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We’d like to keep our collective thoughts with the family of Eric Gregg today, who had a stroke yesterday and was in critical condition.
Gregg, who is best known in the baseball world for expanding the strike zone to nearly double its size for Livan Hernandez in the 1997 World Series, is best known in the real world (i.e. Philadelphia) for being a good guy, a kick-ass bartender, a Metro columnist and the best damned Wing Bowl referee there ever will be.
It’s a real Philadelphia story. He was a kid from West Philly who managed to become a major league umpire at the age of 23, and when that didn’t work out — he was one of the umpires who lost his job as part of a negotiating ploy in 1999 — he parlayed that into a career as a Philadelphia pseudo-celebrity, even bigger than Gervase from Survivor, and became a mainstay at Citizens Bank Park and Chickie’s & Pete’s.
I don’t know any other city of 1 million plus — or, really, over about 10,000 — where a guy who is famous for being a former major league umpire and for working at a sports bar can get become a beloved citizen. Eric Gregg may just be a regular dude, but his minor fame might personify everything that’s great about Philadelphia. Get well soon.
Ex-umpire Gregg suffers stroke [Inky]
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