In addition to being one of the most successful baseball manager of his day, John J. McGraw may have been responsible for there being a third-base umpire. Long before he became a famous manager of the New York Giants, as a young third baseman with the old Baltimore Orioles the intensely competitive McGraw had a habit of hooking his finger in the belt of a base runner who was tagging up to score after a long fly ball. This trick usually slowed the runner enough so that he was thrown out at home plate.

Despite violent protests, McGraw got away with his ploy for some months—until one base runner secretly unbuckled his belt. When the runner dashed for home, he left his belt dangling from McGraw’s finger. The need for a third-base umpire could hardly have been made clearer.