The Strike Call: Pacheco’s Out, Looking : Baseball: Oxnard umpire finds serving as big-league replacement has pleasures, pitfalls.

The phone calls in the Denver hotel room jolted Jim Pacheco like a couple of screaming foul tips to the mask.

By the time the ringing stopped, Pacheco had been fired twice in the same day.

Still, as the 35-year-old Oxnard resident stands in the unemployment line this morning before working home plate at Matador Field in Cal State Northridge’s game against Fresno State, he will entertain no regrets. The big leagues will do that to a guy.

Pacheco is a long-time collegiate umpire who worked as an engineer at a Marina del Rey aerospace firm--until Monday, that is. Now, he can add “major-league umpire” to his resume. He worked seven National League games before baseball owners ended a 120-day lockout of union umpires.

While the regular umpires returned to work Wednesday night--receiving standing ovations from fans at some ballparks--Pacheco returned to Oxnard with a duffel bag full of memories.

“This was an opportunity of a lifetime,” he said Thursday. “I got to do something not too many people can say they did. I worked in the big leagues.

“I have tapes of the games I worked and I’ll probably hang my umpire uniform on a plaque. I’m proud of what I did.”

But what price glory?

In Pacheco’s case, it cost him a job, a fair share of public ridicule and the scorn of the major league umpires Pacheco said he respects and admires.

Still, the past month has been a wild ride since he worked his first professional game--and the last replacement-player game--on April 1 at Dodger Stadium.

Once the players’ strike ended and spring training with real players began, Pacheco flew to Phoenix to work home plate for a game between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants on April 12 and worked three more spring training games before making his major league debut last week in Cincinnati.

After two day games at Riverfront Stadium and a weekend series in San Francisco that included a confrontation with a group of union umpires, Pacheco traveled to Denver to see the newest big-league park--Coors Field.

But it became blue Monday for the man in blue. First, Ed Vargo, the supervisor of National League umpires, called to say the lockout was over and the replacements had to clear out after Tuesday’s games.

Minutes later, he lost his other job--his real one.

“They called me in Denver to tell me I was terminated,” Pacheco said. “I was using my vacation time (to umpire in the big leagues), but there were people in the company that didn’t like that. I even flew back after a spring-training game to work on an off-day, but I guess the company is not run by people sympathetic to baseball.”

Pacheco then finished his brief big-league tour of duty, serving as crew chief Monday and Tuesday in Denver. In his last major league game, he worked overtime. The Denver Rockies defeated the San Diego Padres, 6-5, in an 11-inning game that included a 35-minute rain delay.

“I made the decision to bring the tarp out and I was in constant contact with the weather guy and the (Colorado) owners,” he said. “I felt a real sense of accomplishment dealing with that situation. And we got that game in.”

Pacheco also is gratified for merely enduring the experience, calling it the toughest thing he has done. Replacement umpires were greeted by skepticism from players and managers, a feeling that only worsened as the nightly highlight shows focused on apparent umpiring blunders.

Although Pacheco agreed with the criticism, he staunchly defended his crew, citing praise from Vargo after his crew reversed a call involving a play at first base in Cincinnati.

When Mark Grace of the Cubs scooped a low throw from shortstop Shawon Dunston, first-base umpire Bob Hernandez called Bret Boone out, ending the inning and preventing Hal Morris from scoring from third.

According to Pacheco, Grace had bobbled the ball. After conferring briefly, umpires reversed the call.

“The Cubs were already in the dugout and we had to call them back out, but we got the call right,” Pacheco said.

But the replacements didn’t get enough calls right, according to some. Brian Gorman, a Camarillo resident and National League umpire since 1993, said this week that umpiring errors hastened the settlement. He also denounced the replacements as shameful scabs.

“If I was a scab I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror,” Gorman said this week.

Pacheco, who has never met Gorman, said he sympathizes with the big-league umpires but objects to be being called a scab.

“Their beef is with the owners, not us,” he said.

Union umpires burned most of Pacheco’s goodwill when a group insulted Pacheco and his crew while they ate breakfast in a San Francisco hotel before Friday’s game at Candlestick Park.

According to Pacheco, the union umpires were led by Gary Darling, who worked in the minor leagues with Pacheco’s fellow replacement umpire, Jim Garman.

“They started in on us, calling us scabs and dogs,” Pacheco said. “They told us our families should be ashamed. I just poured myself another cup of coffee and ignored them.”

The National League office took notice, however. Pacheco said the crew was given new rooms in the hotel under assumed names and were granted security escorts to each game.

“We were in a tough situation; nobody wanted us there,” he said. “Working in a hostile situation under an incredible amount of pressure, I thought we did an incredible job. We did as good a job calling balls and strikes as the regular guys.”

In fact, once he adjusted to the major league strike zone, Pacheco said, he found working behind the plate easier in the big leagues than in college.

“The pitchers are so good, they all spot the ball so well,” he said. “They don’t throw especially hard, but, boom, they lock in on the strike zone.”

Pacheco also cited the pleasure of working behind major league catchers, singling out Chicago’s Rick Wilkins and the Giants’ Kirt Manwaring, a Gold Glove winner.

Pacheco also will cherish a warm handshake from Colorado Manager Don Baylor, who congratulated Pacheco and his crew after Tuesday’s game. Pacheco also seems pleased that he called Barry Bonds out on strikes.

“Yeah, I rang him up,” he said.

But Pacheco also seems eager to return to his collegiate duties. He works 35-40 games a year, mostly among Pacific 10 Conference teams, including UCLA, his alma mater. And even though he will earn only $80 for today’s game--instead of $350 plus the $206.50 per diem the National League paid him--he expects to be an improved umpire when he calls the Northridge-Fresno State game.

“It won’t be 40,000 fans at Coors Field, but it’s everything to the guys playing,” he said. “It might take a while to adjust to the strike zone and I might get barked at, ‘Hey, this isn’t the major leagues.’

“But I’m a better person for my big-league experience. I learned how to handle adversity and I’m a stronger person than I thought I was.”