- [Emmett] I lived a lifetime in baseball, and it's carried me all the way around the world, and that was an experience.

Where else can you lead the type of life that one leads in baseball?

I'd say I got good results, leading an entirely different life than I had before, a life that a lot of people would have enjoyed having, and then my biggest contribution is the fact that I revolutionized umpiring.

(upbeat music) - Well, Emmett Ashford was a flamboyant sort.

I mean, he brought in the new moves to calling a man out on strikes or safe or out.

- Emmett loved the game and it showed, and when he was behind home plate or when he was on the bases, the way that Emmett presented himself, I mean, Emmett looked like he had just stepped out of the tailor shop every time he stepped onto the field.

- Emmett was dapper when he took to field himself.

He had cuff links.

I mean, he was styling, and he would show the white sleeve underneath his jacket.

I mean, he was right out of GQ.

- You know, here's Emmett Ashford, the pioneer who could call a strike and dance at the same time, and if he called you out, that hand is extended and the thumb up, and he was very emphatic with how he called it.

- He was a very emotional guy, and he was unlike the standard umpire.

- You had to see him in order to love what he did.

I mean, the first time that they'd throw a strike in there, it wasn't just, "Strike."

It was, "Strike!"

And everybody in the stands would go, "Ooh, ah!"

- He became one of the most popular umpires in the nation.

Emmett just was so exuberant when he called a strike.

You know, when he called out, he did a little dance.

We thought he was classic, and Emmett was what they called a showboat.

- He knew that he had to have some kind of a show in order to move up.

- He brought an energy to the game that most umpires wouldn't dare to do.

- But all of that being said, there's one thing that is very clear.

Umpires are never liked, but more important than that, you couldn't watch the game where Emmett was umpiring without noticing Emmett simply in his enthusiasm for the game.

In Los Angeles, Emmett's home ground, there were five daily newspapers.

So when you picked up the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the Los Angeles Mirror, or the Los Angeles Herald Express, you saw pictures of games from the Pacific Coast League, and their games were on television, so there was a lot of media coverage that was there.

So Emmett was a celebrity, - You know, Emmett was as well known as Sidney Poitier was, and if you talk about umpires, the first person they would bring up would be Emmett Ashford.

- Emmett Ashford was an icon in Los Angeles, which is definitely a media center, and growing up in an environment which appreciated arts and culture.

You know, he went to Chapman College.

He was involved in the newspaper.

He was very much a man of culture, and, of course, in Los Angeles, where he grew up, you had tremendous culture.

I know, for instance, he was very much involved in music.

- What brighter community could you come from for young Emmett Ashford?

Central Avenue had always been the central point for African Americans.

So, for most cultural and social and religious activities, African Americans tended to always migrate back to the avenue for some parts of their life.

When the Dunbar opened in 1928 as the Hotel Somerville, the Alabam was just to the south of it, and the Dunbar and the Club Alabam kind of flourished as homes for entertainers.

This was a place where Hollywood came to slum, and so there was a lot going on in Los Angeles.

When Duke Ellington opened the Vaudeville show "Jump For Joy," he stayed at the Dunbar the whole time.

- The influence of those individuals, whether they were movie celebrities or stage performers, they, in turn, brought their own prestige to the area, and it made you feel like, you know, this is a great neighborhood.

- The apex of the African American community were its newspapers.

The California Eagle was founded in 1879.

Emmett Ashford worked for Mrs.

Charlotta Bass at the California Eagle while he was in high school and for a number of years afterwards, and that was a foundational experience, because in that press room, it was a beehive of activity, and working for Mrs.

Bass, someone like Emmett Ashford could learn a broad array of skills.

The best jobs for any African Americans were civil service positions, working for the United States Postal Service, and if you were ambitious, you might strive for something higher.

Jefferson High School was a hotbed of African American culture and status, and it also was an athletic power.

They had success in the '30s in track and field and in football and in baseball, and if you look at an annual from Jefferson High School, it's going to be a pantheon of African American entertainers and leaders.

The most famous Jeff graduated, of course, is Ralph Bunche, who graduated in 1924, and so in that community that was the Central Avenue corridor, there was enough sustenance to provide opportunities for any young woman or young man who wanted to take advantage of them.

- Emmett Ashford went to Jefferson High, and he started off wanting to be an athlete himself.

He didn't make it in sports, but he went into umpiring.

(mellow music) - You know, Ashford was an icon in Los Angeles.

You gotta realize Ashford had been umpiring for years.

I mean, he started off umpiring in the post office leagues in Los Angeles, and so everybody in the baseball community of Los Angeles knew Emmett Ashford, and most importantly, they respected him.

- We all who went to Jefferson High School would mention Emmett along with Dr.

