Mechanics Matter a Great Deal

A fellow umpire asked us earlier this week if we had watched the plate umpire when Jacoby Ellsbury stole home against the Yankees in last weekend’s series. The umpire’s  mechanic was spot on; he called the pitch first and then the play at the plate. That is the way it is supposed to be done, and when you do it that way, you’ll avoid the trouble that can ensue if you call the play first. 

A good friend of mine was behind the plate with a runner on third and a 3 and 1 count on the batter, a very dangerous hitter.  It  was a tight ball game and the coach elected to have his runner steal home. The pitch was very close to the strike zone, but the catcher quickly caught in and got the glove down just in time to tag the runner before he crossed the plate.  A big cloud of dust arose around the action which served as a backdrop for the celebration then launched by the defense when the plate umpire rang up the disappointed runner for the third out. 

The third base coach ambled down towards home plate as the umpire was cleaning the dish and the teams were changing sides. ” Blue, that last pitch was a strike, right?  A strike.”  My friend did a double take, probably because in the excitement, he hadn’t called the pitch before calling the runner out, and now the moment was a bit fuzzy. The pitch was really close; what was it? But, what difference did it make? The inning was over and the teams were moving on.

Yes, the inning was over and the offense had lost its chance to even the score that inning, but if the last pitch had been ball 4, that would have ended the player’s at-bat and the tag ended the inning. However, if the pitch had been strike 2, the batter would remain a batsman, the inning would have ended on the tag at the plate, but the dangerous hitter would be the leadoff hitter the next inning. That is what the coach wanted to be sure would happen.

“Blue, that last pitch was a strike, right?”  Remember the mechanic; call the pitch, then the play, and you won’t have to second guess yourself.

The Forgotten All Star Team

Many of you are now involved in state championship games at the high school level or in conference championships at the college level. If you are working those games involving the best teams from the area, then you are part of the very special third team out there, the forgotten all star team of umpires. I just want to take a moment to congratulate you and help you realize the significance of your being assigned those playoff games.

Throughout the season you kept your assignments, even though It may have been at some personal cost; you displayed excellent rule knowledge; you executed mechanics almost flawlessly; you communicated effectively and often with your partners; you effectively facilitated the game for players and coaches, and you demonstrated a desire to be the best umpire out there. I know that for a fact, because otherwise your assignor would have replaced you with someone else. Look around you and see which of your peers are missing from the cadre of post-season officials from your umpire association.

You have just a little bit more of that special stuff that separates the exceptional umpires from the great umpires, just as the teams whose games you are officiating have that little extra bit of talent, hustle, and desire that separates them from the other teams in their division. The difference between the two teams whose game you are officiating and  your umpire team is that they have the media and the student body behind them to do their cheerleading. Your team, the forgotten all-star team of top umpires, has only yourselves to applaud your performance over the season, a performance so good that it catapulted you into the playoff arena. Take a minute and pat yourself on the back for a good job well done,

If, this year, you find yourself on the outside looking in on the cadre of umpires from your association who were selected for post-season assignments, and you are feeling a bit miffed about your exclusion from that august body, now is a good time to take stock of things. What are the areas of umpiring in which you could show some improvement next year so that your assignor will put you into the post-season pool? More importantly, what is the game plan you will employ to be sure you make those improvements? What gets measured, gets tended to, and what gets tended to, gets better. Be proactive; take charge of your umpiring behavior, and do what you need to do to show your assignor you deserve to be part of the forgotten all star team.

Finally, to those of you already at the top of your game, to those of you who are representing your association in post-season play, to those of you to whom the game means so much that you make significant sacrifices during the year to get the nod for post-season play I offer my congratulations. By your skill and dedication, you are making it possible for the teams in the championship hunt to have world class officiating calling their games. You are the third team out there, and in reality, it is good that you are forgotten by the players, coaches and fans, because that means you did your job so well they didn’t even know you were out there. Enjoy!

“What’s the count, Blue?”

