By Benjamin Hoffman, The New York Times
When Joe West took the field for Tuesday night’s game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox, it was his 5,376th appearance. Having started his major league career in 1976, he now stands alone as the umpire to have worked the most games in major league history, breaking a record that has stood for 80 years.
West, who has often entertained and frustrated in equal parts, now has a record that suits his larger-than-life personality. And he took it from Bill Klem, a man whose time in the game stretches so far back that he claimed to have invented the hand signals that umpires use to this day.