By Kevin Kelly
Enquirer staff writer

McLeary is popular with fans, managers and fellow umps in the Frontier League for his skill, humor and passion for baseball. Before a Florence Freedom home game this week, he was greeted by admirer Tad Gilmore. Photos by MICHAEL E. KEATING/The Enquirer

FLORENCE - A half-dozen cardboard boxes packed with Wilson baseballs lie stacked on a tile floor inside the umpire's dressing room.

Wearing nothing more than boxer shorts and a George Hamilton-esque tan, Max McLeary sits down and removes the lid to the first box.

"These kids all keep me young," he says in a voice that smacks of a 21/2-pack-a-day habit. "If I wasn't doing this right now, I wouldn't know who the Black Eyed Peas are."

McLeary reaches for a small container of Delaware River mud and pulls a dab onto his middle finger. He then spits into his left palm, smears the brown mud onto the calloused hand and grabs a baseball.

The ritualistic rubbing begins. So does the storytelling.

Neither stops until 60 baseballs are prepared for a Frontier League game between the Florence Freedom and visiting Kalamazoo Kings.

McLeary, 56, will call the game from behind home plate. But he will do so with only one eye.

"I've heard all the jokes," said McLeary, who lives in St. Leon, Ind., with wife Patty. "Then when I think I've heard them all, somebody comes up with something new."

An accident during the blizzard of 1977 cost McLeary his right eye. A plastic prosthetic replaced it.

The easygoing umpire immediately accepted the loss and follows the game's siren song to the Frontier League's out-of-the-way locales.

"I've been talking about it since '77, and now it just comes second nature," McLeary said. "I'll go to fields in this league and even the groundskeepers will mess with me.

"We'll come out for the ground rules and the right batter's box and right-field line down to the (first base) bag aren't in. They'll rope the visiting manager in and he'll go, 'Um, the field isn't finished yet?' And they go, 'No, you don't have to have it finished. He can't see that side anyway.' "

A love for the league

McLeary is an institution in the Frontier League.

The unaffiliated 12-team operation has produced such recent major-leaguers as Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly and Cardinals pitcher Jason Simontacchi.

"He loves the league," Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee said. "People that have a love for the league, show loyalty to the league, deserve all of my respect. He spreads the good news of the league. So he's kind of a disciple."

The league is in its 12th season, and McLeary has worked as an umpire for 10 of those. This is expected to be his last because a front office job with the league or a team awaits.

"If you just watch him, you can learn how to handle other people. That's what umpiring is," said Frontier League umpire Tim Johnson, who was mentored by McLeary.

"He gets the right positions all the time. He's still on. He wouldn't have to leave this year. He could still do it."

McLeary works about 70 Frontier League games a season, in addition to more than 200 college and high school games a year. He also assigns umpires for 12 Cincinnati-area high schools and 27 colleges.

During the course of a year, McLeary puts about 52,000 miles per year on his gold Buick Regal. The previous Buick Regal, a custom-painted job, petered out about two years ago after logging more than 340,000 miles.

"Twelve CDs in the trunk and down the road I go," McLeary said. "Keep the oil changed and knock on wood.

"Every once in a while I've got to have the transmission rebuilt, but that's like a pit stop for me."

A summer of good tales

Everybody has a favorite story about McLeary. The man himself possesses dozens more tales neatly indexed in his memory.

Many are chronicled in a book by Mike Shannon titled Everything Happens in Chillicothe: A Summer in the Frontier League with Max McLeary, the One-Eyed Umpire.

One of McLeary's favorites took place at Bosse Field in Evansville, Ind., where not long ago he donned the Otter head belonging to Evansville's mascot and danced to "YMCA" during a rain delay.

"It's the end of the season and both teams are going to be in the playoffs," McLeary said. "So they were out there having a good time. The pressure was off."

Several hundred Shriners were in the stands that night.

Somebody placed a white cane in the umpire's dressing room. Upon seeing it, and knowing his audience, McLeary couldn't resist the opportunity for a good gag.

"I come waltzing out there with that cane and these Ray-Ban sunglasses. The place is going nuts," McLeary said. "I get out there and (Evansville manager Greg Jelks) kicks the cane out from under me. I didn't lose my balance, but I figured I'll play this to the hilt. So I went down.