Bunch and Mel Whitfield and all these other greats, and I first met Emmett Ashford when I was playing football and he was the referee, and he also refereed basketball games.

- When I was playing ball for San Diego State, that's where I first run across Emmett, He was umpiring behind the plate at USC, University of Southern California, - I lived about three short blocks from Wrigley Field, which was the home baseball field for the Los Angeles Angels and AAA baseball, the Pacific Coast League.

- Wrigley Field was located just west of Central, right in the middle of the Black community.

- One of the interesting things about the Wrigley Field, where I hung out so much, was that I could see the Negro League baseball teams play there.

(mellow music) - [Emmett] I worked those exhibition games during the winter over on Wrigley field.

A little barnstorm rolled over Southern California, and I was umpire, and Bob Feller used to bring out all-star teams, and he played Jackie Robinson.

- And it was right here in our neighborhood.

My grandfather would tell this story about Satchel Paige, and, I mean, it was almost unbelievable.

- There was showmanship in the Negro League.

I saw Josh Gibson and the Homestead Grays, saw Satchel Paige play.

I remember the first baseman wouldn't just catch the ball.

He'd sweep it and whip it around and whip it around.

- You read about the old Negro League players.

They traveled around the same circuit with the jazz bands.

The African American ball players really loved jazz music, so there was a real interaction and exchange between the musicians and the ball players.

- Emmett gave up 15 years of work and seniority experience at the post office, and moving into something as risky as umpiring was something akin to like a pipe dream, and for most people, that's a risk that wasn't gonna pay off.

- What Emmett Ashford did in resigning from the post office is saying he had a higher calling, and that was a very brave move, because, generally, African Americans are cautious, and to his credit, he was willing to go off and take a different road.

- [Emmett] Jackie went in '46.

I was on there in my cot in Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Air Station, and I remember some of the others, the early fellas, the early Blacks together, and then I said, "I'm gonna be an umpire.

I'm gonna be the first umpire."

I just said, "There's no reason why I can't do it."

(mellow music) - It's impossible for a 21st-century audience to even comprehend what Emmett Ashford would've had to go through in what was a very Southern minor league system in baseball in the 1950s.

A huge number of baseball players were white guys from the rural south.

That's where you played, and so oftentimes, when they would encounter Black people, it was almost like they looked at African Americans like they were from outer space.

- When he broke into the minor leagues in 1951, he was the first African American umpire in organized baseball, and he was obviously well aware that this was breaking ground.

- And so to have an African American umpire have that kind of hand over some of these players where there weren't any African American managers or any other African Americans in positions of power, well, that's just profound.

I mean, people have to know what it was like, because back then, there was no real money in the minor league system, so players would go from town to town, usually on a rickety bus.

- So I'm thinking, in particular right now, I'm at Fort Worth, Texas, double-A.

I'm moving up in the ranks of the minor leagues.

This experience will be with me for the rest of my life.

I got on the bus to go to the ballpark for the ball game, and on the bus, there's a bench seat that sits facing the front, right behind the driver.

So, when I got in, the bus was crowded, but that bench seat was empty, so I sat down in the front of the bus, and I looked around, I looked at the front, and the driver looked at me eye to eye and said, "Get in the back, boy."

Oh, I felt like I could crawl under the floorboards.

- I have no doubt that having Emmett Ashford be in a position of power over a lot of these Southern white baseball players and calling them out and safe forced a lot of them to confront their own racism.

- He started paying his dues.

He excelled at the craft of umpiring, and he worked hard at it.

I mean, that was the thing is it is not an easy profession (jaunty music) - Triple-A ball.

The Coast League was just before the major leagues, and then there's double-A and A ball, and B, C, all the way down to the low minors.

- There's been a long history and nostalgia about the PCL and its role as a larger-than-life minor league franchise in professional baseball.

- Well, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley on two dirt roads during World War II, and the Pacific Coast League had two teams in the Los Angeles market, the Hollywood Stars and the Los Angeles Angels, and the quality of play in the Pacific Coast League in the '40s and '50s, some of the best teams in that era in the PCL would more than handle their way with teams with losing records in major leagues.

They were that good.

- So the talent level of the Pacific Coast League was tremendous, and you had had many great players come out of the Pacific Coast League.

Joe DiMaggio in San Francisco.

Ted Williams, who played for San Diego.

Great, great players.

- The Pacific Coast League represented professional baseball throughout the West.

It was a league whose reputation and whose familiarity was across the West and thought of in many ways as a third major league.

- [Fred] And they were special, special places.

Wrigley Field, of course, was the replica of the famous Wrigley Field in Chicago.

- One of the great things about the Pacific Coast League was the fact that we not only had the hotshot young guys on their way up toward the major leagues, we also had some older stars coming down.

