Why I Now See Bruce Froemming in a Different Light

Last Wednesday, former MLB umpire Bruce Froemming passed away following injuries sustained in a fall. He was 86.

Froemming was a big-league umpire from 1971 through 2007 predominantly in the National League. He would first gain notoriety for a confrontation he would have with Chicago Cubs Milt Pappas when he called ball four on San Diego Padres pinch hitter Larry Stahl denying him a perfect game. While Pappas would get his no-hitter it would begin a public feud between the two men which lasted decades.

Perfect game or not, Froemming would be involved in a MLB record 11 no-hitters including four behind home plate. He would finish his career with 5,163 games umpired - the third most in MLB history behind only Bill Klem (5,373) and Joe West (5,460).

While brushing up on Froemming's achievements following his passing, I came across something of which I was not previously aware.

At the beginning of the 2003 season, Froemming was suspended for 10 games without pay for calling an MLB employee "a stupid Jew bitch." Froemming had argued with the official over travel expenses to Japan where he was to umpire the inaugural series of the 2003 season between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland A's.

As someone who was following baseball observantly at the time, I am astonished that I was not previously aware of the event.

It would appear that most people who were aware of the incident quickly forgot about it. Consider the words of Phil Mushnick of the New York Post in July 2007 following that year's MLB All-Star Game in San Francisco:

The day before the All-Star Game, Froemming was saluted as both a noble fellow and for a job well done by Fay Vincent, the former commissioner of baseball, in a guest column that appeared in the New York Times. During the game, FOX’s Joe Buck and Tim McCarver lauded Froemming as, “good for baseball.”

But neither the former commissioner, in his Times piece, nor FOX’s broadcasters, while addressing a national audience, saw fit to note – perhaps they were too polite or they just plain forgot – a certain episode. In 2003, Froemming didn’t disengage his cell phone until after he could be heard, at the end of a voice mail, calling MLB administrator Cathy Davis a “stupid Jew bitch.”

The episode made short and quick news. Froemming apologized. Sort of. He explained that his comment about Davis wasn’t meant to be heard by anyone other than his wife. “There was no anti-Semitism on my part, whatsoever,” he further explained. Gee, how could anyone regard “stupid Jew bitch” as anti-Semitic?

Froemming nonetheless served a 10-day suspension. Then, before Froemming could even be forgiven, it was forgotten. Poof! It disappeared. Then his career carried on as if nothing had happened, right up until – and now beyond – this year’s All-Star Game, when he was saluted as a great guy and a credit to the game.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it isn’t.

But it’s certainly a lucky thing for Froemming that he only slurred a Jewish woman. In a world that has lost its balance, imagine had he slurred a black person. Imagine.

Ya think the FOX broadcasters, Tuesday, would have told a national audience that Froemming has been good for the game? Ya think a former commissioner of baseball would have lauded him in a guest column in the New York Times? Ya think the Times would have run such a column? Ya think Froemming would have worked Tuesday’s All-Star Game?

Froemming would have, in 2003, been fired, condemned to the Land of Al Campanis and to reside in the Jimmy The Greek Go Away Forever Village. Though neither of those men actually spoke a racial slur, their indelicate words were all it took.

I’m not sure what kind of price public figures should pay for their hateful, bigoted words. But whatever it is, and if equality is the prize, it should be the same price.

Double standards aside, there is another consideration. When someone utters a phrase like "stupid Jew bitch", it comes from a deep-seated hatred. One does not utter such words unless one means them in the moment regardless of whatever they might say down the road. 

I strongly suspect that Bruce Froemming harbored anti-Semitic attitudes (as well as negative attitudes towards women) long before he uttered them. His apology isn't so much conveying regret for his attitudes but rather that he was caught in the act of revealing them. How many other times had Froemming uttered anti-Semitic statements in private whether he was alone or with his umpire colleagues? If he did do so, then how many of his fellow umpires agreed with him?

This isn't to say that Bruce Froemming wasn't capable of goodness or kindness. There is, of course, goodness and badness in all of us. 

Yet I now view Froemming in a different light just like I do with Johnny Bench. I acknowledge their achievements and contributions to baseball. But these are the sort of people that I would have no desire to meet much less get to know. R.I.P.

The Last Picture Show Has Long Left a Lasting Impression

This afternoon I went to the Brattle Theatre for a screening of The Last Picture Show. 

Released in 1971 and nominated for 8 Academy Awards, The Last Picture Show features an all-star ensemble cast consisting of Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Ben Johnson. Clu Gulager, Randy Quaid, John Hillerman along with the film debut of Cybill Shepherd. At the time, Shepherd was the muse of the film's director Peter Bogdanovich who adapted the screenplay for the silver screen along with Larry McMurtry who would later become famous for the Lonesome Dove books.

I first remember watching The Last Picture Show on late night TV in the early 1980s. As I recall, it would have been on WDIO/WIRT, the Duluth-Hibbing ABC affiliate which would show late night movies on Saturday night. The Last Picture Show was among several early 1970s films I was first introduced to during this period along with M*A*S*H and Serpico. 

The Last Picture Show left a lasting impression on me. First and foremost, there is the bleakness of smalltown life. Shot in black and white on location in McMurtry's hometown of Archer City, Texas near the Oklahoma border (named Anarene in the film), the landscape was mostly desolate with small pockets of beauty. While Northwestern Ontario is about as far removed from Northern Texas as you could imagine, the desperation of people in isolation is the same everywhere. One wishes to be anywhere other than where one is right now.

Then there are the performances. When I first watched The Last Picture Show more than 40 years ago, I was most struck by Bottoms' performance and have often wondered why he didn't have a bigger Hollywood career along the lines of Bridges. Bottoms would star in The Paper Chase two years later but would later settle for smaller roles in a variety of movies and TV shows and would later develop a niche for playing former President George W. Bush.

Four of the eight Oscar nominations received by The Last Picture Show were in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories. Bridges and Johnson each earned Best Supporting Actor nominations with Johnson prevailing while Burstyn and Leachman each earned Best Supporting Actress nominations with Leachman prevailing. 

As I get older, Johnson's performance as Sam the Lion resonates more. Sam the Lion owned the diner, the pool hall and the picture show house. While stern, Sam the Lion was also sentimental. In a scene by the water, Sam the Lion tells Sonny Crawford (played by Bottoms) how he would take a younger married woman to that same place and swim naked:

If she were here now, I'd be just about crazy as I was then in about five minutes. Isn't that ridiculous? 

No, it ain't really. Being crazy about a woman like her is always the right thing to do. Bein' a decrepit bag of bones, that's what's ridiculous. Gettin' old. 

I have no doubt this is what earned Johnson, a bonafide rodeo star and stuntman, the golden statue. At the time Johnson won the statue he was 53 years old - the same age I am now. Yet he appeared to have lived several lifetimes longer. I can scarcely imagine what he endured and yet possessed a masculinity which was dignified and generous.

The muse of Sam the Lion's monologue was Lois Farrow (portrayed by Burstyn). She was the unhappily married mother of Jayce Farrow (portrayed by Shepherd). While there was no denying Shepherd's captivating beauty, it is Burstyn to whom I am drawn. She looked really good with longer hair. Towards the end of the movie, after stopping Sonny Crawford from marrying her daughter, she tells Sonny that she loved Sam the Lion like no one else before or since. I found Burstyn's performance far more compelling than the one for which she earned a Best Actress Oscar several years later for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

I must confess that I never saw the film's 1990 sequel Texasville. Perhaps one day I will. Yet I see The Last Picture Show as a film which stands on its own. There is a certain ambience about early 1970s films which could not be recaptured in the 1990s let alone in the 2020s. 

Nevertheless, here in the 2020s, some 55 years after the film's release many of its stars are still with us. Bottoms is now 74, Quaid is 75 (even if he has gone off the deep end), Bridges and Shepherd are both 76 while Burstyn is 93. Aside from taking a stroll down Amnesia Lane, I wanted to appreciate the work of these actors while they are still walking among us before the final credits roll on their last picture show.