Umpire Tim McClelland calls it a career after 32 seasons
He's worked three All-Star Games and four World Series, and only Joe West had a longer current tenure. McClelland is most famous for being the ump who called George Brett out because he had too much pine tar on his bat.
By
Dave Brown
•
2 min read
Tim McClelland said it was time, after 32 years umpiring in Major League Baseball, to say adios. He announced Friday that he was retiring after working in the big leagues since 1983.
Aside from the three All-Star Games and four World Series he officiated, McClelland will be remembered most for being the umpire who called out George Brett in the Pine Tar Game during McClelland's rookie season. Most of McClelland's games weren't controversial, and were regarded simply as a job well done.
McClelland told the Des Moines Register, his hometown paper, that a back injury in 2014 is part of the reason he's retiring:
"Some of it is," McClelland said. "It's just my time to retire."
He said he doesn't have firm plans other than increased family time.
"I'm really looking forward to retirement and spending time with my wife, which I haven't been able to do with being gone so much for baseball," McClelland said. "I don't have any plans right now. Just enjoy my time with Sandy."
McClelland worked more than 4,000 major-league games and became a recognizable part of baseball for his height, subdued strike calls and his role in several signature moments.
Most of all, one with Brett at Yankee Stadium in July 1983, after the Kansas City Royals had taken a lead against Goose Gossage in the ninth inning on Brett's home run. Yankees manager Billy Martin asked umps to check Brett's bat for pine tar and, sure enough, he had put the sticky stuff higher on the barrel than rules allowed. McClelland, the plate umpire, raised his arm as if to call Brett out, which also erased his go-ahead homer.
A raging Brett infamously charged from the Royals dugout and had to be restrained from bumping into McClelland. Major League Baseball later reversed McClelland's call, and the Royals and Yankees later re-played the final outs of the game, which Kansas City won.
Brett joked in 2013 that, not long after the controversy, he came to bat in a game at Tiger Stadium where McClelland was the plate umpire.
"He said, 'Hey, George, want to have some fun?' " Brett recalled. McClelland wanted to pretend like he was going to check Brett's bat, but Brett declined, saying he was weary of any more pine-tar chicanery. Understandable, though McClelland's gesture showed he had a sense of humor about his job.
That leaves Joe West as the longest-tenured ump in the game, at 37 years.
