officials, claiming that the last-minute rule change the previous year allowed umpires to retire at 55 and collect their $5,000 pension early, but did not require them to retire until age 60. But sometime between Ed Hurley's meeting with American League President, Joe Cronin, on December 23, 1965, and the letter notifying Hurley of his forced retirement on December 29, the 55 retirement age became mandatory. Hurley had been one of the leading advocates for umpire rights, among the American League's 20 umpires serving in 1965. A.L. President Cronin offered his perspective on how things went down with the decision to retire Hurley and his two senior colleagues. In a February 26, 1966 report in the Sporting News, Cronin said, "Last August [August 1965] a committee representing the umpires came into the office and asked for 20 different points. Call them fringe benefits if you like. One of the benefits they sought was retirement at 55 with a pension. ... In order to put this new pension plan into practice, I thought it only sensible to hire three new umpires, which we did. That meant we had to make room for them. So we simply went by the same plan the umpires themselves proposed and retired three who had reached the age of 55. They asked for it themselves. ... There was nothing personal in all of this. It was all business." Ed Hurley expressed his opinion in the February 1966 Sporting News interview that it was ironic that one of the three replacements for him and the two other umpires forced to retire was a 51-year-old rookie. Hurley noted that Emmett Ashford, the first black American League umpire, would himself face mandatory retirement in just four years. Hurley said that the five year optional period made more sense for himself and Ashford, who would likely prefer to stay on for a period of time after his 55th birthday. When Hurley died four years later in 1969, it was also the end of the year that Ashford turned 55 and under A.L. rules was required to retire. Ashford, however, was allowed to be the first American League umpire to break the mandatory retirement age of 55. Ashford went on to officiate in the 1970 season, the year that marked the founding of the first official union of American and National League umpires, the Major League Umpires Association, one year after