One of the most notable was Steve Bilko of the Los Angeles Angels.

The Angels fans had this guy who was such a prodigious home-run hitter.

He would just wipe out all the pitching in the Coast League, hitting home-runs in everybody's park.

- But I played one year in the Pacific Coast League.

There were a lot of good players in the league because there's a lot of players who didn't want to go to the big leagues because they were doing much better at triple-A and they were making more money.

- Frank Kelleher with the Hollywood Stars, later, he was making money.

They wanted to go to Cincinnati.

He had to take a $4,000 cut.

He says, "I'm not gonna go.

I'm gonna stay in Hollywood."

So this was a big deal out here, and we just figured this is as good as the major leagues.

In fact, at one time, they were thinking about turning it into a third major league.

- And there was actually a celebrity element to all of this, because, at that time, I mean, a lot of the Hollywood people, they loved baseball, so they found their place to go at either Wrigley or at Gilmore Field.

- There was a lot of people that were high-profile people that came and were there a lot.

Ronald Reagan came out quite often.

Burt Lancaster was another one.

(upbeat piano music) - When I went to Hollywood in '49, Groucho Marx and Fred Astaire, they would go out and watch the games.

That was it for these guys.

- The Coast League was like the major leagues.

It was just such a big step up.

- Just by the nature of our game, the game of baseball, there's always been the following of celebrities, and Emmett was accepted and he was popular and he loved it.

- For the benefit of the people who don't know, Emmett's one of the most respected and capable umpires in the Pacific Coast League.

(audience applauding) Emmett, I understand you may go up to the majors next year.

Is there any truth to this rumor?

- Well, gosh, sure, there's been rumors, and quite a lot of smoke, but I haven't heard anything definite, and, of course, it's my ambition like everybody else, - You know, Emmett was as well known as Sidney Poitier was because he was so active in what he did, and if you talk about umpires, the first person they would bring up would be Emmett Ashford.

- Emmett, one of the reasons the crowd always likes to watch you work in a game is because, in addition to being a good umpire, you put on quite a show.

Now, why are you so dramatic?

I saw you down in Phoenix, you know, and (indistinct) was down there with the Giants against Cleveland last year.

- Well, I- - You were pretty fancy down there.

You were doing some pretty fancy sweeps there.

- Well, I've been asked that question quite a lot of times, Groucho, but all I can answer is that it's just the way I feel within myself.

A man is either out or safe, and there's no in between, and the more emphatic you make it, the better off it is for everyone concerned.

- There's never any doubt in your mind about a decision, huh?

- Not in mine.

- [Groucho] Oh.

(audience chuckles) - [Maury] There was one Black umpire in all of baseball, organized baseball, it was referred to as, and his name was Emmett Ashford.

- He was a showman, and people went to the games to watch him umpire because he always added a little bit to it.

- Emmett and I were together in the Pacific Coast League, and that happened in 1957.

I was with the Seattle Rainiers, and the play that I'm focusing on, Emmett's the umpire at second base, and it was a close play.

I was stealing the base.

I thought I was safe, and Emmett called me out.

Oh, you know, and I started arguing with him.

All of a sudden, it's as if I had a little tap on the shoulder.

"Come on, boy.

It's Emmett Ashford.

You don't want to do that.

He's going through enough stuff without you giving him a hard time."

So I backed off and I even apologized to him.

I sent a message over when the game was over, over to the umpires' room, and said, "Emmett, I'm so sorry."

He said, "Oh, it's okay.

I understand."

He was real professional about it.

- I was a teenager when I first saw Emmett Ashford.

There was no introduction for me.

You know, I just went to the games.

It was Seals Stadium, 16th and Bryant.

- So here you have this gorgeous ballpark.

The grass was as green as it could be on the field.

You know, it's the crack of the bat.

It's the smell of the grass.

It's everything about Americana and baseball.

- I think that some people might believe that California was different than the South, or different than the Midwest or the East Coast, and so everything that you could find in the Jim Crow South, you could find that in California.

- [Dave] You know, Emmett Asher had to hear the things that Jackie Robinson had to hear.

It's about the N word.

"What's an N-word doing down on the field?

This is a white person's game."

And I think about what it must have been like to travel with a white umpiring crew.

- And the guff that he had to put up with and the things he went through really spoke to a different mindset, if you will, and I think, among a lot of players, there was that mindset that, certainly, if not racist, was bigoted and prejudicial.

I remember one time I was at Seals Stadium, and in this particular game, Emmett Ashford called out Jack Phillips, the third baseman of the Seals, called him out on strikes, and Phillips turned around and kicked dirt on Ashford's nicely shined shoes.

Ashford threw him out of the game immediately.

An inning or two later, another Seal was called out on strikes by Ashford.

Ashford threw him out of the game.

