his umps (1897)

“Hear the umpire with his umps,
Fiendish umps!
How he’s bringing down upon himself profanity in lumps!
While he’s calling, calling, calling,
Strikes and balls and ‘Out at first!’
While the bleachers almost sobbing,
Would hurl defiance at his robbing
If his robbing was the worst.
But he gloats, gloats, gloats,
O’er their parched and thickened throats,
As they swear in dire profusion at his umps.
At his umps, umps, umps, umps,
Umps, umps, umps.
Swearing at the fiendish umpire and his umps.”

And They Lost the First Game,” Buffalo Enquirer, May 18, 1897, p4 (Last stanza of poem)

Previous earliest use (Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2009):
1908.  (Baseball Magazine, July, p.56; Edward J. Nichols).

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