Word: luciano
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...Luciano's only goal in life was to have a good time, and he'd tell you as much if you sat in the box seats behind home plate. He'd tell the players as much too, though him on-field gab got him in trouble with the league office who wished he'd take the game more seriously. Labor and management have a tendency not to see eye-to-eye, but Luciano found his own way to deal with it; he didn't pay the fines...
Many of the stories Luciano tells of his days on the field center around blunders he embarrassed himself with One time he heaved his substantial body back and forth between the bases with a California Angel during a run-down, admirably trying to make sure he had a good angle on the tag. All his good intentions were for naught, however, when he very ungracefully coffided with the runner, sending them both sprawling. In another game he was umpiring the third-base line when the visiting team hit a long fly ball that sailed toward the bleachers. Luciano sprinted toward...
...BASEBALL PURIST can take Luciano's description of the blunders as an expose. He can take it as a vicious strike right at the heart of baseball's integrity. Or he can take it simply as added color to an otherwise stand baseball world Luciano takes it in stride, and always with an air of tongue in cheek. "Hey, what did you expect," he would undoubtedly ask the righteous, "did you think the umpire was perfect...
Throughout Umpire Luciano himself is the only recurrent character, though his pet peeve. Baltimore Orioles Manager Earl Weaver comes close. They didn't get along on the field where relations deteriorated to the point that the league gave Luciano a short vacation whenever his crew visited Baltimore. But he can't help bringing up Weaver again and again, almost offering him symbolically as the exception that proves the rule that everybody in the league likes him. Of all the ejections he handed out over 11 years. Luciano has to be proudest of the one he give. Weaver during the warm...
...Luciano's re-enactments are entertaining, but as with too much of everything, the anecdotes and one-liners grow a little weary. Pun and irony are about as complex as the material gets. (He tries to play mind games with himself sometimes. Luciano tells us, until someone reminds him he's playing with a handicap.) Stylistically, you or I could have written the book. Luciano (or Fisher) could have written something other than simple sentences, Noun, verb, object, there's little embellishment. The stories are meant to give pleasure on their own, and generally they do, but like a diet...