Northeast Times

Calling the shots in life,
with Eric the ump

Kids Stuff
By William Feldman

Welcome to Kids Stuff. Today’s column includes an interview with Eric Gregg; a belated Mother’s Day wish; and an audition tryout.

MEET THE UMPIRE
Eric Gregg served 23 years and two months as a Major League Baseball umpire. What makes him special is that he was born in Philadelphia and attended West Philadelphia High School, where he graduated in 1968. Eric’s experience as an athlete included Little League and high school ball.
When he was a senior in high school, Eric recalled, "My coach said, ‘Eric, if you can’t play for West Philly High School, there is no way you are going to play for the Phillies.’ I went home that day and started crying, watched the game of the week and heard how to become a major league umpire in six months and earn thirty-thousand dollars. I said ‘that’s for me’ and ever since then I’ve been umpiring. I took after Shag Crawford, who was a National League umpire for 30 years. He is probably the guy who made me what I am today. It was a dream come true."
Eric, whose 54th birthday is May 18, retired in 1999. He told me that he doesn’t miss the idea of being an umpire because he did it so long.
"I miss the way I went down because I didn’t retire the way I would have liked to," he confided. "The major thing I miss is the camaraderie with the umpires while traveling around, the people in other cities, the hotels and the restaurants. While I was on the road they treated me like I was home."
Presently, Eric gives great credit to Pete Ciarrocchi of Chickie’s and Pete’s for helping him during a very difficult time in his life.
"He really took care of me when I was really down and out," he said. "I thought things were coming to an end. I asked him for a job, he gave me a job and I came to life again."
Eric not only works for the restaurant at Citizens Bank Park, he is also featured there to interact with fans, tell stories, sign autographs and take photos with fans. This is how my interview with Eric came to be.
Also, Eric is currently writing for the Metro, a local newspaper in Philadelphia. He also spends his time lecturing to kids about the dangers of drugs.
I was curious if he found it more difficult to umpire Phillies games since he is from Philadelphia. He felt it was.
"Everyone thought I should bleed Phillies red," he said. "This wound up making me tougher on the Phillies because I was questioned about the fact I was from Philadelphia and I was going to cheat."
Eric had an interesting response to my question about who his favorite player was when he was umpire.
"As an umpire you don’t have favorite players, but a guy I really respected was Bob Boone, because he was a great catcher and he gave you a good shot of the pitch," he stated. "It is very important as a young umpire to be able to see the play. He also never questioned a close call on a close pitch. As an umpire you really have to work with the catcher."
I then asked him who was the most difficult player. He felt it was Eddie Murray, who would always argue his calls.
"He wouldn’t speak to umpires when he would see them. He just wasn’t fair," Eric recalled. "You didn’t mind if a guy would yell at you if you made a mistake, but he would just look the other way if you just said good morning to him."
The next obvious question was which manager gave him the hardest time. He joked, "You don’t have enough time. So many managers give you a hard time. Guys like Bobby Cox and Tommy Lasorda yell all of the time, but the manager that gave me the hardest time was Frank Robinson. He was always tough on me. Some people say if they don’t yell at you it means they don’t like you. In that case, he must have liked me a lot."
Eric loves the new stadium but believes that there is no home field advantage for the Phillies.
"The new stadium is like a hotel suite," he said. "Everybody that comes here has a chance to win the game. There are no nooks or crannies that favor the home team."
He feels that Veterans Stadium, on the other hand, had a real home field advantage that other teams were afraid to come and play at.
I was curious about Eric’s opinion about two important baseball topics: the Pete Rose Hall of Fame debate and the steroid abuse controversy.
Regarding the Pete Rose issue, Eric feels that he should be in the Hall of Fame.
"The numbers he got are unbelievable. He made a mistake and he finally admitted it," Eric said, referring to Rose’s betting on games. "If Ty Cobb can be in the Hall of Fame when he presumably killed someone, Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame."
Regarding the steroid issue, Eric commented: "Steroids have been around baseball for a long time, and baseball knew about it. They just closed their eyes about the issue because nobody got hurt and everything was going good. It happened during the championship year when Sosa and McGwire were hitting all of those home runs. It was bringing out fans and brought the game back. But now people are dying — Ken Caminiti in baseball and Lyle Alzado in football several years back. It should be stopped, and I think baseball is doing the right thing now to try to stop this thing."
I asked Eric what his favorite moments as an umpire were.
He replied: "I had three no-hitters, I had the famous, earthquake World Series in 1989 between San Francisco and Oakland, but my best memory would have to be my first day on the big league field, Sept. 28, 1975, when The Big Red Machine with Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and all of those guys came out to home plate, looked at me and said we have a brother umpiring the game today. They looked at me and said, "Are you happy?’ They asked me what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to yell. My greatest day ever."
Presently, his favorite Phillies baseball player is Jimmy Rollins. His favorite baseball player of all time is Willie Mays, because he did everything right with his basket catch and his ability to throw, run and hit. He feels even Barry Bonds cannot compare to Mays.
Besides baseball, football is his favorite sport to watch.
He has umpired many celebrity softball events and will be umpiring the Donovan McNabb all-star event, which will be held at Citizens Bank Park on June 18.
On the personal side, Eric said, "Willie Mays and Joe Namath had the greatest influence on me as a child because they were my idols. I always wanted to be a football player like Joe Namath or a baseball player like Willie Mays. They just did everything. That’s all I ever dreamed of."
Other than sports, Eric considers drawing and watching soap operas as his major interests. He has been watching soap operas since he was 8 years old. He told me that his mother would not let him watch Phillies games until General Hospital was over. He even named two of his children after characters in The Young and the Restless.
Eric has four children of whom he is very proud. His oldest is Eric Jose; his second is Kevin Van Arsdale, named after the basketball brothers; his only daughter is Ashley; and his youngest is Jamie, an all-American athlete at Lower Merion High School in multiple sports. Eric’s wife’s name is Ramona, but her family calls her Conchita.
His main piece of advice to children is that if you want to be anything in sports, the main thing is to get your education.
He tells his youngest son, who is a great athlete, that he has to go to class and listen to his teachers and his mom.
"Forget about the role models being the guys on television," Eric commented. "Your mom and dad should be your role models. Listen to them and do what’s right. If you get an education, you can be anything that you want. Forget about baseball. Everyone can’t be Michael Jordan, Willie Mays or Mike Schmidt. However, everybody can be a good father, a good brother, a good sister, so get your education."

A BELATED GREETING
Dear mom,
We love you! You’re the best mom in the whole world! Did we mention we love you? Love, Vince and Betz Tartaglia.

OPEN AUDITIONS
The national touring production of Evita will hold open auditions to perform roles and sing in the production’s upcoming engagement at the Academy of Music June 21 to 26.
Auditions will be held next Tuesday May 24, at 4 p.m., at the Kimmel Center’s Commonwealth Plaza, Broad and Spruce streets.
Local casting director Mike Lemon (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, In Her Shoes, Jersey Girl) will head the judging panel. For details, go to www.kimmelcenter.org/auditions on the Internet.