It has often been observed that one of the signs of a successful umpire is that at the end of the game, you don’t remember he/she was even there. Usually it is acts of commission (antagonistic attitude toward managers and players, short fuse during a discussion of a play, etc) that keep umpires in the negative limelight, but there are also acts of omission (lack of hustle, lack of focus, etc) that can also undermine our performance. During my spring training week in Florida last week, a veteran umpire pointed out to me that both coaches and players seemed to repeatedly ask me the question, “What’s the count, Blue?” My lack of information-sharing was interfering with the smooth conduct of the game, and I wasn’t even aware of it.

My evaluator shared with me his routine for giving the count on the batter and suggested I try it for a game or two and see if there was any reduction in the requests for the count. He gives the count after every two pitches (2-0, 1-1, 0-2, etc.) He also gives it after every foul ball just before he puts the ball back in play. which he says is a great reminder to make the ball live after each foul ball. He also gives the count whenever there is a full count.I took his advice was pleasantly surprised to see a dramatic drop in the number of cries, ”What’s the count, Blue?” To be sure, sometimes the catcher, pitcher, and coaches are deep in thought and will request the count just after I have announced it. That’s the nature of the game. But at least I was operating from a set routine.

The proof of the efficacy of this routine was driven home to me after my final spring training game before heading north. One of the coaches, whose team I had had for five games, told me he had seen a marked improvement in my game management after I had consciously adopted a routine for giving the count. He said it made his decision-making much easier when he didn’t have to guess what the count was.

I’d be interested in what other umpires do about giving the count.

Why do we umpire?

Bob Uecker is quoted as having said, “Let’s face it.  Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living.  In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can’t resist.” If that is the case, why can’t we resist the game? Why do we keep showing up to umpire the games to which we are assigned? I got some insight the other day from a most unexpected source which I want to share with you.

The Sunday had not begun auspiciously. The “honey-do” list from my wife took longer to complete than the time I had allotted to it, forcing me to reduce the driving time to the game site, normally 45 minutes, to 30 minutes. Although I did exceed the governor’s suggested rate of progression along Route 1 in order to meet my partner for our pre-game, I did it judiciously and did not create any threat to other vehicles or pedestrians I encountered along the way.  

A good pre-game is like a bikini bathing suit; long enough to cover the essentials, yet short enough to be alluring. Our pre-game was a good one. We strode on to the field, inspected the helmets, met with coaches at home plate to exchange lineup cards and review the ground rules. Before I knew it, the first pitch was on its way. 

The crowd was sparse for the Sunday afternoon Legion game in a very rural Maine town. Most were relatives of the players, and stood behind the fence behind the first and third baselines. but two spectators stood out. They sat side by side on the top of the small, three tiered aluminum bleacher set up behind home plate. One was what looked to be a 7 or 8 years old youngster, resplendent in his new Red Sox jacket and Dice-K hat, complete with Japanese writing on the brim. His companion, whom I took to be his grandfather, wore a faded sweatshirt and a baseball cap bearing the letter of the hometown high school, a cap that endured years of being twisted and jammed into a pants pocket. Both fans were fortified with two bags of popcorn and a 2 liter Poland Spring bottle of water.

The first batter gets on and the second batter hits a hard grounder towards the second baseman. I watched as the runner from first passed in front of the second baseman on his way to second and saw the ball go through the second baseman’s legs. Immediately, the manager and coach from the defense were up off the bench, claiming that the ball had hit the runner.

“No, coach, it didn’t.”
“Then why was the ball deflected out into center field?”
“Because, coach, the ball ricocheted off the fielder’s glove after it cleanly went by the runner”.
“Didn’t look that way from here.”

I was 12 feet from the play; they were 120 feet . As I went back to my position following the discussion with the coaches, I saw the grandfather lean over and tell something to his grandson, who just nodded as he munched on his popcorn.

Later, in the 5th inning, same team in the field, the runner on first tried to make it to third on a hit by the batter. The play was was a banger, with the ball just beating the runner. There was a cloud of dust as the runner slid into third and the next thing I saw, just after the tag and the dust had cleared, was the ball on the ground.

