Arbitrator Says Baseball Must Rehire 9 Umpires

In a long-awaited decision satisfying no one, an arbitrator ruled Friday that baseball must reinstate nine of the 22 umpires whose resignations as part of a failed labor strategy had been accepted two years ago.

The nine, who will also receive back pay if baseball abides by the decision, include Drew Coble, Gary Darling, Bill Hohn, Greg Kosc, Larry Poncino, Larry Vanover and Joe West. Arbitrator Alan Symonette also ordered baseball to take back Frank Pulli and Terry Tata, who intended to retire when the 1999 season ended.

According to sources familiar with the ruling, Symonette ordered former American League umpires Coble and Kosc reinstated because they had never submitted their resignations in writing. The other seven are former National League umpires with more than five years of service and Symonette concluded, according to the sources, that Leonard Coleman, NL president at the time, had “abused his discretion” in not making clear why some umpires had been fired.

Symonette reinstated every National League umpire with five years or more of service, the sources said, except for Eric Gregg and Tom Hallion. The arbitrator concluded that Coleman had “just cause” for firing both under the “merit and skill” provision in the labor agreement between baseball and the umpires union. He did not reinstate any umpire with less than five years of service.

“I am obviously very pleased for the nine umpires who got their jobs back with back pay and very disappointed about the 13 who didn’t,” said attorney Pat Coleman, who represented the 22.

Said the reinstated West, “It’s not a good day. It’s only a sad day. I feel like a plane went down with a lot of my friends.”

The commissioner’s office, which had taken a hard line regarding the 22, also had a mixed reaction.

“While feeling vindicated that its core position, that the umpires resigned and that [baseball] had the right to hire replacements, was upheld, we are at a loss to understand the arbitrator’s conclusion with respect to the [seven National League umpires who were reinstated],” the office said in a non-attributed statement. “[Baseball] will thoroughly examine the opinion and what further action is appropriate.”

Richie Phillips, counsel to the since-disbanded Major League Umpires Assn., recommended the mass resignation strategy in July 1999 as a way to accelerate negotiations with baseball on a new bargaining agreement. Most American League umpires either withdrew their resignations immediately or did not submit them, collapsing the strategy and dividing the union.

In the meantime, baseball, eager to undermine the bellicose Phillips, weed out ineffective umpires, and put them all under the commissioner’s jurisdiction, ending the AL/NL separation, hired 25 minor league umpires and accepted the resignation of the 22.

Ultimately, their status was submitted to arbitration as part of a settlement in a federal lawsuit involving dissolution of the Phillips-led union and creation of a new entity called the World Umpires Assn.

Symonette heard testimony between December 1999 and August 2000. Last September, as part of the bargaining negotiations with the new union, baseball offered to rehire 10 of the 22 at the major league level, three at the minor league level, give four buyouts and allow the other five to retire, but Phillips, who still represented the 22, rejected that offer in favor of leaving it up to Symonette in the hope he would reinstate all 22. His decision clearly was not as comprehensive as the September offer by baseball.

The 11 left in limbo, in addition to Gregg and Hallion: Bob Davidson, Bruce Dreckman, Jim Evans, Dale Ford, Richie Garcia, Ed Hickox, Sam Holbrook, Mark Johnson, Ken Kaiser, Larry McCoy and Paul Nauert.

“I’m saddened by the fact that 13 of my colleagues and a lot of good friends apparently are not going to have their jobs back at this time,” umpire Larry Young said in Chicago. “My whole crew is down in the dumps. We were hoping we could all get back together. We were hoping they all would be reinstated.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.