Billy Evans - Major League Umpiring Career

Major League Umpiring Career

At 22 years of age, Evans was the youngest umpire in major league history; furthermore, he was among those very rare umpires who broke into the major leagues with little previous professional experience. He was regarded as the only umpire of his era who never had played professional baseball himself. After making his debut at Highlanders' Park in New York City, he went on to umpire for six World Series: 1909, 1912, 1915, 1917, 1919 and 1923. Working in an era during which most major league games used no more than two umpires (and sometimes only one), Evans single-handedly umpired seven double-headers in eight days during the 1907 season. He was the base umpire for Charlie Robertson's perfect game on April 30, 1922.

Unlike many umpires, Evans never made claims to infallibility. "I missed a lot of decisions", he once said. "At the time of making such a decision there was no doubt in my mind as to its correctness. However, a second or two later I felt that I erred and wished I could change my original ruling". Evans' humility and impartiality did not always protect him from abusive fans. As sports writers Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf observed, "roughness on the field seemed to elicit the same in the stands". On September 15, 1907, in the midst of a doubleheader between the St. Louis Browns and Detroit Tigers, Evans suffered a skull fracture when a bottle hurled by an angry spectator knocked him unconscious. The New York Times described the incident as "one of the most disgraceful scenes ever witnessed on a ball field".

Evans became known as an innovator during more than two decades with the American League. One obituary observed that he "introduced something new to officiating by running down to a base where a play was made so that he would be on top of it". This approach became a standard practice among major league officials. He was also aware of the increasing demands placed on umpires and strongly advocated formal training for baseball officials. Furthermore, in a game that retained much of the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of earlier decades, Evans "substituted diplomacy for belligerency and proved an arbiter could control a game without threats of physical violence".

At the same time, he was unwilling to "back down" when physically threatened. In September 1921, Evans was involved in a bloody fistfight with Ty Cobb, who contested one of Evans' calls. Baseball historian David Anderson noted that the trouble began when Cobb threatened to "whip" Evans "right at home plate", a move that would have led to Cobb's immediate suspension. Evans supposedly invited Cobb to the umpire's dressing room for "post-game festivities", and before long, the two men were brawling beneath the stands as players from both teams looked on. According to some accounts, many of Cobb's Detroit Tigers teammates "rooted" for Evans. After the fight, Cobb was suspended for one game, while Evans attended the next several games wearing bandages. Both men had agreed before the fight that they would not report it to league officials, but word of the incident eventually reached the league president, Ban Johnson. According to sports writers Okrent and Wulf, Johnson responded to news of the incident "with uncharacteristic humor", saying "only that he was sorry that he missed it".

For the duration of his career as an umpire, Evans also remained active as a sportswriter. From 1918 to 1928, he served as sports editor of Newspaper Enterprise Association and produced a syndicated sports column titled, "Billy Evans Says". His staff featured well-known sportswriters Jimmy Powers and Joe Williams.