Umpire Would Rather Be Out of Strike Zone

CAMARILLO —  Although he has little sympathy for baseball owners, National League umpire Brian Gorman will cross picket lines--real or imagined--to work games with replacement players if it comes to that this spring.

Gorman and his fellow umpires also are locked in a labor battle with baseball, though the umpires’ negotiations have been overshadowed by the players’ strike that has shut down baseball since Aug. 12.

Umpires, in effect, have been locked out by major league baseball after their contract expired at the first of the year. Gorman hasn’t been paid since Dec. 1 and fears for his job.

“Absolutely I’m worried. As they are lining up replacement players, they’re also lining up replacement umps,” he said. “If the season starts with replacement players and umpires, it will be a joke. It’s going to get ridiculous.”

Gorman called spring training this year “fake baseball,” alluding to the use of replacement players and amateur umpires. After minor league umpires refused to work spring training games, baseball has used collegiate and former minor league umpires who have been released.

“They’re scabs just like the replacement players are scabs,” Gorman said.

Meanwhile, Gorman is hopeful that the Major League Umpires Assn. will negotiate a settlement before the start of the season. And if Gorman is back on the job while baseball players remain on strike, so be it, he said.

“I will work with replacement players, sure,” he said. “Big leaguers didn’t honor (our position) during our last three work stoppages, so we’re certainly not going to back their strike.”

Umpires currently make between $60,000 and $175,000 a year with an average salary of about $120,000, Gorman said. And umpires receive no licensing fees from baseball-related activities, particularly highlight videotapes in which arguments between umpires and players are part of the entertainment.

“We’re miked on those tapes and you hear us just like the players and managers. They get paid for that and we don’t,” Gorman said. “When you count licensing fees as part of the salary, the only people in uniform on the field making less money than us are the ball boys.”

Despite his complaints, Gorman is as sick of strike talk as most fans and worries about the long-term effects on the game.

“You’ve got a couple hundred people arguing over a couple billion dollars and meanwhile the fans get kicked and knocked down,” he said.

“If they keep doing that, fans aren’t going to come back.”