Chad Fairchild
From BR Bullpen
Chad Fairchild
- Height 6' 3", Weight 190 lb.
Chad Fairchild has been a full-time major league umpire since 2009, after umpiring his first major league game in 2005.
He began his umpiring career in the 1997 Gulf Coast League. He moved up to the New York-Penn League in 1998, then the South Atlantic League in 1999. He was in the Florida State League in 2000-2001, the Venezuelan League in the winter of 2000-01 and the Southern League in 2001-2002. He spent 2002-2008 in the International League, with stints in the Arizona Fall League (2003-2004) and as a reserve MLB umpire (2005-2008). He also worked the 2006 World Baseball Classic.
Fairchild, in a game between the Yankees and the Royals on August 17, 2011, made a call that ended a bases loaded threat by the Yankees in the top of the 9th. Jorge Posada was at the plate and took the first pitch for a ball. The second pitch, a four-seam fastball, was shown on tracking systems to be outside, but Fairchild called it a strike. The third pitch, a slider, was taken for a strike in the zone for strike two. On the fourth pitch, a four seam fastball that was tracked to be in the same outside location as the second, Fairchild emphatically called out Posada to end the game, with the Yankees losing 5-4. Instead of Posada having what should have been a 3 balls and 1 strike count (meaning that one more ball would have tied the game), Fairchild took any chance of a comeback away from the Yankees by calling those two balls as strikes.
