{"id":25968,"date":"2019-10-26T17:36:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T21:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=25968"},"modified":"2019-10-26T17:36:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-26T21:36:59","slug":"umpire-chuck-meriwether-has-passed-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/10\/26\/umpire-chuck-meriwether-has-passed-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Umpire Chuck Meriwether Has Passed Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Veteran Umpire Chuck Meriwether Has Passed Away<\/h2>\n<p>Umpire Chuck Meriwether has died at the age of 63. Meriwether was an active umpire for 18 years. He also was a nine-year supervisor of Major League Baseball\u2019s umpires.<\/p>\n<h3>Meriwether\u2019s Bio<\/h3>\n<p>Julius Edward \u201cChuck\u201d Meriwether was born on June 30<sup>th,<\/sup> 1956 in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1978 Meriwether graduated from Athens State College. Meriwether\u2019s career as an umpire started in the minor leagues in 1979. In 1986 Meriwether reached the American Association. In 1988 Meriwether started to umpire in the American League.<\/p>\n<p>Meriwether remained in the American League until 2000 when he started to umpire in both leagues. Meriwether\u2019s last game as an umpire was technically in 2009. He sat out the entire 2010 season before retiring on February 23, 2011.<\/p>\n<h3>Career Highlights<\/h3>\n<p>Meriwether umpired in two World Series in 2004 and 2007 and also worked the 2003 NLCS and the 2006 ALCS. He also has been an umpire for two All-Star games in 1996 and 2002. Meriwether also worked eight Division Series between 1998 and 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Also on his resume is two perfect games. He was the third-base umpire for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/coneda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Cone<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s perfect game on July 18, 1999. He was the second base umpire for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/buehrma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Buehrle<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s perfecto on July 23, 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Meriwether was the fifth African American umpire in major league history. In a weird twist, he was the home plate umpire in 2004 when the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/boston-red-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boston Red Sox<\/a> won their first world championship in 86 years. The last Major League team to integrate their roster was the Red Sox.<\/p>\n<h3>Meriwether\u2019s Legacy<\/h3>\n<p>MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred released this statement on the passing of Meriwether:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cChuck Meriwether was an accomplished umpire on the field, a role model for our staff and a true gentleman in life. He made a significant impact in his nine years as an Umpire Supervisor. Chuck will be remembered for his genial manner and the outstanding example he set for others, particularly for African American umpires who followed him. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest condolences to his wife Rita, his sons Jeremy and Christopher, the Major League Umpires and his many friends throughout our game.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">RIP Chuck Meriwether, longtime MLB umpire and supervisor <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oOSzYrbFKB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/oOSzYrbFKB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/1188186968607330305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 26, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In 2016, the umpire dressing room at Nashville\u2019s First Tennessee Park was named after Meriwether.<\/p>\n<p>Chuck Meriwether is survived by his wife Rita and two sons Jeremy and Christopher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran Umpire Chuck Meriwether Has Passed Away Umpire Chuck Meriwether has died at the age of 63. Meriwether was an active umpire for 18 years. He also was a nine-year supervisor of Major League Baseball\u2019s umpires. Meriwether\u2019s Bio Julius Edward \u201cChuck\u201d Meriwether was born on June 30th, 1956 in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1978 Meriwether graduated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":25970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[1071,2],"tags":[3167,69],"class_list":["post-25968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-featured","tag-chuck-meriwether","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"Jared Cantatore","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25968","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\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}