Bruce Froemming Is Ready To Call It Quits
Saturday, June 16, 2007
(posted by OMDQ)
In the ten years since I entered the work force, I've had a lot of jobs - shift manager at McDonald's, research at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Media Relations Manager for a minor league baseball team, stock boy at Target, high school paraprofessional. I've been around. But my goal that entire time, the one thing I've always wanted, is to have an actual career, something to hang my hat on for the next thirty years.
Bruce Froemming has had a career. The longest-tenured major league umpire not named Bill Klem, Froemming announced on Friday that he plans to hang 'em up at the end of the 2007 season. By that point, he will have worked more than fifty seasons as an umpire, including 37 years and more than 5,100 games that the major leauge level. Think about it: that's ten more years than Nolan Ryan and Cap Anson played, 1,600 more games than Pete Rose appeared in. Those are some incredible numbers.
Expect Froemming to be honored at this year's All-Star Game in Pittsburgh, where Major League Baseball had originally planned to announce his retirement.
Photo: Wikipedia
4 Comments:
I respect that Froemming chose a career path and has dedicated the past fifty years to doing the best he can at it.
Nowhere did I compare him to boxers, cyclists or soccer players. The comparison to Ryan, Anson and Rose was included because they played the most seasons and games, respectively, in major league history.
Good. He's one of the most inconsistent umpires around. If it weren't for asshats like C.B. Bucknor, Angel Hernandez, and Dale Scott, he'd be at the bottom of the heap, as far as I'm concerned.
Fair enough OMDQ...I just have a hard time celebrating someone choosing a long career of basically doing nothing other than traveling and, when they do get to the "office", basically staying within a 10 yard radius while not exerting anymore force than lifting an arm and yelling one or two words. But your point of having one job for that long is a point well made.
Yea, it's amazing to think that someone can wake up everyday. And not only wake up, but then go to a stadium and stand in practically the same place for three hours. Man, that kind of endurance should be placed right up there with going 12 rounds in a boxing match, a thousand-some-odd miles on a bicycle, or even running back and forth the length and width of a soccer field during a boring ass soccer match.
Lord praise the fortitude...