Lion of the League

Larry R. Gerlach is professor emeritus of history at the University of Utah and past president of the Society for American Baseball Research. He is the author of The Men in Blue: Conversations with Umpires (Bison Books, 1994), and coeditor of The SABR Book of Umpires and Umpiring.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPrologue: From Gentleman Arbiter to Folk Villain1. Grounding in Guelph2. Coming of Age in London3. Pitching for Pay4. Curveball Artist5. Comeback Trail6. Learning to Call ’Em7. Reaching the Majors8. To the Bushes and Back9. The Not-So-Gay Nineties10. Standing the Gaff11. Deadball Veteran12. Dean of Umpires13. Umpire Supervisor14. Late InningsEpilogue: Lion of the LeagueNotesIndex

"There are currently just ten umpires in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Gerlach explains with enormous evidence why Canadian Bill Emslie should be the next. . . . Valuable reading for sport historians."-S. A. Riess, Choice "Lion of the League is a welcome addition to the baseball literature, filling a distinct historical void in the comprehension of baseball umpires. Gerlach exerts a yeoman effort to make the most of limited extant research material available on Emslie. It's a story well worth reading."-Bevis Baseball Research blog “A handful of pioneering arbiters have won plaques in Cooperstown: Klem, O’Day, and Connolly. Bob Emslie is the grievous omission. Larry Gerlach is our game’s great expert on umpires, and he tells Emslie’s story brilliantly while breathing life into baseball’s early days.”-John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball “Those who share my fascination with the history of baseball will enjoy this book. To those who share my fascination with the history of the profession of umpiring, this will become a sacred text. Thank you, Larry Gerlach. You took one of the forefathers of the game and brought him to life.”-Ted Barrett, rule analyst for the MLB Network and former Major League umpire, 1994–2022 “I’ve long felt that Bob Emslie, a trailblazing umpire and one of our cherished inductees, was worthy of a detailed biography, and Larry Gerlach is the perfect author for the project. He is a passionate baseball historian who has previously published fascinating work about the underappreciated men and women in blue. This book is another triumphant effort by Gerlach that offers many little-known anecdotes and details about a Canadian baseball legend that hasn’t been talked about nearly enough.”-Scott Crawford, director of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame “Bob Emslie never had it easy, but Larry Gerlach has captured the tragedy along with the glorious essence of this extraordinary baseball man’s career of sixty-plus years. From the hotbed of 1870s baseball in southwestern Ontario, Emslie’s trail included an eventual, though brief, Major League pitching prowess, ultimately surpassed by on-field umpiring for more than thirty years followed by front office oversight of the position. Gerlach’s prodigious research details the ways in which the umpire’s role evolved from a barely tolerated annoyance to a central place in the game’s lasting success.”-William Humber, Canada’s foremost baseball historian and a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame