Amby Moran Returns

AS WIL UMPIRE
Amby Moran’s Back
By CLANCY LORANGER
[Vancouver Province, Feb. 26, 1953]
One of the most colorful—and capable—men ever to wear umpires’ blue, Amby Moran, will be back calling balls and strikes in the Western International League this summer.
League president Bob Brown, long a booster for the rugged former baseball and hockey player—even during his more boisterous days—made the announcement today.
Moran, now 59 and less exuberant than he once was, returns to the WIL arbiter ranks after four years.
Brown has lined up some other capable men who, he hopes, will raise the standard of the league’s umpiring, which has come in for considerable criticism in recent years.
One of those is an Irishman named Francis Walsh—he prefers “Frannie”—who called ‘em in the Class B Carolina League last summer. Famed ump Bill McGowan thought [unreadable] him [unreadable] instruction at his school this winter
Other umps already signed—they’ll be 11 altogether, a boost of three over previous years—include Gerald Van Keuren and Emmet Ashford.
Van Keuren spent two years in AA ball, and last year was in the Class A Western League. Ashford is unique—he’s the only Negro umpire in organized baseball.