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Some fans have a mistaken opinion of the average umpire. He is human, all reports to the contrary. Every fellow who is successful is conscientious to almost a fault.

No one respects the umpire's job more than I do; but, if I were a manager, I would probably be ejected three or four times a season fighting for my team.

Most of the umpires, it's amazing: 98 percent of them will not hold a grudge. I always felt a couple of them did. I never wanted to argue with an umpire in my life.

I was a great base umpire, but I was the most mediocre plate umpire to ever come into the major leagues.

Umpires are necessary evils. That's just the nature of the beast. For years, people have looked on umpiring as a job they could get any postman to do.

You can't know what it's like to be a major league umpire unless you were a major league umpire.

I set out to be the best umpire of my time. But I don't know what it takes to be great.

I want you to know that I am one of the more fortunate people in life. There aren't too many of us that somebody selects and says, 'You know, that guy ought to be an umpire.' That's what happened to me.

The best umpired game is the game in which the fans cannot recall the umpires who worked it.

The public wouldn't like the perfect umpire in every game. It would kill off baseball's greatest alibi - 'We was robbed.'