Cy Rigler to be Inducted into the Massillon Wall…
Cy Rigler to be Inducted into the Massillon Wall of Champions
The Massillon Football Booster Club is proud to announce that Charles Cyrus “Cy” Rigler will be inducted this year into the “Massillon Wall of Champions.” The formal ceremony will be held in conjunction with the Club’s Reverse Raffle event, which is scheduled for July 17, 2025, at the Eagles 190.
The Wall of Champions is reserved for Massillon grads who played a varsity sport and then went on to accomplish something remarkable later in life. And no one meets that criterion better than Cy Rigler, who found his calling in professional baseball’s National League, where he spent thirty years umpiring games.
Rigler was born on May 16, 1882, in Massillon, Ohio, as the son a German immigrant fireman. In 1899, now as a high school senior, he had an opportunity to join the Massillon High football team, which was re-forming after a 2-year hiatus. Since he was one of the larger players in the team, his position was better suited for the offensive and defensive lines. Massillon finished 3-3-1 that year with a squad comprised of just fourteen players.
After graduation, Rigler made his way into semipro baseball. However, in 1903 he returned to the gridiron, this time playing right tackle for the Massillon Tigers professional team. But a knee injury shortly into it curtailed that phase of his career. Only, that was not the end of sports for Cy.
Due to his enormous size, now standing 6-foot tall and weighing 270 pounds, Rigler was asked to umpire industrial league baseball games in order to quell the frequent fights. He enjoyed umpiring so much that in 1904 he parlayed that experience into a similar position in the Central League of minor league baseball. It was there that he invented the call sign for a strike that is used by all umpires today; i.e., raising his right arm following the pitch. It came in 1905 during a game in Evansville, Indiana.
His stint in the minor leagues lasted just two years, before he was promoted to the majors as a National League umpire. He worked his first game (Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs) on September 27, 1906, at age 24, thereby becoming the youngest umpire in Major League history. He remained there for thirty years (1906 thru 1935), umpiring 4,144 regular season games, a mark that was ranked fourth all-time when he retired. He was also behind the plate for 2,468 of those games. So well respected was Rigler, that he was also selected to umpire in ten different World Series, involving 65 games. He also umpired in the first All-Star Game, in 1933. Rigler’s last outing was on September 29, 1935. Following the season. he was placed on the supervisory staff of the National League and named Chief of Umpires. But unfortunately, he passed away before he could assume the role.
As an umpire, Rigler is remembered for calling a controversial catch in the 1925 World Series. Earl Smith had hit a fly ball to the right field corner and Sam Rice caught the ball, but fell into the bleachers on the play. Nevertheless, Rigler ruled that Rice had secured the ball and thus called Smith out. But the debate of whether or not he really did catch the ball continued for the next fifty years, until Rice, upon his death bed, confirmed that he had in fact caught the ball. So, Rigler had made the right call after all.
He was considered as a very fair umpire and rarely needed to argue with either a coach or a player. But there was one particular exception in 1915 when he overruled another umpire’s call involving Reds’ Tommie Leach, who was caught off second base as the victim of a hidden-ball trick. The field umpire called Leach safe. Only Rigler, who from behind home plate had a better view of the play, called him out. Reds’ manager Buck Herzog quickly left the bench and approached Rigler to argue, shoving Cy in his chest protector and spiking his foot. So Rigler responded by putting Herzog on the ground with a single punch to the left eye. That set off a riot involving both players and fans, necessitating a dozen policemen to restore order. At the end of the day, both combatants found themselves in St. Louis Police Court and were fined $5.00 each.
In a few unusual feats:
- He was once wired to the stadium microphones so that fans could hear his calls of balls and strikes.
- In the initial days of major league baseball, the league commonly employed just a single umpire.
- Rigler was behind the plate when Chicago beat Philadelphia 26-23, the highest-scoring game in major league history.
- He was the umpire when the opposing pitchers in a Cincinnati vs. Chicago game pitched nine innings of no-hit baseball.
In the offseason Rigler would return home to North East, Pennsylvania, where he remained quite active. Some of his gigs included the following:
- Policeman
- Fireman
- Golf course maintenance worker
- Machinist
- Supervisor in the gas and oil fields for a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co.
- Ballpark designer (including Cuba, Latin America and the one at the University of Virginia)
- Assistant baseball coach at the University of Virginia
- Athletic advisor to several colleges and universities
He also found time to work on a law degree and dabble in his vineyard.
Rigler died on December 21, 1935, in Philadelphia at age 53, two weeks after surgery for a brain tumor, leaving his wife Nellie and two stepchildren from Nellie’s previous marriage. But his body was subsequently returned to his roots to be buried in Massillon Cemetery.
Congratulations to Charles “Cy” Rigler and his later descendants.
Special thanks to Frank Cicchinelli for discovering Cy Rigler.
This year’s Hardnose Award winner is Michael Wright Jr., the Tiger defensive nose tackle who led his team to an 11-3 record and a spot in the playoff regional finals.