“Safe, the ball’s on the ground, “I said as I gestured emphatically.

“Oh, sir, please get some help. That happened during the transfer.”

Since I was screened by the third baseman and since my partner had come up the line from home plate and had a different angle, I went over to him and took him out of earshot of the others.

“Anything for me , Stu?”

“Steve, I saw him clearly tag the runner, then lift the glove, and try to pull out the ball to throw to second. He did lose it on the transfer, but it’s your call.”

Hey, if my partner sees it better than I, I’m going with it.

“The runner is out, the ball was dropped on the transfer.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied the defensive chorus and there was no complaint from the offense. Again, grandfather leaned over to his grandson to say a few words. This time the grandson asked his grandfather a question and got his reply before going back to his popcorn.

The game ended uneventfully and Stu and I did our post-game impressions with one another in the parking lot before he had to leave for a family commitment. After peeling off my soaking shirt and replacing it with a dry one, I sat back in my chair next the the car and took in the now deserted ball field in all of its late afternoon splendor. I thought about how much the game meant to me and how privileged I had been to be part of it today, even with the grousing. I went back to my original question to myself earlier in the day, but was interrupted by two fans on their way back to the last car in the parking lot. It was the grandfather and his grandson. The boy now had a chocolate ring around his mouth, no doubt from the post game Snickers bar his grandfather had given him, but the smile on his face was so big that it almost hid the Snicker evidence. He elbowed his grandfather and then pointed to me. The grandfather grinned, nodded back to his grandson, and shouted out to me on his way by. His words were like the light bulb being suddenly turned on. He had answered my question.

“Nice game, Blue. Thanks for being there to make it right for everyone.”

“You’re welcome, sir. And thanks for bringing the boy today. You’ve made it right for baseball”

Sharing feedback with your peers

It is so easy to catch poor mechanics on your partner’s part, but not at all easy to detect your own deficiencies. Because I want so much for all umpires to give their very best to the game, I always ask my partner for some feedback on areas where I need to work. With luck he’ll give me some good morsels on which to chew. Hopefully, he’ll ask me the same question so that I can share with him what I saw him do and ask him why he did it that way. Maybe he wasn’t aware of what he was doing, or perhaps he has a good reason for doing it that way. If we can get a discussion going, great! We can both learn from that.

But what if he doesn’t open the door to a discussion about his performance that day, either good or bad? What if he tells me he has nothing for me and that he thinks he had a great game? I’ve tried the approach, “Would you like to know what I saw out there today?” and when he responds with, “Not really”, I bemoan the fact that a learning opportunity has just gone out the window.

When you work with an association that has no formal evaluation process where an evaluator sees you once or twice a season and provides you with written feedback at the conclusion of the game, the only way you are going to get feedback is from your partner after the game or perhaps from a peer who happened to take in your game from the stands because he was there to watch a relative or a neighbor’s kid play ball. On those occasions where I have been the peer in the stands, I have had the overwhelming desire to share all my observations, both the strengths and opportunities, with the crew after the game. I think that is my part of my responsibility to make my association as competent as it can be.

Human nature being what it is, though, when I have offered my observations, sometimes the crew isn’t interested. I want to believe that they were rejecting my approach, but not the content. By that I mean, had I approached them differently, they might have wanted to listen to what I had seen from outside the foul lines.

Can any of you give me some help here? Do I just butt out when I see something that needs correcting, or is there a way I can slide the information in without appearing to be the almighty know-it-all? There are just so few opportunities to get constructive feedback that I want to maximize every one of those opportunities. How do you get through to someone who, in essence, is saying “Don’t confuse me with the facts.”?

Perfect or Perfunctory; What kind of equipment check do you carry out?

Last week in our area we had a potentially tragic incident take place that has made all us umpires who heard about it reevaluate our approach to the equipment check prior to the game. I hope it will do the same for you. Under Federation rules, umpires must inspect the bats and batting helmets before the game to ensure that both meet specifications and are free from dangerous defects.

During his last time at bat in a high school varsity game this week, the batter took a direct hit on the ear hole of his batting helmet. The batter did not go down, but his batting helmet had a big spider web covering the ear flap and there was blood on the side of the batter’s head. Examination later at the emergency room revealed a ruptured eardrum.

The helmet was a new one, complete with NOCSAE sticker as well as the warning label, but just imagine the further damage that could have been done if if the helmet hadn’t met inspection standards and its poor condition hadn’t been noticed during the pre-game check of equipment.

When we look at helmets, we need to see the NOCSAE seal stamped into the helmet as well as the warning sticker. The rubber compression pads cannot be born, deteriorated, or missing. Duct tape on a helmet is a dead giveaway as to the condition of the helmet under the duct tape. Nothing irks me more than to have a coach tell me, as I remove a helmet from play, “What’s the problem? The last umpire let us use the helmet that way.” That tells me that either we are not being thorough enough in our pre-game inspection, or that the coach has a substandard level of concern for the safety of his players. Neither of those two possibilities is acceptable.

The Federation makes coaches and umpires responsible for promoting safe conditions for play during the game. Let’s be sure we are doing our part to uphold that responsibility by being alert and discerning during the equipment check. That way we can be sure that we prevent noncompliant equipment from causing injury, or should an injury occur, we can be certain we did not exacerbate the injury by allowing an unsafe conditions to exist during the game.

“I’ve got your back”; music to an umpire’s ears

The groundwork for this post comes from an earlier one, “When someone believes in you, you can’t be stopped” In that post I wrote about a conference for foster parents that I attended this weekend. To our delight, former Seattle Mariner second baseman Deshawn Patrick absolutely mesmerized all of us with his keynote speech and the three sessions he led over the two day conference. His experience as a foster child from age one taught him that as long as you have someone who is always there for you, no matter what goes wrong, you are going to succeed. During the two days he regaled us with laughter and saddened us with tears as he shared vignettes from his rocky start as a youth.

I was totally blown away by Deshawn’s presentations, and once he learned I was an umpire, that opened totally new area of discussions for the two of us. On the way home I was able to draw some parallels between being foster care siblings and part of an umpire crew.

Just as foster children must depend on one another to make it through the day, so umpires must depend on the rest of the crew if the crew is to survive. When my partner is in the “A” slot and he turns his back on to pursue a “trouble ball” he needs to know absolutely that I will come out from behind the plate, observe the touch at first, and take the runner into second if necessary. He needs to know that I will uphold the integrity of our team by doing my job while he does his, If he is worried that I’m not watching the runner, he can’t concentrate on making the tough call he is sprinting out to cover.

Likewise, I really feel as if I have been thrown under the bus when, with a runner on first and me in the “B” slot and the batter launches a line drive down into the left field corner, my partner stands rivited behind home plate, admiring the force of the blow. Now we have runners headed to second and third, the throw about to be rifled back into the infield, and only me in a position to make a good call at second and a really poor call at third. If the throw goes to third, our crew is dead. At best, we both are out of position to make at the call, and at worst, we blow the call. Either way, we have lost credibility.

We could have avoided the disintegration of our team had we 1) done an adequate pregame and 2) followed the plan to which we both had agreed. There is nothing more satisfying to my ears on the field when I hear my partner call, “I got the runner” or “I’m at third if he comes”, and it is not just because we’ve got all the action covered. When he says, “I’ve got your back,” it is affirmation that we are a team, that I have at least one person out there on my side who will stand behind me, no matter what happens. It is the recognition that we are both on the same page as we pursue the course we have set out for ourselves and that I can have full confidence in the only friend I have out there on the field.

Deshawn Patrick did more for me this weekend than make me a better foster and adoptive parent. His frequent references to the value of commitment helped me crystalize my thinking about what it means to be part of an umpire crew and the responsibilities inherent therein. For all of that, Deshawn, I am extremely grateful.

