It was too much to handle.
Ballplayers broke down and cried Monday when home plate umpire John McSherry collapsed on the field. An hour after calling the first pitch of the season opener between Montreal and Cincinnati, McSherry was dead.Even though the grief-stricken umpiring crew was willing to continue, players from the two teams urged them to call off the game, which was rescheduled for today.
"These are guys we get upset with and hate sometimes, but we still love them," Reds catcher Eddie Taubensee said.
"It puts everything into perspective," Reds outfielder Eric Davis said. "As players and umpires, we're at each other's throats all the time. But unity is more important right now than balls and strike calls.
"The clubhouse is very down. It's a situation where we're in it together - umpires and baseball players."
For two minutes Monday, they were all enjoying something wonderful.
The sun was dispatching the last remnants of a one-inch overnight snowfall. Horse-drawn wagons circled the field as part of the city's opening-day tradition, and an tangible excitement rippled through the stands.
A roar went up from the crowd of 53,000 when former manager Sparky Anderson threw out a ceremonial first pitch to first-year manager Ray Knight. Baseball's first on-time opener in two years was going just fine in the home of the first pro baseball team.
Even McSherry was in a good mood.
"He was joking around before the game," Taubensee said. "In fact, he said, `Eddie, you can call the first two innings."'
Two minutes into the game, McSherry turned away from the plate, motioned to the other umpires, took a few labored steps towards the tunnel behind home plate, then collapsed on the warning track.
"He just said, `Hold on, time out for a second,"' Taubensee said. "I turned around and said, `Are you all right, John?' He didn't say anything. I thought maybe he pulled something (a muscle) by the way he was walking. After he collapsed, I lost it."
Doctors rushed from the stands to try to revive him, but they couldn't get his heart to start beating regularly. He died at 3:04 p.m. EST at University Hospital.
It was a tough moment followed by a tough decision: whether to continue the game.
"I've been around a lot of situations, but that's a first," Expos manager Felipe Alou said. "I've never seen an umpire go down. Really, it's like there was nothing to be discussed. There's no provision, no rule, for what's going to happen out there."
Umpire Tom Hallion went to the hospital when McSherry was taken away, leaving just umpires Gerry Crawford and Steve Rippley. They met in the umpires' dressing room with the two managers, Reds general manager Jim Bowden and owner Marge Schott.
Later, Schott told The Cincinnati Enquirer how disappointed she was that the game was postponed.
"I feel cheated," she said. "This isn't supposed to happen to us, not in Cincinnati. This is our history, our tradition, our team. Nobody feels worse than me."
At first the umpires wanted to go on with the game.
But the players met in their clubhouses, shed tears and ultimately prevailed for a postponement. Davis and Reds shortstop Barry Larkin told the umpires of the players' sentiment.
After the game was called, red-eyed players visited the umpires' room to console them.
McSherry, 51, was believed to be the first major league umpire to be fatally stricken during a game. Ray Chapman is the only player to die after an on-field accident - he was beaned by Carl Mays in 1920 and died shortly thereafter.
The Expos-Reds postponement was believed to be the first major league game called off because of a participant's death.
McSherry, listed at 328 pounds, was named a crew chief in July 1988, replacing Lee Weyer, who died of a heart attack two weeks earlier.
Last August, he was forced to leave a game between Atlanta and Chicago because of heat exhaustion. In 1993, he left a game in Cincinnati against Los Angeles after becoming ill in 87-degree heat and was sidelined for much of the season.
McSherry was forced to leave Game 7 of the 1992 NL playoffs between Pittsburgh and Atlanta in the second inning because of dizziness. A year earlier, he collapsed because of dehydration during a game between St. Louis and Atlanta.
Hallion told Knight that McSherry was supposed to be treated today for arrhythmia, or irregular heart beat.
"He said John was supposed to go get his arrhythmia (treated) earlier and he didn't want to do that," Knight said. "He made the statement that, `I'm going to be here opening day with them and then go get that tomorrow."'