasons. One was that Max had a sense of humor that, well, only an umpire can have. If you spend your working hours listening to people bitch at you for three hours, then you better have a good sense of humor and not take many things too seriously.

Max combined that sense of humor with being a masterful storyteller, and he had plenty of stories to tell. Everybody who knew him had their favorite Max McLeary story. Many of them made it into a book written by Mike Shannon called "Everything Happens in Chillicothe: A Summer in the Frontier League with Max McLeary, the One-Eyed Umpire."

Did I mention that Max had a glass eye?

One of my favorite McLeary stories was described in the book. It went something like this:

Max was umpiring a high school game, I believe it was in Cincinnati and might have involved Cincinnati Moeller. Max had been umpiring for many years, but had never been the home-plate umpire during a no-hitter, at any level of baseball. In this game, one of the pitchers was three outs away from a no-hitter and Max was convinced this was going to be his first called no-no. The pitcher was overpowering and dominant on this day.

Then, while the pitcher's team was batting for the final time that day, Max heard it. Somebody on the bench told the pitcher, "Hey, do you know you have a no-hitter going?"

Max couldn't believe his ears. He knew that baseball karma was going to get him and the pitcher.

Sure enough, in the next inning, an overmatched batter somehow bloops a base hit. End of no-hitter.
Max calls timeout, walks to the pitcher's mound and calls in the infielders and catcher. The players are wondering what the umpire could possibly need to tell everybody.

With the full attention of the players, Max says, "Guys, there are two things a pitcher never wants to hear. One is 'Honey, I'm pregnant.' The other is, 'Hey, do you know you have a no-hitter going.'"

McLeary stopped umpiring a few years ago and became the general manager of the Cincinnati Steam, a highly successful team in the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League.

Max McLeary died Tuesday morning at the age of 66 after battling lung cancer.

The Frontier League will begin its 22nd season this year. IT could be around for another 22 years and it won't have another character quite like Max McLeary.

Here's the link to a good Max McLeary story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/sports/baseball-an-umpire-with-everything-in-perspective.html