Don Denkinger, respected MLB umpire who made infamous World Series call, dead at 86

Don Denkinger, a Major League Baseball umpire for 30 years, has died.

He was 86 years old.

The news was announced by Denkinger’s daughter, Denise Hanson, who said Friday that her father passed at Cedar Valley Hospice in Waterloo, Iowa, according to USA Today.

“Today MLB remembers longtime American League Umpire Don Denkinger, who passed away at 86. The genial Denkinger was on the field from 1969-1998 and worked four World Series, the last of which included plate duties for the epic Morris-Smoltz Game 7 in 1991. Rest in Peace, Don,” MLB said in a statement.

Denkinger was also the umpire in an infamous moment in the 1985 World Series between the Cardinals and Royals, in a moment that became known as “The Call”.

The Cardinals had a 3-2 lead in the series and were up 1-0 in the ninth inning when Royals pinch hitter Jorge Orta hit a high chopper to first off Todd Worrell.

Cardinals first baseman Jack Clark fielded the ball and tossed to Worrell, who barely beat Orta to the bag.

But Denkinger called Orta safe, and the Royals ultimately came back to win Game 6, and then Game 7 and the World Series.

Denkinger received a torrent of phone calls and letters to his home in Iowa, including a death threat on the phone that the FBI ultimately traced to a man who owned a construction company in St. Louis.

Then-MLB commissioner Peter Ueberroth defended Denkinger.

“One of the top five umpires in the entire league,” the commissioner said on the “Phil Donahue Show”, “and he may have missed one.”

“No one wants to be embarrassed like that,” Denkinger told Sports Illustrated months after the call. “My job is predicated on being right all the time, and I like to be right all the time. But we’re only human, and now it’s history. I can’t change anything. Even admitting I was wrong doesn’t change anything.”

Denkinger held his head high, though, remaining an MLB umpire for more than a dozen years after the missed call, and even eventually signing photos of the infamous play.

In 2014, Denkinger noted that instant replay in modern times would have corrected his erroneous call.

“I’m not tired of talking about it. I mean, it happened,” he said. “I just know that if the same thing happened now, they’d get it right on replay and it’d be over with.”