The Umpire Strikes Back

Ron Luciano takes you out on the ballfield and into the clubhouse in the biggest and funniest baseball bestseller ever!

Here is Ron Luciano, the funniest ump ever to call balls and strikes. A huge and awesome legend who leaps and spins and shoots players with an index finger while screaming OUTOUTOUT!!! Now baseball’s flamboyant fan-on-the-field comes out from behind the mask to call the game as he really sees it.

There’s the day the automatic umpire debuted at home plate—and struck out. The time Rod Carew stole home twice in one inning, and Earl Weaver stole second base—and took it back to the dugout. The pitch Tommy John dropped on the mound, which Luciano called a strike. And there’s the fantastic phantom double play, the impossible frozen ice-ball theory, and, another first, Luciano picking Harmon Killebrew off second base.

From brawls to catcalls, from dugout jokes to on-the-field pratfalls to one-of-a-kind conversations with baseball’s greats, Ron Luciano, the only umpire who confessed to missing calls, takes a few grand slam swings of his own. It is baseball at its best.

©1982 David Fisher and Ron Luciano (P)2025 Blackstone Publishing

Great book

Really enjoyed the book. RIP Mr. Luciano, loved how funny the book was. Glad I got to listen to it!

Favorite audio performance

The book itself is great. Especially if you love baseball and funny baseball stories in general, but the audio performance is the most accurately in character and in line with the spirit of the book that i've ever listened to. It was absolutely fantastic