That brought the Seals manager Joe Gordon out of the dugout.

He came out and a rule bartering ensued, and finally Ashford said, "Okay, he's out of the game."

And then the seat cushions started flying, and mine was among them, but I wasn't throwing my seat cushion because a Black man kicked my manager out of the game.

I was throwing the seat cushion because the umpire kicked my manager out of the game.

- Walter O'Malley was a true visionary.

He had the vision and saw the potential of baseball on the West Coast.

When the Dodgers and Giants moved to the West Coast to begin the 1958 season, the scope of baseball on the West Coast changed dramatically.

- Everything about it was different.

I remember that, because the other teams had to leave to make room for them.

When the Dodgers and the Giants came to California, it was a whole different Coast League.

- And the major areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco faded away by the nature of expansion.

The Dodgers no sooner arrived in 1958, and now in 1959, they're playing the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.

So you now had not only the Dodgers in Los Angeles.

You had the voice of Vince Scully that was sweeping through the Southland like a brush fire, and that really spelt the end to the Pacific Coast League as it had been known in the significant cities on the West Coast.

- And you look at the names of some of those umpires that were in the Coast League at that time.

Doug Harvey spent time here.

Doug was one of the greatest umpires that ever lived.

- In 1961, I got to work with Emmett.

I was on the same crew with him, and it was quite an experience, and as an umpire, you don't go up in a certain amount of time, you're just gone.

That's it.

You don't receive a contract for the coming year.

- And you never had the assurance that you were going to be resigned for the next season.

It was always an uncertain future.

It was really scary.

- The contract was for single years, a single-year contract.

They'd send it out before the season started and you'd sign it and send it back, and Emmett's wife Magarite was very supportive of Emmett, and she knew that Emmett wanted to make it to the major leagues.

- Well, Magarite was a lovely lady.

I met her when Emmett joined Doug's crew, and she had this really exotic beauty.

She was really a pretty woman.

We had wonderful conversations.

We talked about anything and everything as we got to know each other, and we talked about the jobs our husbands had to take in the off season in order to supplement the income because you weren't allowed to have an employment.

Beyond that, we talked about segregation, hard times, desegregation.

- I know that the NAACP backed him, and they're the ones that paid for the car.

The guys in every city brought him a car, and they're betting everything he's gonna make it to the major leagues and they're backing him with money, and I don't blame them.

Hey, they were battling the tough battles!

We were working on $10 a day per diem.

Now, that had to pay our rent and three meals.

Emmett had that, plus the NAACP paying him to do a show on the road and over there with the Blacks.

One of the situations I observed when I worked with Emmett was the fact that, when we traveled, we would stop on the road and everybody would get out and order a hamburger or something and take it back on the bus, and Emmett was not invited to come to the front door.

He came in and they walked right up to him and told him, "Back door," and Emmett went to the back door and stood back there by himself.

He was the only Black on the crew, and I took notice of that.

It was wrong.

- There was a white umpire that emulated Emmett, and they said that he was colorful, but Emmett was a clown.

- I always felt that they might have taken offense to that, 'cause we got an ugly word in baseball called showboating, and Emmett knew that eyes were on him.

He knew that some of his fellow umpires were not his friends.

- Cece Carlucci hated working with Emmett.

I asked him why.

He says, "Oh, that son of a, doing all of that showboating."

- And there was certainly, I'm sure, resentment of Emmett because of how he handled himself.

- That tightrope that he had to walk because he was naturally more enthusiastic, more animated, easily discredited, and there's a competition among umpires.

There are only so many positions.

- Emmett Ashford was the umpire-in-chief.

He was the number one umpire in the Pacific Coast League, and that's what the chief umpire was.

He was the boss and candidates that he supervised were selected for the major leagues, and they just continued to ignore him.

- You know, back in the day, there was a Black network of newspapers, the Baltimore Afro-American, the New York Amsterdam, the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, and here on the West Coast, it was the Los Angeles Sentinel, and we had people like Wendell Smith back in the Midwest and everything.

He was one of the keys of promoting Jackie Robinson, and here on the West Coast, it was Brad Pye Jr.

- So we started this campaign to send these press releases out to get Emmett Ashford in the majors, and for more than three years, we didn't get to first base.

- Ashford's got a larger vision, and that vision is really amplified by the insurrection of August 1965.

(pensive music) - [Bystander] What are y'all standing here for?

- [Protestor 1] Kill the white man!

- [Protestor 2] Kill the white man!

- [Reporter 1] Jeez, they really turned that thing over.

Now they're gonna burn it.

It's all the way up.

There it goes.

(crowd cheering) - [Reporter 2] This evening, Los Angeles remains hot, quiet, tense, and dangerous, and 28 people are dead.