When someone believes in you, you can’t be stopped

As an adoptive parent as well as a professional foster parent maintaining, along with my dear wife, a foster home for kids diagnosed as having Reactive Attachment Disorder, I go to educational conferences each year for help improving my parenting skills. This weekend I am privileged to be attending a conference whose keynote speaker is Deshawn Patrick. For those of you who are not Mariner fans, Deshawn came to that club in the same year as Junior Griffey, 1987. They were both outstanding athletes who could run and hit as well as any players in the majors. The two of them got to the majors through two very different routes. We all know the story of Junior, who had a world class baseball-playing father to guide and support him thorough his formative years. Deshawn Patrick, on the other hand, was in foster care from the time he was one, bounced from home to home to home. Considering he was signed by the Mariners when he was 19, there had to have been something more than the non-existant doting dad to help Deshawn achieve the baseball success that he did.

I asked Deshawn what happened in his life to allow him to avoid the pitfalls of foster care (75% of today’s prison population has spent at least six months in foster care). His answer was quite revealing.

“One of the things that foster kids hate the most is the fact that they have a thick file that follows them wherever they go. The minute they get into trouble at school, the principal reaches into the file cabinet to pull out their thick file. And you know what? That file never says ‘Deshawn has the potential to be a great baseball player, or a prolific writer, or a dynamite artist’; instead, it says ‘ Deshawn never completes his work, is a distraction in the classroom, and is a social misfit.’ No one reading that file would ever give me any hope for achieving something good.

“Baseball, and the coaches who said I could be a great baseball player, my ton of friends, and my grandmother who always loved me, gave me the passion to endure all the foster homes could give out. I made up my mind that I was going to make myself proud. I knew that everyone one expected me to be a troubled foster child with a checkered past and a doubtful future, but I knew differently. I knew that what was inside no one else could see unless they looked past my foster home files. No one, not even my closest friends, could comprehend how it felt to come home from school and not know if the state had decided to place us in another foster home or if my foster parent had thrown in the towel. It was hard to concentrate on the ABC’s and 123’s when I didn’t know where I would be living one day to the next.

Deshawn became emotional when he talked about the support his grandmother gave him and by the time he had finished talking about how powerful it can be when someone believes in you there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. As I drove home this afternoon I thought long and hard about what I was or wasn’t doing to empower my children to become the very best they can be. Those thoughts took me to my passion, baseball umpiring, and made me take a long hard look at what I do to empower players, coaches, and my peers to be the very best they can be. I’m not sure what the answers are in either arena, but I do know I can’t wait to get back to Day 2 of the conference tomorrow, whose theme is based on Deshawn Patrick’s book, And Some Rise Above It. Maybe Deshawn’s insights will help me find those answers.

Keep your eyes on what matters

A couple of years ago when my large 3,2,2 ball/strike/out indicator began to lose its numbers from too much use, I decided not to spend money on a new one, but to fix the one I had. A fellow umpire told me how he had put notches in the wheel which were a lot easier to see than the fading numbers.

He started by marking the visible arc you can see on the white wheel when the “1” is showing, then when the “2 “ is showing and finally, when the “3 “ is showing on the ball wheel. Then he gently pried the two parts of the indicator apart, revealing the wheels.

Using a hacksaw and file. he just cut one notch on the wheel when the 1 is showing in the window, two for 2, and three for 3. Careful, the two and three are hard to distinguish with the thumb on the ‘ball’ wheel. The wheel doesn’t turn as much between numbers on the ‘ball’ wheel, for obvious
reasons, and it has the smallest exposed edge. .

Another benefit of the notches is that I can tell quickly without even lifting the indicator up or moving my head down, what the count is. The notches are easy to feel, and I can confidently keep track of the count with my thumb and finger while, at the same time, keep track of the ball with my eyes.

Dressing for success

From my vantage point at my work, I have a clear view of many of the hopeful candidates waiting for their turn to be interviewed for a job at my company. No matter what their sex, creed, or national origin, they all share one thing in common. They come dressed for the occasion, hoping that a freshly ironed shirt, pressed slacks, and polished shoes will help create that positive frame of mind in their interviewer towards them. They come with a purpose, and they want their preparedness to show.

