James Francis Duffy (August 9, 1920 – November 29, 2003) was an American professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

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 , , and , : (as evidenced in cricke ...

and a professional basketball referee. He worked in the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is the younger of two sports leagues, leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western L ...

from 1951 to 1953. Duffy umpired 448 major league games in his three-year career.Retrosheet
/ref> In 1954, Duffy was sent from Major League Baseball to the International League. He retired from baseball in early 1955, when he found out that he would not be brought back up to the major league level. Upon his retirement, Duffy publicly asserted that his demotion had resulted simply from pressure applied to league president Will Harridge by officials from the Red Sox and White Sox. Harridge responded that those allegations were "utterly ridiculous and completely untrue." Harridge said that Duffy "did not measure up to the standards of the American League." Duffy also spent several seasons as an

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

referee. He worked as an auto salesman in the offseason.

References

External links

RetrosheetSporting News umpire card
1920 births 2003 deaths Baseball people from Rhode Island Major League Baseball umpires Sportspeople from Pawtucket, Rhode Island {{US-baseball-umpire-stub