John William "Ziggy" Sears (January 10, 1892 – December 16, 1956) was a professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

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'', ...

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 ...

from 1934 to 1945. Sears umpired 1,647 major league games in his 12-year career. He umpired in two

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

( 1938 and

1944 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in Nor ...

) and two All-Star Games ( 1935 and

). He also was a minor league baseball

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to c ...

for 15 seasons between 1912 and 1928.

Playing career

Sears entered organized baseball in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1913. He played minor league baseball for Fort Worth of the Texas League between 1918 and 1927. The Fort Worth team, nicknamed the "Atz Cats" after manager Jake Atz, won six consecutive Texas League championships between 1920 and 1925. Sears acquired his nickname from Atz, as the manager told him that no "John" would ever play on his team. A player named Ziggy Shears had recently been released from the team, and that nickname stuck. Sears had eleven runs batted in during a single game with Fort Worth, which set a modern baseball record. He scored five runs in one game several times with Fort Worth. He also had a streak of 81 games without committing an error. Sears also played for minor league teams in Shreveport, San Antonio and Waco.

Officiating career

After Sears retired as a player in the Texas League, he became an umpire in that circuit. He was initially assigned to partner with Harry Kane, who had ejected Sears as a player more often than all other Texas League umpires combined. Sears was promoted to the National League in the summer of 1934. When he was selected to work the 1935 MLB All-Star Game, Sears became the first umpire with less than a year of MLB experience to receive that honor. Sears umpired in the World Series in 1938 and 1944. He would have also worked the 1943 World Series, but he missed it due to illness. Sears broke his foot while umpiring on the last day of the 1945 regular season, and he retired from major league umpiring. In addition to his service as a baseball umpire, Sears officiated college football and basketball for the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

Later life

After leaving the National League in 1945, Sears spent time umpiring in the Pacific Coast League. In a 1951 Texas League exhibition game between Milwaukee and Dallas, Sears was struck in the eye by a thrown ball. The injury forced him to quit umpiring. In 1953, Sears sued the Dallas club for negligence. He asserted that the club allowed the game to continue in rainy conditions and that the team did not provide medical care once he was injured. Sears lived in Houston, Texas for the last several years of his life, and he worked as a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

in a Houston hospital on December 16, 1956. He was 64.

Personal life

Ziggy's son, Ken Sears, played baseball and football for a year at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the publi ...

before signing a baseball contract with the

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

organization. Ken, sometimes referred to as "Little Ziggy", appeared in the 1943 World Series. His father was scheduled to umpire that series, but had to withdraw due to illness.

Movie credits

Sears had acting roles in two movies, ''The Stratton Story'' (1948) and ''The Babe Ruth Story'' (1949). He portrayed umpires in both films.

References