His calling

Sporting News, The, Dec 23, 1996 by Jim Dent

Many major league umpires seem as obscure as the hot dog vendor. Not Durwood Merrill. But baIls and strikes aren't the only thing he's emotional about. Just ask the people of Hooks, Texas.

With the sun setting on Christmas Eve, the ice storm blows in from the north, slicing across the Red River. Sheets of white marbles dance across the roof of the pickup truck. Days of hard rain turn the dirt road into a mud pit. A truck slogs toward the river bottoms, its headlamps flickering in the cold darkness.

Durwood Merrill has traveled this country road countless times and has carried gifts and cooked turkeys to those who otherwise would have little or nothing for Christmas. He knows the names of the families from every shanty and shack. Yet, as darkness falls over northeast Texas, he feels lost. Maybe it is fatigue from delivering the goods all day. But the road no longer is familiar. Suddenly, a figure appears in the truck's lights. The large man behind the wheel jerks upward, thinking he has seen a ghost. Moving the truck closer, he sees a woman standing in the freezing rain, waving her arms, pleading for him to stop.

Rolling down the window, Merrill hears the woman say, "Please, sir, do you have anything left?"

The truck is virtually empty. There are no turkeys or bicycles or clothes or candy. Those gifts have been delivered to other impoverished families. All that is left on the seat of the truck are scattered boxes of jello.

"Ma'am, all I have is this." he says. handing her the boxes. I'm sorry. But it's all we've got left tonight."

The woman takes the boxes and lures to show them to two small children. "You mean we can have jello tonight!" one child says in delight. "This is great, Mama. Thank you!"

Later, with a tear in his eye, Merrill says, "You know, most people will take a little box of jello for granted. But it was Christmas to them."

The next morning, Santa sleds back down the muddy country road to the last shack before the river. He has a new bag filled with toys and candy. It is, indeed, a merry Christmas for all.

A thick neck and wide chest make Durwood Merrill seem bearish behind home plate. Tossing a manager out of a game, he blusters and flails and spews expletives common to baseball. He may seem intimidating to those who have never met him. Once at Fenway Park, a little old lady leaned over the rail and yelled to Merrill, "If you were my husband, I'd feed you poison." Pointing to the slight man sitting next to her, Merrill retorted, "Lady, if I were married to you, I'd eat it."

More than 3,200 games have been played under his watch the past 20 American League seasons. Many major league umpires seem as obscure as the hot dog vendor. Not Merrill. Reggie Jackson, one of the more flamboyant players in baseball history, once called Merrill, "The Reggie Jackson of umpiring." Merrill is so high-profile and personable that the Texas Rangers made him part of their televised marketing campaign last year.

"At first, my bosses were afraid that I was going to be the next (Ron) Luciano," Merrill says, referring to one of the game's more animated characters, who died nearly two years ago. "For many years, my bosses used to beat on me. They said I was going to be a Luciano because I liked to talk. They finally said, `That is just him. Leave him alone.' You see, I'm an emotional umpire. The emotion shows in my actions. I can't be a wimpy guy, you know."

He has umpired in the World Series and playoff games and was behind the plate for the 1995 All-Star Game. Baseball is so ingrained in his life that his son, Mickey, now a coach at nearby DeKalb High, was named after Mickey Mantle.

Merrill is a self-styled communicator. There is nothing wimpy about him. When he isn't ejecting managers, he's making them laugh. Mariners manager Lou Piniella protested vehemently when Merrill made what appeared to be a correct call in a dark outfield corner of the Kingdome last season. Piniella shouted, "Durwood, dammit, you can't see that far!" The umpire intoned, "Lou, I can see all the way to the moon. And, hell, Lou, the moon is 90 million miles away."

From March through the October postseason, Merrill travels from major league city to city. The road is his life. When the season finally ends, Merrill returns to his hometown of the past 24 years, a place that needs him.

Tucked into the northeast corner of Texas, Hooks is a town of 3,000. It is a flyspeck on the map. Oklahoma is about 10 miles to the north. The Arkansas border is 15 miles to the northeast. Louisiana is about an hour's drive to the east. The region is called the four-states area for obvious reasons. If not for the interstate signs and a couple of truck stops, motorists whizzing past on Interstate 30 would see Hooks merely in the blink-of-an-eye. There are few reasons to stop there, other than to gas up or to wash the bugs off your windshield.

Of this forsaken pit stop on the superhighway, Merrill says, "We are known for having two big truck stops, for having Billy Sims and maybe, just maybe, for having turned out a major league umpire."