Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate

“Two things nobody wants to grow up to be are an umpire and broke. Thanks to my career in baseball, I got both.”

After calling balls, strikes, and outs for thirty-six baseball seasons and more than three thousand major-league games, umpire Ken Kaiser finally called it a career. From the first day he hit a minor-league catcher with a pool table to the fateful day baseball called him out on a strike, Kaiser was one of the game’s most popular and colorful characters. And in this autobiography—written with the coauthor of Ron Luciano’s classic bestseller The Umpire Strikes Back—Kaiser brings to life his wild adventures from the pro-wrestling arena to the baseball diamond.

This is the hysterically true story of four decades of baseball as lived and loved on the playing field, from Ted Williams and Billy Martin to Derek Jeter and Mark McGwire, from one-eyed umpires to space-age technology. As he did throughout his long and sometimes controversial career, the larger-than-his-chest-protector Kaiser calls ’em as he saw ’em.

Ken Kaiser is a former bar bouncer and pro wrestler. In the ring he wore a black hood, carried an ax, and was billed as “The Hatchet Man.” He was voted the most colorful umpire in the American League in a 1986 Sporting News poll. He left Major League Baseball in 2001. He lives in Rochester, New York.

David Fisher is the author of more than a dozen bestsellers, among them collaborations with George Burns, Ron Luciano, Tommy Lasorda, and Terry Bradshaw