How many of us approach our games with the same zeal that potential new hires exhibit at my workplace? I mean, it’s the same thing, isn’t it? We want to have the balance of the positive mind set tipped in our favor the minute we stride out on to the field for the pre-game meeting. Don’t you think for a minute that the coaches and players aren’t sizing you up, based on how you look in your umpire uniform. How much confidence do you inspire in coaches and players when you are wearing the same shirt you threw, balled up and sweaty, into the trunk two days earlier? What do you think the reaction is to your heather gray slacks that have wrinkles on top of wrinkles up and down the pant legs because you didn’t take the time to wash them after the last game? You lose a golden opportunity to create a favorable first impression from the start when you show up on the field, not dressed for the part. Unfortunately, you don’t get a second chance to create a good first impression. Do it right the first time!

Coaches and players don’t care how good a game you called yesterday. They are only interested in how good a game you are going to call today. Their perception that they will get a good game from you will be heightened by the non-verbal message you send when you conduct that pre-game conference in a freshly ironed shirt, clean and pressed pants, and shoes shined to military inspection standard.

I laughed when Shawn wrote about polish keeping the rain out of your shoes, but he is right. Not only will liberal amounts of polish do just that, but it will preserve the leather a lot longer and will make you next shoe shine a breeze. I remember watcing Shawn’s post-game ritual with his shoes 17 years ago in the parking lot following a college game. First, he took the time to pry out the chunks of dirt from the crevice between the leather and and sole before brushing the rest of the shoe off. The next step was to slip shoe trees into place before sliding the entire shoe into an old large sock. Finally, the dressed shoe was placed carefully in his equipment bag until that moment when he would take the shoes out for a good polishing prior to the next game. The sock trick is a good one; it keeps the dirty shoe from mucking up the rest of the equipment bag and it keeps the polished shoes from getting black blotches on the other gear in the bag.

You are proud of the work you do as an umpire. Share that pride with the rest of the world by always assuring that you come to work each time properly dressed for success. You’ll earn the respect of everyone around you and your game will be better for it. Opening day looms; will you be ready?

Inclement weather frustrates anxious umpires

It is Wednesday of spring break and under normal conditions we all would have had at least three days of pre-season games under our belts by now here in Maine. However, the snow is finally leaving the ground, aided by the 50 mph winds and rain that have buffeted us for the last four days. We’ve had no games thus far and “the outlook isn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine” for the rest of this week into the next. Some of us have been looking at pitches during indoor batting practice at the local high school; others have been poring over their case book and rule books, looking for the justification for the right answers on their Part 2 Federation exam that was handed back last week. Still others run their Jim Evans Balk video for the umpteenth time, trying to commit to memory the pictures of what constitutes balk and what that will look like in real time. In the homes of those umpires who will do both high school and college games when the fields become playable. a dog-eared copy of Chris Jaksa’s and Rick Roder’s Rule Differences Edition of their monumenal treatise Rules of Professional Baseball, a Comprehensive Reorganization and Interpretation provides easy-to-comprehend verbage that clearly delineates the differences between the NCAA and NFHS codes.

No matter what the activity, the driving force behind them all is the same, boredom coupled with rising anxiety. We’re bored because of the same-old, same-old monotinous empty motions of waking up in the morning, checking the weather forecast, catching a bit of Mike and Mike in the Morning, all culminating in the obvious truth that there will be no games today. We’re filled with rising anxiety because we hark back to Doug Harvey’s words (I think that he is the proper person to which to attribute the sentiment) “Baseball is the only profession where we are expected to be perfect on opening day and improve from there.” Golly, wouldn’t it be great just to be given the chance to get out there to practice being perfect!

Hang in there, guys. Our day is coming. And when it does, you are going to be good. And you’ll be good not because you just lucked out. Vince Lombardi was renown for admonishing his Packers, “There is no such thing as luck. Luck is what happens when preparation and opportunity meet”. You are going to be good because your preparation reviewing old exams, rewinding the balk DVD, and getting Jaksa and Roder down pat will serve you to the utmost when your first and the succeeding game opportunities presents themselves. Carpe diem!