Tom Gorman (baseball)
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Thomas David Gorman (March 16, 1919 – August 11, 1986) was an American pitcher and umpire in Major League Baseball who pitched five innings in four games for the New York Giants in 1939, and went on to serve as a National League umpire from 1951 to 1976 and then as a league supervisor. His son Brian is a current major league umpire.
Gorman was born in New York City. After pitching in the minor leagues for three years, he served in the Army during World War II; but an injury in 1946 ended his playing career. He then coached baseball at Rice High School in Manhattan, a Christian Brothers school.
He umpired in the World Series in 1956 (outfield only), 1958, 1963, 1968 and 1974, serving as crew chief in the last two Series. His most famous World Series contest came in Game 1 of the 1968 series, when he called balls and strikes as Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals struck out a Series record 17 Detroit Tigers.
He also officiated in the National League Championship Series in 1971 and 1975, and in the three-game playoff to determine the NL champion in 1959. He also worked in the All-Star Game in 1954, 1958, 1960 (both games) and 1969, calling balls and strikes for the second half of the second 1960 game. During a game in the 1962 season, he discovered that the Giants (by now in San Francisco) were having their groundskeepers water down the Candlestick Park infield to slow down the Los Angeles Dodgers' Maury Wills; Gorman stopped the game for an hour and a half to allow the field to dry out.
Among the notable games in which he umpired were nine no-hitters; he was the home plate umpire for two of them (Warren Spahn's first on September 16, 1960, and Bill Stoneman's first on April 17, 1969), and was the left field umpire for Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. He was the home plate umpire on June 15, 1952 when the St. Louis Cardinals set an NL record by overcoming an 11-0 deficit to beat the Giants 14-12, and again on June 29 of the same year when the Chicago Cubs scored seven runs with two out in the ninth inning to beat the Cincinnati Reds 9-8. Two years later, on August 8, 1954, he was again the home plate umpire when the Reds gave up a record 12 runs (all of them unearned) after there were two out and no one base in the eighth inning of a 20-7 loss to the Brooklyn Dodgers; the inning ended only when Gil Hodges' bid for a grand slam was caught high off the center field wall. And on May 2, 1956, he was again behind the plate as the Giants and Cubs used 48 players in a 6-5, 17-inning New York victory; Cub Don Hoak struck out a record six times against six different pitchers.
Gorman died in Closter, New Jersey at age 67.
[edit] External links
- Umpires who were players - Baseball-Almanac.com
- Baseball-Reference.com - career statistics and analysis
