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Zeitschriften-Artikel
aus: The New York Times, 8. Juli 1988
Sports
of the Times;
Lee Weyer's Eyeglasses
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LEAD: IT started to rain that first game in Korakuen Stadium in
Tokyo. Pete Rose recalled that Lee Weyer, the umpire, was going to
get wet. Weyer had accompanied the Cincinnati Reds on this
exhibition tour to Japan after the 1978 season, and now the
Japanese umpires slipped on raincoats. They handed one to Weyer.
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IT started to rain that first game in Korakuen Stadium in
Tokyo.
Pete Rose recalled that Lee Weyer, the umpire, was going to get
wet. Weyer had accompanied the Cincinnati Reds on this exhibition
tour to Japan after the 1978 season, and now the Japanese umpires
slipped on raincoats. They handed one to Weyer. ''Remember, Lee
was 6-6 and this was before he lost some of his weight, so he was
around 280,'' said Rose, now the Reds' manager. ''The raincoat
they gave him was a Japanese raincoat. He put it on and it was
about three times too small. The sleeves came up to about his
elbows.''
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Rather than hurt the hosts' feelings, Rose
recalled, Weyer,
with a smile on his broad face, umpired the rest of the moist game
in his tight little coat.
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People were recalling Lee Weyer again this
week. Weyer died of
a heart attack Monday night, a few hours after having umpired at
first base in the Giants-Cubs game in San Francisco. He was 51
years old, and had been a National League umpire for 26 years.
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''I rate him one of the top,'' said Rose.
''If not the top.''
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So did Dave Johnson of the Mets, in the other clubhouse in Shea
Stadium. So did the players. Weyer umpired four All-Star Games and
four World Series and was behind the plate when Rose got the hit
that passed Cobb on the career list. When Henry Aaron passed Babe
Ruth with his 715th career homer, he also passed Lee Weyer, who
was umpiring at third base.
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Those were thrills for him, he once said. Besides being fair
and aware, he was big, and confident - confident enough, the
players say, ''to let a guy beef without runnin' him right away,''
unlike some of the newer umpires.
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And self-assured enough that when he blew a call in the seventh
game of last year's World Series, he faced up to it. ''I got
blocked out on the play,'' he said.
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Others, though, like Doug Harvey, the only National League
umpire with seniority over Weyer, recalled something else.
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''I remember when Lee came back from that illness and few
thought he would,'' said Harvey. IN the spring of 1980, Weyer was
stricken with a mysterious illness.
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His vision blurred, his arms and legs shook and his hands shook
so badly he could hardly squeeze toothpaste on a toothbrush.
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He had been afflicted with Guillain-Barre
syndrome, a rare
disorder that generally affects motor control and can also cause
blindness.
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For a while, his life hung in the
balance. When that threat passed, a doctor told him, ''I don't know if you'll ever be able
to work a baseball game again.''
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''Why not?'' Weyer said. ''Being blind never stopped me from
umpiring before.''
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He went to watch the Dodgers play in Los Angeles and when a
foul ball was hit in his direction, he ducked. He was embarrassed
to find that the ball landed about 100 feet away from him. ''My
depth perception was terrible,'' he said.
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Miraculously, with nature taking a positive turn and Weyer
industriously embarking on a program of physical therapy and
jogging to regain coordination, he improved. But his eyesight was
still faulty. Umpires, as is commonly known, are allowed to be
short or fat or bald or ill-tempered, but one thing the league
insists on is that they be able to see.
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Weyer began wearing glasses, and when he returned to the
field,
he would sneak the glasses on just as play was about to start, and
sneak them off and into his pocket when the inning ended, as if no
one would see. BUT they did. Some kidded him. ''Hey, Clark Kent!''
And one time, when the umpires stepped onto a field, he heard
someone in the stands begin to sing ''Three Blind Mice.'' By then,
though, said Weyer, ''I was so glad to be back that it was music
to my ears.''
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A few other umpires had worn glasses,
too. ''But, really,''
said Weyer, ''what difference does it make? Ballplayers hit .300
with 'em.''
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Weyer was back and as good as ever, as happy as
ever, as
voluble as ever. ''He had this kind of high voice, I mean, if you
didn't see him, and you heard his voice, you'd think he was a
frail guy,'' said Johnny Bench, the former Reds catcher. ''When he
was behind the plate, he always called out not just the balls and
strikes, but the number of outs, too. Two balls, two strikes, two outs. I think he did it because he just loved being in the
game.''
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In Tuesday night's game at Shea, there was a close play at
first base, and Doug Harvey, who umpired in the crew when Weyer
broke into the majors in 1961, called out Chris Sabo, the
Cincinnati runner. Manager Rose came hustling out of the dugout,
obviously to argue the call. Shortly, he returned to the dugout.
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Doug Harvey later recalled that scene as he stood in the
doorway to the umpires' room under the stands at Shea: ''Pete came
out and said, 'You called it right, Doug, but I just wanted say
that it was tough about Lee.'
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''I said, 'Yeah, Pete, it was, and I'm having a tough time with
it.'
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''I looked at him and said, 'Well, if you're going to stand out
here and talk, you might as well flap your arms, for heaven's
sakes, so people will think you're doing something.' ''
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At the umpires' door, Harvey said: ''Lee was my good
friend. It
was like losing a brother. Really, that's all I can say now.''
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And Doug Harvey, with his distinctive shock of snow-white hair
and his eyes now rimmed with red, quietly disappeared behind the
closing door.
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IRA
BERKOW
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siehe auch:
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