"The place booed him. I pulled my sunglasses down and go, 'Hey, it may be your town. But you're in my ballpark now.' "

Kalamazoo Kings manager Fran Riordan, whose relationship with McLeary dates to his playing days at Allegheny College, identifies his own Max-ism without hesitation.

It was Opening Day 2001 and Riordan was a first-year player-manager for the Richmond Roosters.

"These two cops come up to me during batting practice and say, 'Are you Fran Riordan?' " he recalled last week.

"I'm an Irishman, young and dumb growing up, so I'd been in a few scrapes before. But I didn't know what the hell I did, and I didn't know what the hell these guys were talking about."

A 15-minute interrogation ended when the policemen couldn't contain their laughter.

"They said Max put them up to it," Riordan said. "It kind of took the edge off my first managing experience. That's the kind of stuff he does all the time."

Baseball's in his blood

Nobody adheres to the mantra about keeping the game fun quite like this umpire, who is so well known that he's on a first-name basis with fans around the league.

Baseball is in his blood.

McLeary grew up in Johnstown, Pa., and played collegiate ball at Penn State.

But it was former major-league umpire Augie Donatelli who turned the young man on to umpiring.

"He just worked with me," McLeary said. "He knew I treated the game right."

McLeary worked his way to the Class A New York-Penn League, but left umpiring in the early 1970s to coach soccer and assist men's basketball coach Bill Musselman at Ashland (Ohio) University.

"At that time you could be in the minor leagues for years and never get to the big show," McLeary said. "I had the opportunity to go into college coaching, and I was sort of tired of living out of a suitcase. I knew I could still umpire during the summer."

He would later move on and start the soccer program at Wright State.

But life changed dramatically on a Sunday in January 1977.

McLeary and a friend were playfully tossing McLeary's girlfriend, Patty, into a snowdrift.

"I grabbed her legs and this other guy grabbed her arms," McLeary said. "We gave it a swing back and forth. He let go of her arms and I let go of one of her legs because I wanted to make sure she didn't hit the snowdrift and slide down the other side of it.

"When she hit the snowdrift I still had hold of one leg. She had pointed boots on. Well her other leg flew up and dead center right in the middle of the eye."

Seven hours of surgery could not save the eye.

McLeary and Patty - they were married a few years after the accident - had opened Max Interior Design in 1976.

They primarily design interiors for airplanes and automobiles, but baseball was never far from his mind after the accident.

"At the time, one of my vendors that we'd buy fabric and all of our vinyls from, every time he'd come in we'd talk baseball," McLeary said.

"He'd just keep bugging me about getting back into (umpiring)."

Over one winter, some 10 years after the accident, McLeary requalified for his high school umpiring license. "Depth perception was the toughest," he said.

"This (right) side of my face, for a year, was just pulverized. It looked like dent city."

Determined to make the adjustment, McLeary would venture to indoor batting cages and call pitches.

"I'd go into batting cages during the winter, while kids were hitting, and just stand there and look at all the pitches," he said.

"I tried to outwork anybody and everything. That's just the nature."

Just worry about tonight

As game time nears at Champion Window Field, McLeary's hand reaches into the fifth and final box of new baseballs.

The pre-game jitters are evident.

His speech is hurried. He has yet to pull on his umpiring equipment and uniform.

But before he leaves the umpire's dressing room with Johnson, McLeary reaches for and opens a small black bag.

Inside are three rocks.

There is a story behind those rocks, of course, and it was born on the road to the College World Series several years ago.

"Every once in a while you'll lose a count," McLeary said. "I rung a guy up and it was only strike two.

"After the inning is over, here comes the coach from Memphis State. He says, 'Hey Max, you think you can get this right?'

"He handed me the three rocks. Ever since then, those three rocks go in my pocket."

McLeary slides the rocks into a pants pocket.

As he leaves for the field, McLeary stops to explain why even a veteran umpire like himself gets nervous before a game.

"Everybody says, 'Max, you've been at this 10 years. You've done All-Star games. You've done everything you can possibly do. How can you get excited about this?' " McLeary says.

"I just want to get tonight right. Don't worry about last night. Don't worry about last year. Don't worry about where I've been. Don't worry about where I'm going.

"Tonight is nine innings of baseball."

E-mail kkelly@enquirer.com.