Bob Emslie
Canadian baseball player
Robert Daniel Emslie (January 27, 1859 – April 26, 1943) was a Canadian pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) who went on to set numerous records for longevity as an umpire. Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Emslie had a brief professional playing career with the Baltimore and Philadelphia clubs in the American Association.
His professional umpiring career began in 1888, and after spending a couple of seasons in the minor leagues, he was promoted to the major leagues as an umpire in 1890. Emslie was nicknamed "Wig" due to his premature receding hairline, which was a result of the stress of umpiring games single-handedly in the rough-and-tumble 1890s; he was derisively called "Blind Bob" by the New York Giants following his role in the infamous "Merkle's Boner" play during the 1908 National League pennant race. The play involved a force out when a Giants player stopped running to second base upon seeing that the game's winning run would score.
When "Merkle's boner" occurred, Emslie had already worked more major league games than any umpire in MLB history, then later served as the National League's chief of umpires upon retiring from active umpiring. He retired to St. Thomas, Ontario and died there on Monday, April 26, 1943. In 1946 he was included in the Honor Rolls of Baseball and in 1986 he was named to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
Playing career
Emslie began his professional career playing for several semi-professional teams in Ontario until signing on with the Camden, New Jersey team of an early version of the Interstate League for the 1882 season.
The public source identifies “Bob Emslie” as canadian baseball player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Emslie, Canadian and baseball.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4932373. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1859, 1943, 1888 and 1890.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bob Emslie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.