Bill Summers

Who was Bill Summers?

William Reed Summers was an American umpire in Major League Baseball who worked in the American League from 1933 to 1959.

Born in Harrison, New Jersey, Summers was raised in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He left school in the seventh grade, and began working under his father, a mill foreman; he also began boxing as a lightweight, with moderate success in the ring. At age 17, he was employed as a road worker when he stopped to watch a high school baseball game. The umpire who was supposed to officiate never arrived, however, and Summers was asked by Woonsocket high school coach Frank Keaney – who would go on to an extraordinary collegiate coaching career – to fill in. Summers accepted, even though he had never played baseball and was unfamiliar with the rules; Keaney told him that as long as he kept track of balls and strikes, it shouldn't prove difficult. Summers proved adept at the task, and regularly officiated high school, semi-pro and industrial games for the next eight years.

In 1921 he got his first chance at the professional ranks when he was hired by the Eastern League, and he continued in the minor leagues through 1932.