STL All Sports

Danny MacFayden, the once famous bespectacled major-league pitcher, was throwing for Pittsburgh one afternoon in a tight ball game when he suddenly ran afoul of Bill Klem, baseball's most famous umpire. Four times MacFayden had fired his best pitch at a rival batter, but Klem umpiring behind the plate had called each pitch a ball.

Seething with fury, the usually placid and gentlemanly Danny MacFayden rushed to the plate, whipped off his eyeglasses, and held them out to umpire Bill Klem as he shouted angrily:

"You need these more than I do!"

The stern Old Arbitrator promptly ordered pitcher MacFayden out of the game. Just then, Frankie Frisch, the Pirates' manager, hustled to the scene. Although that Hall-of-Famer was a notorious umpire-baiter, surprisingly, he now tried to soothe the ump's ruffled feelings.

"Bill, have a heart," he pleaded soothingly. "MacFayden is a nice kid who sometimes gets a little excited. I'm sure he didn't mean what he said and is sorry for what he did!"

Bill Klem turned to manager Frisch and said: "Frank, I'm not chasing your pitcher out of the game for casting aspersions on my eyesight. It's because he was yelling loud enough for the customers to hear. It could incite a riot, and I won't tolerate such behavior."

At that moment, Danny MacFayden elbowed himself between the manager and umpire, as he loudly roared in his defense:
"I wasn't yelling to the grandstand at all, Mr. Frisch. I was shouting just in case Klem's ears are as lousy as his eyes!"

Danny MacFayden went to the showers early that afternoon.