Whitey and The Umpire...

This summer a couple of old guys will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.

Recently, I got a kick out of watching both of them jawing at each other during an interview on the MLB cable show, Hot Stove. The two inductees are none other than Whitey Herzog and Doug Harvey. Thirty years ago, the two were performing on the field -- Herzog as a manager and Harvey, as the umpire of umpires. Harvey was a Major League umpire from 1962 to 1992 and on more than one occasion gave Herzog, who managed both the Kansas City Royals (1975-1979) and the St. Louis Cardinals (1980-1990), the heave-ho.

It didn't look like they were buddies then. I can remember seeing Herzog jawing away with his red face stuck way up under Harvey's chin. Of course, that's part of baseball and their duels on the field add to the game itself. I know one thing, I'd love to be stuck at an airport for a few hours, waiting for the weather to clear and find myself at the local bar, listening attentively to the two men. The stories they can share about Major League baseball, on and off the field, must be endless.

 f I ever get such a chance, I'd better have a couple of spiral notebooks and a handful of pens available. What fun that would be. Herzog, now 78, won over 1200 games as a manager in the big leagues, including a World Series title with the Cardinals in 1982, and Harvey, now 79...my goodness, he's umpired over 4600 games in the Majors.

Both of these fellas deserve to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. You have to wonder, what took so long?