Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Michael, Son of John Hirschbeck, Passes Away at 27

MLB Umpire John Hirschbeck's son Michael died of unknown causes, the Associated Press announced Tuesday.

According to Poland, Ohio's NBC-WFMJ, Michael suffered from an inherited neurological condition, a rare brain disease known as adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD).

Hirschbeck, who was scheduled to work the San Diego Padres vs. Cleveland Indians interleague series in Ohio instead flew home to be with his family. MiLB's John Tumpane was called up to fill in for the bereaved Hirschbeck, who now has lost his second child in the past 20 years.

In 1993, Hirschbeck's 8-year-old son John Drew died of ALD.

Said, family friend and United Way President Bob Hannon, "Anytime you lose a child it's devastating, but now John and [wife] Denise have lost two children. I think there's no question there will be a lot of people that will be there for the family and help them get through this."

After missing the entire 2008 season following back surgery, Hirschbeck was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2009, resulting in more time on umpiring's Injured List. He returned to work the 2010 season before the cancer returned ahead of 2012: Hirschbeck announced he was once again cancer-free in August 2012 and returned to baseball in 2013.

His 2014 crew includes Bob Davidson, Brian O'Nora and James Hoye.

10 comments :

Lindsay said...

My prayers are with John and his family. Just wanted to make one correction as Tumpane had been the AAA Rover that had been with the crew so Brian O'Nora was technically the replacement

Lindsay said...

Wow, John's been through so much. How he's managed to keep it altogether is just amazing.

Lindsay said...

I always like the thoughts on this site. The challenge was for safe.out, but to me, it looked like the catcher WAS blocking the plate at some point. Thoughts?

Lindsay said...

I'm going to bring this up in my Umpiring clinic this year. This is not the first time that the catch/no-catch was contested. Did they change the rules this year? On MLB.com, they still have the 2013 rules up and I can't find the 2014 rules.

Lindsay said...

Do we know which crews are on replay this week?

Lindsay said...

This is a mess

Lindsay said...

There's no question he blocked the plate, but for the Rule 7.13 collision violation, he has to block the plate without the ball when the runner attempts to slide/run past him. In this situation, he had the ball when the runner slid into him so he's okay and it's a legal play. If he DID NOT have the baseball in possession when that happened, we might be looking at a violation and reversed call.

Lindsay said...

Ya, I was thinking that. I figured that it's because the throw beat him by so far. If he was standing in the same place that he was, without the ball, it would be considered blocking the plate? I always have had trouble with blocking the plate when I umpire home plate. I would consider him not blocking the plate if he was standing inside the foul lines, but the plate is in foul territory. So I have a bit of a conflict. Luckily, we have a "always slide at home" rule in our provincial league and I'm not going to do many games outside of my province :P

Lindsay said...

Gorman and Demuth

Lindsay said...

Thank you Russ, Joyce and Barrett' s crews are on vacation .

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