Rip Eric Gregg
 

God Bless Eric Gregg....




Rest In Peace.............

# 7


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Did not know he passed..

ESPN is amazing.

Eric Gregg will be remembered for one rotten game in a Marlins-Braves game and a controversial series with the Cubs-Braves. That's a shame because he was a cool guy with some great stories. Like McSherry, he was a big guy and not the best umpire in the Show, but he made it. In 1999, when Phillips screwed the pooch, it was guys like Gregg that took the pipe for it. He was just interviewed on a Philly station last year and said that he could hardly bear to watch the game any more since he missed it too much. There's a lesson there, boys...

I was disgusted with the way ESPN handled the news....it was like a 10-second "Oh yea, by the way, and ex-umpire with a HUGE zone died today." thing, not even flashing his picture up on the screen. Eric may not have been the best umpire but I would dare anyone to say they didn't like him. It's terrible to see how his post-baseball life played out. RIP

My first line was sarcastic. I too was disappointed by the fact that Eric Gregg dies at 55 and he is a footnote in a sportscast. I got to meet him a couple times and he was only to happy to entertain us with some great stories. Those guys have some terrific tales locked away. Eric Gregg had some great dish on his colleagues and always humbled himself. #7 went a little too early.

A sad day. I read Gregg's book "Working the Plate" when it came out in 1990 and it was a good read.

Its a real shame that he lost his job in '99, and that his post baseball life was a rough one. I'm glad they reached a settlement in 2000, and I hope that settlement takes care of his family.

Speaking as a fan, and not an umpire, the real shame is that Eric Gregg is remembered for "screwing" the Braves with a huge strike zone in that game, but nobody ever got down on all of the other umpires in the NL at the time for giving Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine strikes consistently 8-10 inches off the outside corner, basically making them hall of fame pitchers. Gregg did nothing that wasn't being done already, it was just that someone finally had the stones to call those pitches AGAINST the Braves, instead of always for them.

I know that....believe me, I can sense sarcasm. But my problem was they squeezed it in between the Royals highlights and a commercial, and they didn't have a pitcure up until almost midnight. Terrible. As if their baseball coverage wasn't horrible....their stories about soccer in Iraq are front and center but this poor guy ends up with nothing and dies way too early, and nothing. Terrible.

Good article that I found at ESPN
 

found this at ESPN, pretty good and I could see his POV since I'm also a lifetime Braves fan and we certainly remember Eric Gregg.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...e=jones/060606

Thanks
David

Wait a minute
 

Not funny, it was only five or six inches, not 8-10 (g)

Thansk
David

No matter how far off the plate, the Braves were the recipients of the biggest strike zone in history for a long time, and no, it wasn't funny to those of us who can't stand the Atlanta Braves.

Eric Gregg's strike zone that day was horrible. He himself admitted as much. That pales in comparison to the 27 inch plate the Braves pitchers were given on a daily basis.

Steve,

I'm not challenging you (seriously)...I'm just curious, since I have his book and have read it cover-to-cover several times, where he admitted his zone was horrible (or whatever). If these statements are available I'd like to read them.

I know many might think I need to get a life (my wife is now jumping up and down yelling "I think you do, I think you do")...but I just really liked his book the best (of the umpire's books) (and I've read most of them), and, in a sense, anything he said after the publication of the book adds a chapter to that book.

Sadly, no other chapters will be added. (sigh) Thanks...

Take a tip from your wife....she's right!:D Mine is always on my butt about being on-line too much.

Eric Gregg came to my association picnic in 1998. He regaled us with stories, had lunch with us, and played in our softball game. During his story telling time, he was of course asked about "the game" and what was with his strike zone. He told us he was trying to have a fair zone and it got out of hand. He told us about receiving death threats and hate mail from Braves fans. Classy group. But he was able to laugh about it, and admitted it was a bad game for him.

Great story! A year earlier I went to a dinner where Richie Garcia was the guest speaker. He admitted, to his credit, that he had blown the call in the Yankees-Orioles series the previous fall.

Two guys whose egos weren't so big that they couldn't admit a mistake! Classy.