- Well, when the Watts riot broke out, all hell broke loose, and it got to be so bad, you couldn't cross Crenshaw.

They had state troopers there, you know, with all these tanks and stuff, so you couldn't come across there.

- There were systemic issues that were present in Los Angeles that were not seen because there was discrimination.

There was always the threat of police violence.

- They would hire many of their police officers thanks to William Parker.

They would hire a lot of the officers from the South, so they would have a Southern police force in the context of integration, which would be able to enforce a de facto segregation.

- The Los Angeles Police Department was extremely brutal in its handling of African Americans, and so police violence was always a threat and clearly manifested itself fully in the insurrection in August of 1965.

- And that, I'm sure, was something that was on the minds of people in power in Major League Baseball in terms of thinking and making that part of the calculus in terms of, when can we actually bring this person up?

Not think in terms of meritocracy, not think in terms of Emmett Ashford's the best, let's get him up there, but more, I think, in terms of, can we bring him up without causing too much of a stir?

- The people who break these boundaries, who break these glass ceilings and whatnot, is that they're not doing it on their own.

Like, none of us do these things on our own.

We have to have people behind us who are looking out for our best interest and who we can depend on.

- And so, finally, one day we made an appointment to see the late Walter F. O'Malley, and he says, "Well, Brad, if I help you get Emmett Ashford in the National League, they would say he's my umpire."

- Walter was a very strategic person, and he saw that Emmett certainly had the ability to be a major league umpire, that it would be good for the game, because he certainly was aware that, if it was the National League and he carried the influence, that was gonna have a downside.

- So, after we met with O'Malley, about two weeks later, Emmett was promoted to the Major league, and, boy, that was a happy moment.

- [Announcer] The 1965 World Series from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California.

The Minnesota Twins meeting the Los Angeles Dodgers.

- [Commentator] Good afternoon, everybody.

This is Ben Scully, along with Ray Scott.

- The Dodgers were in the World Series, and so we were down on the field prior to the game to cover the World Series for the Sentinel, and the umpires for the game were sitting there on some bleachers.

So I went over and I said, "Excuse me, can we have a picture with Emmett Ashford?"

He said, "No, I don't wanna take no picture with no Emmett Ashford, no!

And so, because Emmett Ashford was Black, they did not want to take pictures with him.

So Emmett went in the dugout and was crying, and, you know, we were just shocked.

Racism was so prevalent, and here, fellow umpires didn't want Emmett's picture taken with 'em.

I mean, how cruel can you be?

(gentle music) - [Emmett] Hubert Humphrey was gonna throw out the first ball.

Secret Service was there.

I had problems trying to get into the place, so the cab driver told the agent, "I've got one of the umpires here."

And the agent said, "Come on now.

Who are you trying to kill?"

And that happened twice more before I could get to the umpires' room.

- When Emmett wasn't allowed to to get into the stadium, I would assume that he went through an experience that many Black people and many people from marginalized groups will go through when you're basically gonna encounter racism.

So, once he was on the field, he had to figure out how to put that stuff into context so that he can do this job, because the thing that you gotta remember is that he was going to a space where they expected a high level of performance and a high level of expertise, and so going through that experience, I think that he had to use his prior experiences to better be able to kind of bounce back, because we can't let that kind of thing stop us from being successful.

- [Commentator] On Labor Day in Kansas City, Dave McNally, a left-hander, started for the Orioles, and he's got four runs and he didn't get anybody out.

- In Kansas City, when I was broadcasting the Kansas City A's, we had heard that the umpires, of course, had been changed, and there were new umpires coming into Major League Baseball in the American League, and we had heard that Emmett Ashford was going to be one of them.

We didn't know a whole lot about him, but it didn't take us long to find out that this was the most colorful guy who had ever come into Major League Baseball as an umpire, and all of a sudden, here's this guy umpiring and jumping up and calling people out and very colorfully doing it.

- That was his style.

He was being Emmett Ashford.

He wasn't trying to pretend to be some somebody else.

That's how he called the games before he came to the big leagues.

- An umpire is like your father on the field, like a stern father.

What an umpire says is the law.

If an umpire says you're out, you could yell yourself blue.

You're still going to be out.

- Emmett Ashford was unique.

He was in a position of authority on that field.

Anybody that was gonna get in his face and argue a call, he could handle it, and this was 1966.

This was just a few years after the march on Washington, a couple years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

- To the Black community, it was great, because this is something that had never been.

You know, here's Emmett Ashford, the pioneer, you know, who could call a strike and dance at the same time.

- Emmett Ashford was a show.

He just didn't umpire.

He had fun.

He had fun with the players and everything like that, which, later on, you would never see that.

I think he came in with a good name, and I think that people in baseball recognized him on what he was doing.

