Al Barlick Marquee Hall of Fame 1989

The game logs name him behind the plate 1,215 times, from September 11, 1940 to September 26, 1971. He is absent in 1944 and 1945, which he spent in the Coast Guard, and again in 1956 and 1957. The count is a floor: it counts only the games he worked at the plate.

He was a coal miner's son from Springfield, Illinois, and had umpired four seasons in the minors when the National League called him up at twenty-five, younger than almost anyone it had hired. He never played professionally, so the statistical record here has nothing else of him.

He appeared on nine Hall of Fame ballots before the Veterans Committee elected him in 1989, and he lived another six years. He was the umpire most often named by other umpires when they were asked who was best.