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Tom Connolly

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Tom Connolly was born on December 31, 1870, in Manchester, England. He had 5 feet 7 inches 135 pounds. An umpire for 34 years during the roughest era in baseball history, Englishman Tom Connolly gained players' respect as an impartial and fair-minded arbiter. He had umpired in the National League for three years before switching in 1901 to the new American League, where he would stay for 31 years.

He had learned about the game, Connolly wanted to be an umpire. Connolly worked on local games until Tim Hurst, a legendary National League umpire, spotted him. Murnane hired Connolly in 1894 and in 1898 Connolly moved up to the National League. When the National League failed to support him in a showdown with a player, he resigned midway through the 1900 campaign. He had earned a reputation for fearlessly ejecting hometown heroes when circumstances required. Connolly failed to respond sufficiently after Saint Louis outfielder Jesse Burkett punched a rival manager in the nose, he was reprimanded by Ban Johnson. Taking the hint, Connolly bounced ten players in his maiden season. After that, his reputation was enough to quell disturbances before they got out of hand.

Connolly continued as an active umpire until 1931 when, at the age of 60, he became the chief of staff of American League umpires. He traveled the circuit evaluating and advising arbiters until he was 83. After retiring as Umpire-in-Chief, he served for many years on the Rules Committee. In 1953 Connolly and Bill Klem, his counterpart in the National League, became the first umpires named to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately he died on April 28, 1961, in Natick, Massachusetts.

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