Bill Klem, who is considered the greatest umpire in baseball history, was supposed to have said, "I never missed one in my life." Although that's not exactly what he said, more than 50 years after he arbitrated his last game he is still considered the Babe Ruth of umpires.
  Klem, whose family name was actually Klimm, was born and raised in Rochester's Dutchtown section. He got his start in baseball in 1890 as a ticket-taker at the local park. In the spring of 1896 he joined the Canadian League's Hamilton club as a catcher, but his arm went dead and he was quickly released. He bounced around after   that, playing with a local team in nearby Palmyra, New York, working as a painter in Springfield, Massachusetts, and doing construction work in Connecticut. Then he tried baseball again. Springfield of the International League signed him to play for Augusta of the Maine State League, where he again washed out.
  He drifted in and out of construction jobs, and in 1902 he was working in Berwick, Pennsylvania and playing a little baseball on the side when he saw a newspaper headline concerning an old Rochester friend, Silk O'Loughlin, who was umpiring in the   National League.
  Klem had never thought much of the umpiring profession, but figured that if it could make an old pal such as O'Loughlin famous then there must be something to it. Klem promptly got $5 for arbiting a game between the local team and the Cuban Giants and decided to make umpiring his profession.
  His first job was in the Connecticut State League. Early in the season he got into an argument with the league's secretary and was asked to leave the premises. Klem thought his new career was over, but officials rearranged his schedule so that he could avoid his antagonist, and he was kept on.
  "Incidentally", Klem recalled, "I was getting $7.50 per game and no expenses. The fee for doubleheaders was $10.50, you collected after each game, and you umpired alone. And if the home team lost you got an awful lot of abuse with your money."
  The next year Klem advanced to the Class B New York State League and was the only umpire who worked the entire season. The league wanted him back for the following year, but Klem moved up to the American Association, where he began to develop a distinctive style. Once when an outfielder named Frank Hemphill charged after Klem following a disputed call, Klem drew a line in the dirt and turned his back on him. It was a gamble, but it worked. Hemphill jawed away at Klem but was afraid to cross the barrier. From that incident grew Klem's famous habit, often punctuated with the remark, "Don't cross the Rio Grande!" of drawing a line in the dirt. Any player who crossed the line got thrown out of the game.
  While umpiring in the American Association, Klem picked up the nickname 'Catfish.' The epithet became a verbal line in the dirt; he hated the name so much that anyone who used it was guaranteed ejection.
  Klem had so distinguished himself during his three years of minor league umpiring that both the American and National Leagues were after him prior to the 1905 season. Both leagues offered him $2,100 for the season, and though the AL pursued him more aggressively, Klem preferred to go with the more established NL. He was soon recognized as the top umpire in baseball. For the first 16 years that Klem umpired he worked exclusively behind home plate because of his superior ability in calling balls and strikes.The "never missed one" line had its genesis in an incident in 1912 at the Polo Grounds. The Cubs and the Giants were playing at the recently rebuilt ballpark, and in the eighth inning one of John McGraw's Giants hit a long drive off the scoreboard that straddled the foul line in left field. Klem called it foul.
  The decision cost McGraw the game, and the disgruntled manager sent the Polo Grounds' architect, Jim Foster, on an errand. Two days after the foul call Foster approached Klem and told him that McGraw had made him climb up on the scoreboard to find the dent the ball had put in it. "Then I measured it," Foster told Klem, "and do you know that ball was foul by three inches?" Klem responded, "You're not telling me a thing, Mr. Foster. I never missed one of those in my life."
  According to Klem, he had simply meant that he had never muffed a foul ball call, and he claimed that somewhere along the line his statement had become exaggerated. Whether he said it or not, the more emphatic version of the quote quickly got around the league and all of baseball. "I credit the tag line as the difference between me and all other umpires." admitted Klem. He later revised his remark, but only slightly. "I never missed one in my heart." he said.
  Once, on a close play, Klem did not immediately signal his decision, as players crowded around. One asked, "Well, what is it, safe or out?" Klem replied, "It ain't nothing till I call it." Klem's remark sums up the importance of the umpire to the game and is also a subtle reminder to umpires to make sure they've made the right call.
   Following his retirement as an active umpire in 1940 after 36 years of arbitrating and 18 World Series assignments, he became chief of National League umpires. He took that job as seriously as he did calling balls and strikes. Klem once said, "Baseball is more than a game to me. It's a religion."
Managers Frank Chance and Hughie Jennings exchange lineup cards prior to a game along with umpires Bill Klem and Tommy Connolly
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