- I had just been called up in 1966, and we're playing in Kansas City, and Emmett was the second-base umpire that night, and when we came out, I'm walking to center field, and he goes, "You're from Santa Monica, aren't you?"

I went, "Yes."

He says, "You went to Santa Monica High?"

I say, "Yes."

He says, "I went to Jefferson."

He's an LA guy, so we had a little bond, and we kept talking in and out, and I found out little things about Emmett Ashford, about the fact that he worked at a post office for a lot of years, and he finally had an opportunity to umpire, but I also learned more about Emmett Ashford that I don't know if any other players understood it.

He loved the opera.

(gentle classical music) He would talk about the opera in between the games, and here's this man that has an immense amount of pressure put upon him, and yet, in between innings, we would talk a little about opera.

- Emmett went to Chapman College.

He was an educated man.

Not only was he Black, he was animated.

He could be the only Black in the stadium and he would be perfectly comfortable.

- I think they accepted the fact that this was part of baseball's change and bringing color to the umpiring crew.

It wasn't all the men in blue anymore.

You had color.

- Baseball season of 1966 was a very big year for me.

I was living in Orange County then and just really becoming aware of the game and its social implications, and throughout that year, I was reading in the sporting news about an African American umpire, Emmett Ashford, and it really intrigued me because here's a guy who's breaking a barrier of sorts in terms of umpiring.

So this was kinda like my generation's Jackie Robinson, and I was really excited about seeing him come to Anaheim Stadium, my local stadium in the heart of Orange County, and you know what Orange County was like.

That was John Birch central, you know, and it was a lily white community.

There were very few African Americans.

Of the 15,000 people in the stands, there were probably not more than half a dozen African Americans, and Emmett Ashford was in town with the umpiring crew, and he was going to be the home plate umpire that day.

- If you're any kind of a fan of baseball and fan of the umpires, you can tell who it is from the back, from the side, and in the major leagues, there were some people who had enormous voices.

- Ashford was such a dynamic figure behind the plate.

I was sitting up in the upper deck and you could hear him calling balls and strikes all the way on the upper deck.

So, at the end of the game, I knew where the ball players and the umpires came out, and I was intent upon getting this man's autograph, and I was, I think, the only person waiting around, and here comes Emmett Ashford, dressed to the nines, you know, beautifully dressed, and I walked up to him and I handed him my autograph book, and Emmett looked kind of startled, and he said, "Look."

He said, "I'll sign your book, but you gotta do me a favor.

You're gonna walk out to the car with me and tell me more about your baseball experiences."

So I walked out to his car with him, and, you know, we shared some stories, and finally, he got around to signing my book, and it was very memorable for me because this was somebody who was a pioneer of our generation.

- You know, in 1967, Emmett was selected to umpire the All-Star game.

The game was played in Anaheim, and it was like a homecoming of sorts for him, and if he was going to have his first All-Star game, there couldn't have been a better place than Anaheim.

It was only his second year in the big leagues, so I imagine when Emmett umpired that game, people that knew him, you know, from his upbringing, were there.

- The All-Star game in baseball is one of the natural showcases to really play the sport up and introduce it to new fans.

- We use the word "brand" today a lot.

You know, this could help your brand, right?

Disneyland was there.

I mean, it was a perfect setting.

- And, of course, to have a man like Gene Autry owning the team that was hosting the All-Star game.

I mean, Autry was, I don't know what the parallel would be today, but he was above and beyond what you could imagine.

(lively music) - You know, the mid-sixties had some of the greatest players baseball has ever had.

You know, you had a plethora of stars that were on that field with Emmett Ashford.

I mean, you had both Robinsons, Frank and Brooks.

You had Mickey Mantle.

You had Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale.

Hall of Famers were replete.

- And so that gives you an idea of how big the All-Star game was at that particular time, and to have a man like Emmett Ashford be a participant in an All-Star game like he was, I guess the longest All-Star game in history, that 15-inning extravaganza at Anaheim Stadium, and to add the color of Emmett and his flamboyancy, that just was one facet, but an important facet of that particular All-Star game.

- [Ray] I always, as a catcher, wanted to try to stay low and try to give a good target to the umpire.

- [Doug] The American League, they always umpired with the balloon, which raises you up completely and destroys the low strike zone.

- And when Emmett Ashford was behind the plate, it was more, from my standpoint, how are you gonna call a game?

What's your strike zone gonna be?

- You can't just holler "strike" on anything close.

I mean, you gotta make sure that it's a strike.

- And, as a catcher, I would try to figure out, what is Emmett Ashford's strike zone?

And so if Frank Robinson was hitting, for example, and the pitcher threw a pitch that was close, Frank was a Hall of Famer.

He got the call.

