Albert D. "Dolly" Stark (November 4, 1897 – August 24, 1968) was an American

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

who worked in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

from 1928 to 1935 and from 1937 to 1940. Stark was the first

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

umpire in modern baseball.

Early life

Stark was born to a working-class Jewish family in Manhattan's

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

. Stark's father died when he was young and his mother became blind, and Stark was taken into a home for homeless children after being found sleeping on the street by a policeman. After leaving the home, Stark attempted to earn money for his family through playing baseball, and was nicknamed "Dolly" in a reference to Monroe "Dolly" Stark, an unrelated player for the

Brooklyn Superbas The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Californi ...

. He was childhood friends with future Major League player

Al Schacht Alexander Schacht (November 11, 1892 – July 14, 1984) was an American professional baseball player, coach, and, later, restaurateur. Schacht was a pitcher in the major leagues from 1919 to 1921 for the Washington Senators. Early life Schacht w ...

. Stark played second base for several semipro and

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

teams, including the Newark Bears, Kitchener Beavers,

Dallas Submarines The Dallas Submarines, based in Dallas, Texas, United States, were a minor league baseball team that played from 1917 to 1918 in the Texas League. They were managed by Ham Patterson Hamilton Patterson (October 13, 1877 – November 25, 1945) was a ...

and

Jersey City Skeeters The Jersey City Skeeters were a minor league baseball team which operated in Jersey City, New Jersey. The club started in the 1860s and by 1870 joined the National Association of Base Ball Players. By 1885, Jersey City had joined the Eastern Le ...

. He attended tryouts for the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

and Washington Senators, but failed both, in part due to his weight of only .

Clyde Engle Arthur Clyde "Hack" Engle (March 19, 1884 – December 26, 1939) was a utility player who played in Major League Baseball between and . Listed at 5' 10", 190 lb., Engle batted and threw right-handed. He was born in Dayton, Ohio. Engle w ...

was the athletic director at the University of Vermont in 1921 when the baseball team needed an umpire for the season. Engle wrote his friend Stark and invited him to take the position. Stark had never previously umpired, accepted the position, and arrived in Burlington, Vermont on April 25, 1921. Stark would continue to umpire. He was umpiring in the Eastern League in 1927 when his performance was noticed and he was promoted to the National League to succeed

Hank O'Day Henry M. O'Day (July 8, 1859 – July 2, 1935), nicknamed "The Reverend", was an American right-handed pitcher and later an umpire and manager in Major League Baseball. After a seven-year major league playing career, he worked as a National ...

Career

As an umpire, Stark was known for being active and mobile, and constantly working to improve himself. He was the first to move around in order to be in position to make the right call.Burton A. Boxerman and Benita W. Boxerman, ''Jews and Baseball, Volume 1: Entering the American Mainstream, 1871–1948'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007, pp. 111–115. A player favorite, he was voted the most competent umpire by National League players in a 1934 poll sponsored by the ''

Sporting News The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...

''. In August 1935, league President

Ford Frick Ford Christopher Frick (December 19, 1894 – April 8, 1978) was an American sportswriter and baseball executive. After working as a teacher and as a sportswriter for the ''New York American'', he served as public relations director of the Natio ...

presented Stark with a new automobile at "Dolly Stark Day" before a

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

game at the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...

. This was the first and only time a "Day" has been held in honor of a Major League Baseball umpire. Stark briefly resigned multiple times in his umpiring career. The first instance was midway through the 1928 season; Stark believed that he was not sufficiently doing his job as an umpire, but was talked out of this decision by fellow umpire

Bill Klem William Joseph Klem, born William Joseph Klimm (February 22, 1874 – September 16, 1951), known as the "Old Arbitrator" and the "father of baseball umpires", was a National League (NL) umpire in Major League Baseball from 1905 to 1941. He worked ...

. The second instance was after the 1929 season, due to Stark's self-described "torments of umpiring", although he returned once again in 1930. In 1936, Stark held out from umpiring, becoming the first known umpire to quit due to salary issues. (Stark was being paid $9,000 per year at the time, which is .). Stark told commissioner Ford Frick that he was not being paid adequately for his services, saying, "Unless the league sees fit to pay me a lot more money, I'm done. I want to do bigger work than umpiring and I want to get bigger money. I hope I can stay in baseball, either as a manager or business manager." Stark ultimately spent the year as a

radio broadcaster Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio sta ...

for the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...

and

Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oaklan ...

Outside umpiring

In addition to his umpiring career, Stark coached basketball at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

from 1923 until 1936, and was also a college umpire and basketball referee. He was coaching Dartmouth at the time that he was appointed a National League umpire. In 1936, he teamed with Bill Dyer to form the

' first radio announcing crew on

WCAU WCAU (channel 10) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Mount Laurel, New Jerse ...

. Stark returned to umpiring in 1937, but ultimately retired in 1940 due to a knee issue. He attempted to find work as a scout, but was largely unsuccessful. (However, Stark was instrumental in getting

Saul Rogovin Saul Walter Rogovin (March 24, 1922 – January 23, 1995) was an American professional baseball player. Rogovin was a pitcher over parts of 8 seasons (1949–57), with the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Philadelphia Ph ...

a tryout with the New York Giants in 1944). Stark did find success as a women's clothing designer, starting a line called the "Dolly Stark Dress." He also worked in other fields including textiles, stocks and bonds, and broadcasting. He was also the co-host of ''Your Sports Special'', a sports news and interview show on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

from 1948 until 1949.

Personal life

Stark's personal life included much tragedy; he was forced to spend large sums of money to support his blind mother, and his sister, who was constantly in poor health and ultimately committed suicide. His marriage to Betsy Lee in 1952 ended in divorce after 4 years, and Stark was in poor financial shape in his later life, forcing him to apply for unemployment compensation in 1968. Stark died of a heart attack in New York City on August 24, 1968.

References

External links