Robert Allen Engel (October 11, 1933 – March 5, 2018) was an American
professional baseball
Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world.
Modern professional ...
umpire
An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection.
The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...
who worked in the
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
from 1965 to 1990. Engel wore uniform number 5 for most of his career.
A former president of the umpires union, Engel retired after being arrested for the theft of more than 4,000 baseball cards from a Target store in California, for which he pleaded no contest.
Early life
As a young man in
Bakersfield, California, Engel worked as a hotel bellhop. Baseball umpires who stayed at the hotel caught his attention; he noticed that they stayed out late at night and did not have to wake up until the early afternoon. After serving in the military, Engel worked for an oil tool company. After seeing ads in ''
The Sporting News
The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...
'' for the George Barr Umpire School, Engel decided to attend. He was hired into professional baseball and worked ten years in the minor leagues before receiving his promotion to the major leagues.
Career
Engel was an umpire in the
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...
,
1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...
, and
1985 World Series
The 1985 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1985 season. The 82nd edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion Kansas City Royals and the N ...
. He worked four
Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and National ...
s, and six
National League Championship Series
The National League Championship Series (NLCS) is a best-of-seven playoff and one of two League Championship Series comprising the penultimate round of Major League Baseball's (MLB) postseason. It is contested by the winners of the two Nation ...
. In his career, Engel umpired 3,630 major-league games.
Interviewed for a 1987 piece in ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...
'', Engel expressed annoyance at fellow umpires with a flair for the dramatic, saying that "the players don't care how much gyration you put on. All they care about is getting them right. And I'll guarantee you, the players always want to know who's umpiring, because no two umpires have the same strike zone."
[
He was the president of the Major League Umpires Association, the union for major-league umpires, at the time of the 1978 umpire strike.]
/ref>
See also
* List of Major League Baseball umpires
The following is a list of major league baseball umpires. The list includes umpires who worked in any of four 19th century major leagues (American Association, National Association, Players' League, Union Association), one defunct 20th century ma ...
References
External links
Umpire Card
1933 births
2018 deaths
Major League Baseball umpires
Sportspeople from California
People from Atascadero, California
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