RIP Frank Pulli

[grunewar]

Frank Pulli was from my home town - Easton, PA. A good guy and a friend to many. He was the first-base ump in Atlanta on April 8, 1974, when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs.

One time he came to our youth group and gave us a talk. A bunch of 13-15 yr old's wide-eyed and excited listening to first hand MLB stories of which we only saw on TV and dreamed about.

He fielded questions, and a dad (circa 1974-75ish), asked him if he thought we would ever see a female umpire in MLB. He said something to the effect - no, when a certain Pittsburgh Pirate (I will leave the name out) is in an 0-15 slump and hits a routine grounder to second, a female ump would throw him out of the game before he even got to first....for all the ahem, "not so nice words coming out of his mouth." Made us all chuckle.

RIP Frank.