Beans Reardon
John Edward "Beans" Reardon (November 23, 1897 – July 31, 1984) was an American umpire in Major League Baseball who worked in the National League from 1926 to 1949. He worked five World Series and three All-Star Games.
Early life and career
Born in
Career
In 1920-1921 he umpired in the
He was known for his many arguments on the field, and for the fact that he relished the opportunity to match the players in his use of off-color language; he came to refer to himself as "the last of the cussin' umpires", and rarely ejected players from games, reportedly because he enjoyed trading insults. At one point in his career, NL president Ford Frick issued a memo to all field personnel requiring them to reduce their use of profanity, a thinly veiled move directed primarily at Reardon.
Reardon had a difficult relationship with longtime NL umpire
Notable games
He officiated in five World Series: 1930, 1934, 1939, 1943 and 1949. He also umpired in three All-Star Games (1936, 1940, 1948), calling balls and strikes in all three contests; and he was one of the umpires for the 3-game series to determine the NL champion in 1946. He was the plate umpire when Babe Ruth hit his 714th and final home run in 1935, and also for Clyde Shoun's no-hitter on May 15, 1944.[2]
Later life
Reardon retired following the 1949 World Series. Although by the late 1940s he was the highest-paid umpire in the league, he was earning three times as much from his offseason business as an Anheuser-Busch beer distributor. He eventually sold the distributorship to Frank Sinatra for over half a million dollars in 1967, although he continued to do public relations work for the brewery.
Reardon made an uncredited appearance as an umpire in the 1953 film The Kid from Left Field.[3]
Personal life
Reardon suffered two strokes late in his life, and died at age 86 in Long Beach, California. He was survived by his wife, Eugenia, an oil painter whose portrait of Nancy Reagan once sat in the White House.
Beans was friends with Mae West and she is said to have sent him a copy of a nude photograph every Christmas. He appeared in several of her movies.[4]
He was notably the basis for the home plate umpire in
See also
References
- ^ Creamer, Robert (February 16, 1970). "They Said It". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 24, 2012.
- ^ "Retrosheet Boxscore: Cincinnati Reds 1, Boston Braves 0".
- ^ "IMDb: John 'Beans' Reardon". IMDb. Retrieved June 24, 2012.
- ^ Wagner, Dick (January 21, 1988). "Umpire's Widow Cherishes Memories of Beans, Baseball". LA Times. Retrieved June 24, 2012.
External links
- Retrosheet
- BaseballLibrary.com - career highlights and list of articles
- Image of tennis players Tony Trabert and Pancho Gonzales with Beans Reardon at Bond Club luncheon in Los Angeles, California, 1955. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.