- Emmett got in a big row with Frank Robinson, the great Hall of Famer, and Frank chased him.

He was gonna go after him, and that was just the way it was.

- Emmett Ashford and Frank Robinson got into it pretty bad, and you would think Frank was looking at a brother.

I mean, you know, how many Black umpires were there?

There was just Emmett, and yet Frank's temper was very hot, and they had this tempestuous relationship.

They were both African Americans, and I would've hoped Frank would want to have uplifted Emmett, and yet it was Emmett who uplifted Frank.

Who was it that promoted Frank to become a major league manager but Emmett?

Emmett was quoted in the press eight years before Frank became a manager, eight years ahead of time.

I mean, the guy had foresight.

- I'd say, for Emmett Ashford, he had to go through more to break the color barrier from the umpires that maybe Jackie Robinson as a player, and so as he came up, there were a lot of things that happened.

- Emmett Ashford, he had his detractors.

There's no question about that, and at times, he didn't make the right call, but you know what?

All umpires make mistakes, but I think he was probably criticized more deeply for whenever he might have blown a call.

- In Kansas City, we're playing against the New York Yankees and I'm in center field.

Elston Howard, who was a catcher for the Yankees, hit a line drive to center field, and I came rushing in.

I scooped up the ball.

I thought it hit the ground first, but it hit and then scooted right into my glove, and here's Emmett, and he signaled out.

The next half inning, I'm coming out and he says, "Look, come alongside of me.

Stay about five feet away.

I gotta ask you."

And now we're walking towards center field.

He goes, "I gotta know.

Did you catch that ball?"

And I said, "No, sir, I did not."

He goes, "Are you gonna tell anybody?"

I said, "You're the only man that I will tell."

And it was two nights later.

Now, Emmett's working the plate and I go to home plate to hit us against the Yankees, and Elston Howard is the catcher.

So, Emmett says to Elston Howard, "Mr.

Howard, Mr.

Monday told me he did not catch the ball the other night against you.

I'm sorry."

And we played baseball from that moment on.

- I don't think it's any secret among baseball people and probably everybody else how flamboyant Charlie Finley was as an owner of the Kansas City A's.

He's the guy who put the teams in gold uniforms and green uniforms and white shoes.

When we moved to Oakland, we had the big grand opening night at the Oakland Coliseum.

(gentle music) - [Emmett] When Charlie Finley moved to Oakland and opened the park that night, he called the American League office and got permission to get me out there for his opener and work the plate.

- [Monte] Opening night at the Oakland Coliseum.

Charlie Finley wanted that to be very special.

He had some special guests that night.

He had Joe Cronin, the president of the American League.

(gentle music continues) (audience distantly cheering) - Governor-then Ronald Reagan threw out the ceremonial first pitch, and you know, it was exciting.

Over 50,000 people on hand to watch the first game ever at the Oakland Coliseum.

- [Commentator] And Emmett Ashford has called for the batter to step up to the plate.

The American League baseball is underway in Northern California.

(crowd cheering) Lew Krausse comes in with an overhand curve ball, and that's in there for the strike.

- [Spectator] The umpire!

- Lou Powell hit the first home run in this ballpark as a baseball stadium.

I happened to be fortunate enough to hit Dave McNally, and I hit the first A's home run, hit at the left field in this stadium.

The impact that was made was really kind of neat, and it was a new experience, it was a new ballpark, and for us, it was a new opportunity.

- Charlie Finley had really loved the way Emmett Ashford umpired.

He loved his spectacular way he called people out.

He loved his personality towards the players and towards the fans.

He wanted that man to be the umpire for that ball game.

- I know Emmett as a broadcaster.

When I retired from the Lakers in 1969, I went immediately to KNBC Channel 4 as a sportscaster on the air, and I was also the guy who did all of the field assignments.

So I'm everywhere with a camera crew, including Anaheim Stadium, and Emmett is down there, and he said, "Hawk, what are you doing here?"

Because there were no Blacks, you know, in broadcasting at the time, doing what I was doing, and I told him I was here, so I need some interviews.

I need you to lay some stuff on me.

So you knew, if you were interviewing Emmett, that you got some stuff that you could feature because he wasn't gonna let you down, and when he started talking about the game of baseball, he got very serious.

"You think it was easy for me when I was coming up, working all of these places, hearing rednecks all over me?"

You know, and all of this stuff, you know, but it was like water on a duck's back for Emmett.

- So when a newspaper man got to interview Emmett Ashford, he made it easy for them, and I think he knew the media could help him by him helping the media, and, you know, besides being flamboyant, he was classy, and yet he was dutiful.

He carried a typewriter with him on the road and he would answer his fan mail because there was always fan mail, and he would go into the hotel and he would type out responses, and I wonder how the rest of his umpiring crew felt about him.

