Great Mysteries in Spectacles

As a wise man once said, “It’s dangerous to go alone.”  Sometimes, however, a man has to break away from his predecessors and forge his own path.  He has to challenge the accepted wisdom of their time.  He has to fight for the downtrodden, the shamed and ridiculed.   But despite his leadership and vision, unlike heroes like Jackie Robinson and John Glenn, one particular man will never have his number retired by major league baseball.

The problem: we aren’t exactly sure who that man is.

The spring of 1956 saw a country still gripped in the fear of the McCarthy era, a culture terrified of deviance.  It was the time for keeping one’s head down, maintaining the status quo.  And yet two men stood up to the crowd, unashamed of being who they were.  Unashamed of being nearsighted.  But which umpire bared his soul first?

Baseball Digest, the TV Guide of baseball, sided with Umont in a 1963 issue.  Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote about Umont in May of the same year, without so much as mentioning Rommel.  Umont is a natural choice; a former lineman for the New York Football Giants, Umont cut an imposing figure behind the plate.  The barbs of the unwashed masses and the grins of the players would likely hold little sting for him.

Eddie Rommel pitched for thirteen years with the Philadelphia Athletics before pulling a John Quincy Adams and transitioning to a life of umpiring. Rommel’s internet case is somewhat weaker, however, with Wikipedia being his main defendant along with several “informational” encyclopedia sites.  The L.A. Times reported that Rommel first wore his spectacles on April 18, 1956, in a game between the Yankees and the Senators.  This would have been the second game of the season; Rommel was the third-base umpire for that game.  The date widely given for the premiere of Frank Umont’s eyewear is six days later, on April 24, 1956, when the Kansas City Athletics battled the Detroit Tigers.

As to whether Rommel really did don the specs, without television footage, it’s impossible to say.  It’s strange that in baseball, perhaps the most meticulous of all sports, this divide remains.  Major League Baseball, on its own website, equivocates by giving credit to both men.   And perhaps this is for the best. Because regardless of the order in which they bared themselves before the masses, the decision to wear glasses was a courageous act by any standard.  In an occupation that depends chiefly on garnering authority through the respect of the teams and fans, a willingness to admit to such a personal, if undeserved, physical failing is no small matter.  It risks everything.

Bill McGowan, who revolutionized umpiring by creating a school and with it standardized practices, refused to admit those with poor eyesight.  And despite the breakthrough of both men, major league baseball did not officially condone the use of glasses for eighteen more years.  Even today, among intramural and bar-league softball leagues, umpires log on to message boards to ask the obvious question: “Will I take flack if I don’t wear contacts to the game?”

The answer is invariably yes, of course.  But it’s a choice they can make, thanks to Eddie Rommel or Frank Umont.  Whichever of them it was.