Babe Pinelli
American baseball player (1895-1984)
Ralph Arthur "Babe" Pinelli, born Rinaldo Angelo Paolinelli (October 18, 1895 – October 22, 1984), was an American third baseman and umpire in Major League Baseball. Born in San Francisco, his playing career was mostly with the Cincinnati Reds from 1922 to 1927. He also played with the Chicago White Sox (1918) and Detroit Tigers (1920). After that he became a highly regarded National League umpire from 1935 to 1956, officiating in 6 World Series: 1939, 1941, 1947, 1948 (outfield only), 1952 and 1956; he was crew chief for the final two Series. He also umpired in the All-Star game in 1937, 1941, 1950 and 1956, working behind home plate for the second half of the last three games, and he worked in the 3-game series to determine the NL champion in 1946.
Pinelli wrote an article for The Second Fireside Book of Baseball, titled "Kill the Umpire? Don't Make Me Laugh!" in which he told about his rookie year of 1935, when he was told that he should not call a strike on Babe Ruth, who was winding up his career with the Boston Braves. Pinelli did not see it that way. When he was behind the plate and Ruth came to bat, and a close pitch went by at which Ruth did not swing, Pinelli deemed it a strike and so called it. Ruth turned to the umpire and bellowed, "There's forty thousand people in this park that know that was a ball, tomato-head!" Pinelli did not lose his cool.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Babe Pinelli” as american baseball player (1895-1984). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4837660. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1895, 1984, 1922 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “Babe Pinelli” 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.