MLB Umpires: Kerwin Danley becomes the first black crew chief

Breaking a barrier that should have been down long enough ago, Kerwin Danley isn’t perfect, but he isn’t a one-man MLB umpire circus, either.

There was a time when Kerwin Danley was a teammate and roommate of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn at San Diego State. During 1983, as a first-team All-American outfielder, Danley achieved as a college player what Gwynn missed by five points as a major leaguer in 1994: a .399 traditional batting average.

Some would say this indicates a case of defining aspiration down, but Danley became an MLB umpire when he grew up. Others would consider the state of major league umpiring today and conclude Danley defied the law that says, in baseball, those who can, do; those who can’t, become umpires.

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Early enough in his major league umpiring tenure, Danley had the pleasure of being there to greet Gwynn at first base when Gwynn nailed his 3,000th major league hit. And, to give his old teammate a bear hug. Something you’d think would never happen otherwise between a player and an arbiter, considering how many of today’s umpires seem preternaturally disposed toward confrontation.

Kerwin Danley has become anything but the confrontational type. His is now a well-earned reputation for being the even-tempered man, which doesn’t mean what an ancient joke means–that he stays mad. Even-tempered and even in judgment. It’s helped bring Danley to go where no African-American has gone before, promoted proudly to major league umpire crew chief.

“I’m very honored, very excited to be the first. But it’s not just about me,” Danley told reporters about his promotion. “It’s much more than that. It shows African American kids there is something else they can make it in, besides playing.”

It sure took the Show more than long enough to make that happen. Likewise with elevating Alfonso Marquez to become the game’s first Hispanic crew chief to be born outside the United States. (Long-retired Richie Garcia, who preceded Marquez as an ump of Hispanic origin, was Florida born.)

MLB Umpire: Kerwin Danley becomes the first black crew chief

A Moderator, Not an Instigator

Kerwin Danley may not be that familiar a name to fans, to his credit. Umpiring is one profession that shouldn’t live by its visibility factor. The more familiar an umpire’s name, the less likely he is to be greeted with respect than with repulsion. In an era featuring too many umpires secure in the belief that the game isn’t (it wouldn’t dare!) bigger than them, Danley is an MLB umpire who wouldn’t dare elevate himself.

He’s on record as sanguine about the order of battle when it comes to arguments.

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“Most managers don’t start until the batter starts,” he once told a Dream Series seminar. “So you don’t hear from them anymore like you used to do. The problem is now, with instant replay, now it’s all balls and strikes. I definitely think it’s the pitching coaches first. Hitting coaches, you don’t hear from them that much, unless you’re just having a bad day. Then you hear from them.”

Longtime relief pitcher LaTroy Hawkins was on that panel. “My mom told me something at a very young age,” he told the seminar. “I got mad at an umpire in Little League and I was throwing a tantrum, and she told me, ‘Look here, son, the umpire doesn’t have a home team. They’re the villain either way’.”

Today, it seems enough umps, while few, embrace the villain role. Danley now prefers to be the moderator. But there come times when even the least confrontational can’t avoid the feature moment, sometimes to their embarrassment and injury.

Danley is probably known best for the Brad Penny fastball that eluded catcher Russell Martin but met Danley’s jaw rather painfully in Dodger Stadium in 2008. The third base ump, Greg Gibson, managed to find a little levity in the disaster. “It was kind of funny,” Gibson said, “because the Dodgers’ trainer said, ‘I’ve always wanted to tell an umpire what to do, and tonight I’m going to do it. You’re not going anywhere’.”

Show me a perfect MLB umpire and I’ll show you the lost continent of Atlantis. Danley is as human as the next umpire, even if the next umpire might hand you a bottle of shampoo for the shower for saying so. Earlier in his career, he was accused of about as many blown calls as you’d expect from an umpire who doesn’t aspire to become a Joe West-like circus attraction.

He’s blown his share, of course, and even he has been known to try squirming out of it when caught on the wrong side of a call. But he seems to have mellowed and developed a more acute eye as the years go passing by. Last year, Danley tossed only two men, then-Cincinnati Reds outfielder Yasiel Puig and his then-manager, David Bell. Their crimes: arguing a third strike in the bottom of the sixth. In the same game.

Once upon a time, MLB umpire Rob Drake—several years before his notorious tweet threatening civil war upon a certain president’s impeachment—expressed a conscientious umpire’s predicament. “Every time I walk on a baseball field,” Drake told author Andrew Goldblatt, “I want to be perfect. Every morning when I wake up, I pray that [God] will give me the strength to live a sin-free life. The problem is both are impossible.”

But some things aren’t impossible. Danley has only to look toward his right uniform sleeve if he ever needs a reminder. He wears the right number on that sleeve for a black man breaking a precedent. 44. The number under which Henry Aaron broke the precedent of Babe Ruth‘s lifetime major league home run record.

Kerwin Danley can also use that number to remind himself that sometimes it’s the men who aren’t garrulous and larger-than-life who break the hallowed records or entrenched if needless barriers. Tony Gwynn, wherever you repose in the Elysian Fields, your old friend and teammate has hit one out of the park.