{"id":114841,"date":"2026-02-27T01:25:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=114841"},"modified":"2026-02-27T01:26:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:26:49","slug":"longtime-mlb-umpire-bruce-froemming-died-age-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/02\/27\/longtime-mlb-umpire-bruce-froemming-died-age-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime MLB Umpire Bruce Froemming Passes Away at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Froemming, who served as a major league umpire for 37 seasons and called the third-most games in major league history, died on Wednesday. He was 86 years old. Froemming&#8217;s son Steven said the longtime umpire died of a brain bleed following a fall at his Wisconsin home on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 610px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOB9TEBeGK7\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 3000px; aspect-ratio: 3000\/1993;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Rest in Peace Bruce Froemming<\/p>\n<p>One of just 3 umpires to work 5,000+ Major League games <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aJoZMdpYCQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/aJoZMdpYCQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BaseballQuotes1\/status\/2027214233214079249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 27, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Bruce Froemming, MLB Umpire from 1971 to 2007, Has Died at 86<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><\/blockquote>\n<p>Froemming had a brief semi-pro baseball career as a player in the 1950s and became a professional umpire in 1958 at age 18. After 13 years in the minor leagues, he became a National League umpire in the 1971 season. One of the early notable moments of Froemming&#8217;s career came in 1972, when he was behind the plate. Chicago Cubs pitcher <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pappami01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milt Pappas<\/a> was one strike away from a perfect game after getting ahead 1-2 on the 27th batter. The count went full, and Pappas delivered a pitch that Froemming ruled to be off the outside corner. Although Pappas finished the no-hitter, the moment remained a point of debate for years after.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Today in 1972: Cubs&#8217; <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pappami01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milt Pappas<\/a> is 1 out from perfect game, but walks a batter &amp; always felt he was robbed..he\u2019d get the no hitter however: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZfEj7zD9CM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ZfEj7zD9CM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Stirrups Now! (@uniformcritic) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/uniformcritic\/status\/1830578585234481200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 2, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As a result of his long career, there was no shortage of interesting and historic moments with Froemming on the field. Two of the more memorable brawls in history, those started by <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harrebu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bud Harrelson<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rosepe01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pete Rose<\/a> in 1973, and <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=rodrial01,rodrig040ale,rodrig059ale,rodrig061ale,rodrig047ale,rodrig066ale,rodrig068ale,rodrig054ale,rodrig023ale,rodrig031ale&amp;search=Alex+Rodriguez&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Rodriguez<\/a> and <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/varitja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Varitek<\/a> in 2004, took place in games Froemming worked. He also ejected New York Yankees manager <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/martibi02.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Billy Martin<\/a> from the last game of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/04\/23\/reliving-history-the-1976-cincinnati-reds-2\/\" target=\"_self\">1976 World Series<\/a>. He worked a major-league record 11 no-hitters, including <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/martide01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dennis Martinez<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/12\/28\/every-country-territory-that-produced-mlb-players\/\" target=\"_self\">perfect game<\/a> in 1981 for the Montreal Expos, when he was stationed at first base. Froemming was only behind the plate for two of those no-nos: the aforementioned near-perfecto by Pappas and <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jimenjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jos\u00e9 Jim\u00e9nez<\/a>&#8216;s no-hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A-Rod and Jason Varitek brawl, a breakdown <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wANj4l7Ruo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/wANj4l7Ruo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jomboy (@Jomboy_) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jomboy_\/status\/1285212873417883648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>A Long Legacy<\/h3>\n<p>By the time Froemming retired after the 2007 season, he worked 5,163 games. At the time, that total ranked second all-time behind Bill Klem (5,373). Both figures were eventually bested by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2021\/05\/25\/joe-west-to-break-umpiring-record\/\" target=\"_self\">Joe West<\/a>, who got to 5,460 by the end of his career in 2021. A crew chief from 1988 until his retirement, Froemming also called 111 postseason games and took part in five World Series (1976, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1995).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Tom Szczerbowski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Froemming, who served as a major league umpire for 37 seasons and called the third-most games in major league history, died on Wednesday. He was 86 years old. Froemming&#8217;s son Steven said the longtime umpire died of a brain bleed following a fall at his Wisconsin home on Tuesday night. Rest in Peace Bruce [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3931,"featured_media":114844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4454,1071,35],"tags":[328,3443,4929,921,1605,346],"class_list":["post-114841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baseball-history","category-mlb","category-news","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-billy-martin","tag-bud-harrelson","tag-jason-varitek","tag-joe-west","tag-pete-rose"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114841"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114845,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114841\/revisions\/114845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}