Did they just accept him because he was part of the crew, or did they embrace him?

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Game one of the 1970 World Series.

- You know, as big as Baltimore and Cincinnati and a lot of the personalities in that particular World Series, the ball players couldn't really overshadow Emmett too much because he was considered a great character, if you will.

- And he finally got on that stage, the October classic.

You know, at the end of his run, all those years, he got to do a World Series, and it would be the last thing he would ever do, and Emmett Ashford, I mean, he was a pioneer.

He was a ground-breaker.

- This was a new milestone to have him umpiring in a World Series.

- [Announcer] Emmett Ashford waited a long time to break into a World Series.

Baseball was never like this.

- But he would just add one more great personality.

You know, you have all of the stars of the teams, and then you have an extra bonus.

Emmett Ashford's relationship with Bowie Kuhn was one to behold, because Bowie was on such a tremendous hot seat all the time.

- [Announcer] Game five of the 1970 World Series.

- [Reporter] With me down here on the field, Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn, and Commissioner, you had a tough job before the ball game and your staff of Joe Reichler, Charlie Segar, and- - And Bowie had a great love of the game of baseball and the history of baseball, and so he knew how important Emmett was to the game, and it was just a wonderful relationship that developed.

- [Commentator] And the umpires behind home plate today will be Bill Williams of the National League.

Emmett Ashford is the umpire at first base of the American League.

- It would've been right if he could have got behind home plate.

If you go third, second, first, it almost has to be six or seven games before he's gonna get to home plate, and I understand he missed by one game getting behind home plate, but, you know, he got there.

- [Commentator] Measured at 460 feet on the fly.

(commentator indistinctly chattering) (crowd cheering) Going.

Goodbye!

- With all the struggle that Emmett Ashford went through to get to the major leagues, I wonder how Emmett Ashford would be accepted today.

(crowd cheering) (commentator indistinctly chatters) - Emmett, to be that first African American umpire and to be so flamboyant and popular, he was just a tremendous asset to have as part of our organization.

(crowd cheers) - [Commentator] Tommy Helms.

Got it to first in time to get (indistinct), and that'll be- - Emmett, after he retired from umpiring, Bowie Kuhn knew the value of this man to the sport, and in a sense, to society, so he made a deal with Emmett to represent our office in activities, mainly on the West Coast, and he assigned Emmett to my office, the PR office in the Baseball Commissioner's office.

- Emmett was an entertainer.

He was a journalist, you know.

He did all these different things, and I think that one of the hallmarks of Emmett's story is that he could do a lot of different things and he moved in a lot of different spaces.

- So it was my pleasant duty to try to find activities, events for Emmett to participate in.

It might be a sports event.

It might be attending a funeral, a minor league event, and Emmett was so good at any of these things.

I've thought many times I wish we had used him more than we did, because he was, you know, as charismatic as he was as an umpire, he was that way in life.

When Emmett passed away in 1980, of course, we were so shocked and despondent because he was leaving us far too early, and Emmett, from talking to his family, there wasn't a natural resting place, a natural cemetery that they had in mind where Emmett would be laid to rest.

So we got to thinking Cooperstown would be a perfect location.

You know, it's known as the home of baseball in so many ways, and Emmett's remains were put there, and the thought process was that that could be the first of many people, many baseball people who didn't have a natural resting place when their life was over.

- [Commentator 1] EA.

Emmett Ashford.

50 years ago today, April 11th, 1966, Emmett Ashford became the first African American umpire.

- [Commentator 2] How about that?

- [Commentator 1] And Jackie Robinson, of course, broke the color barrier in 1947 on April the 15th, but all the umpires recognizing Emmett Ashford.

- You know, umpiring is a tough job, so I give what Emmett Ashford did in coming up through the ranks, and probably could have gotten to the big leagues much earlier had it not been for trying to break the color barrier.

- Looking at the way that he lived his life, it seemed like he was trying to not be constrained.

He tried to enact what he saw as his place in the world in a way that I think took a lot of risks, but ended up rewarding him.

- I think he knew he was helping his race, and when you put all the components together, Emmett Ashford was a Hall of Famer.

- Baseball loved him.

They really did.

They enjoyed him.

- And his work enabled a number of Black umpires to participate in Major League Baseball.

- [Commentator] Second time Ned's been tossed this year, and whenever the home plate umpire goes to the mound and the manager goes out there, you know something could be said.

- I am proud of the fact that Emmett Ashford stuck it out, endured all the problems that he had to deal with, and did it in a way where he was well-liked and well-respected.

Probably one of the most well-known umpires of any time.

I am very proud.

I'm very proud of Emmett Ashford and I'm glad that he went through it, because I don't know if I could have went through it the way he did.

(peaceful music) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues)