Major League Baseball Umpire, Crime Victim. Palermo's career as a major league baseball umpire ended when he was shot and partly paralyzed after intervening in a robbery. He was in his 15th season as an American League umpire in 1991, with a reputation as one of the best callers in the sport, when on July 6, after umpiring at third base for a game between the California Angels and the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, he went for dinner at a Dallas restaurant. When the bartender saw that two waitresses were being beaten and robbed by attackers in the parking lot, Palermo and five other men ran out to stop them. Two attackers fled with a getaway driver, while Palermo and a friend chased a fourth man. After the man was subdued, his accomplices returned and fired into the group with a .32-caliber pistol, striking Palermo in the abdomen, who was rushed to the hospital. After emergency surgery, his doctors told him that it was unlikely that he would walk again, however he rejected the prognosis, hoping that he would return to umpiring. After three months of rehabilitation, he used crutches and leg braces to walk onto the field at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, where he threw out the first pitch before Game 1 of the World Series. He never umpired again, but he would eventually walk with only a cane. In 1994, he was hired by Major League Baseball as special assistant to Bud Selig, chairman of the Major League Executive Council. He also worked part time as an analyst for MSG Network on Yankees games from 1995 to 1997. In 2000, the league hired him as an umpire supervisor, a position he held until his death from complications of lung cancer.
Major League Baseball Umpire, Crime Victim. Palermo's career as a major league baseball umpire ended when he was shot and partly paralyzed after intervening in a robbery. He was in his 15th season as an American League umpire in 1991, with a reputation as one of the best callers in the sport, when on July 6, after umpiring at third base for a game between the California Angels and the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, he went for dinner at a Dallas restaurant. When the bartender saw that two waitresses were being beaten and robbed by attackers in the parking lot, Palermo and five other men ran out to stop them. Two attackers fled with a getaway driver, while Palermo and a friend chased a fourth man. After the man was subdued, his accomplices returned and fired into the group with a .32-caliber pistol, striking Palermo in the abdomen, who was rushed to the hospital. After emergency surgery, his doctors told him that it was unlikely that he would walk again, however he rejected the prognosis, hoping that he would return to umpiring. After three months of rehabilitation, he used crutches and leg braces to walk onto the field at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, where he threw out the first pitch before Game 1 of the World Series. He never umpired again, but he would eventually walk with only a cane. In 1994, he was hired by Major League Baseball as special assistant to Bud Selig, chairman of the Major League Executive Council. He also worked part time as an analyst for MSG Network on Yankees games from 1995 to 1997. In 2000, the league hired him as an umpire supervisor, a position he held until his death from complications of lung cancer.
Bio by: Louis du Mort
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