I had been waiting for today since I was a junior in college. Back in 1994, my roommate John[1] and I watched a 30 minute ESPN special about Umpire School. In one of our favorite highlights, major league umpires charged at students, shouting, pretending to be rabid managers. “That looks like fun!” we thought.
Well, today, four weeks into Umpire School, we got our training in the handling of “situations.”[2] First was the classroom lecture, which began with “If you have a tape recorder, please turn it off.” You see, umpires are NOT ALLOWED to swear on the field; however, managers’ and players’ vocabularies don’t seem to include much beyond f***, s***, and various compound versions of such words. As part of our training, the instructors played the role of managers, and acted out actual situations that we might experience in the minor leagues, Language and all.[3]
Much of situation training is common sense to a veteran teacher – listen more than you talk, answer reasonable questions, try not to appear to be the aggressor, choose your words carefully, sometimes it’s better to say nothing than to risk inciting an angry combatant further, and so on. Knowing when to bring forth the ejection is the tricky part. Ideally, we don’t want to eject anyone; the fans are at the ballpark to see their team, not the umpires, and (most importantly) ejections cause paperwork. But, we cannot take abuse. We are instructed to eject immediately any participant who makes personal references: “That’s a horrible [bleepity-bleep bleep] call” is rude, but not an ejectionable offense; “You’re a horrible [bleepity-bleep bleep] umpire” is a ticket to the locker room. In principle, both the participants and the umpires should know where the “line” is drawn between a mere argument and an ejection. When the participants step over that line, they should expect to be ejected, and we must follow through.
Digression: I recall my first year refereeing intramural basketball at Woodberry. I was not a very good ref at all then, nor did I have much experience with basketball culture. One player, a good player who maybe could have played on the varsity team, was always whining, complaining, carrying on, giving me lip about my calls. Well into the season, I got fed up with his rotten attitude. I gave him a technical foul for his lip. He smiled, looked at me, and said, “about time!” He knew much better than I where the line should have been drawn.
Anyway, at the fields, we spent a couple of hours doing “situation” drills. As the plate umpire I angered a manager when I interrupted his prolonged strategic conference. I didn’t kick him out, but I did toss[4] the player who threw his helmet in disgust. Later, as the base umpire I called a balk, and I ended up tossing the pitcher when he threw his hat in disgust. In both cases I did an acceptable job, but I have room for improvement. (At the plate, I should have allowed the conference to continue a bit longer than I did; on the bases, I should have tried to warn the pitcher to put his hat back on before he threw it, because that might have helped keep the guy in the game.)
Tonight I’ve just finished writing up my Umpire’s Report based on one of today’s situations. Part of our training includes instruction on how to write such reports. Mine is about a handwritten page long, and it took me about ten minutes to complete. Although it was just a wee bit uncomfortable to write – we are not allowed to use euphemisms, we must quote precisely what was said to us, Language and all – this was not a difficult exercise for me. I feel more than a bit of sympathy for some of my classmates, though. Most of these folks may have graduated high school, but are not particularly academically inclined. To write a full page of description, with proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar, may for them conjure previously banished nightmares of Mrs. Marshall’s senior English class.[5]
Stay tuned for the reaction from the “league office” to my report. Considering that I’ve already been given Looks on the field for using the words “unambiguous,” “disingenuous,” and “pi,” I’m interested in how my report will be received. I don’t think I used any arcane language, but we’ll see.
Well, today, four weeks into Umpire School, we got our training in the handling of “situations.”[2] First was the classroom lecture, which began with “If you have a tape recorder, please turn it off.” You see, umpires are NOT ALLOWED to swear on the field; however, managers’ and players’ vocabularies don’t seem to include much beyond f***, s***, and various compound versions of such words. As part of our training, the instructors played the role of managers, and acted out actual situations that we might experience in the minor leagues, Language and all.[3]
Much of situation training is common sense to a veteran teacher – listen more than you talk, answer reasonable questions, try not to appear to be the aggressor, choose your words carefully, sometimes it’s better to say nothing than to risk inciting an angry combatant further, and so on. Knowing when to bring forth the ejection is the tricky part. Ideally, we don’t want to eject anyone; the fans are at the ballpark to see their team, not the umpires, and (most importantly) ejections cause paperwork. But, we cannot take abuse. We are instructed to eject immediately any participant who makes personal references: “That’s a horrible [bleepity-bleep bleep] call” is rude, but not an ejectionable offense; “You’re a horrible [bleepity-bleep bleep] umpire” is a ticket to the locker room. In principle, both the participants and the umpires should know where the “line” is drawn between a mere argument and an ejection. When the participants step over that line, they should expect to be ejected, and we must follow through.
Digression: I recall my first year refereeing intramural basketball at Woodberry. I was not a very good ref at all then, nor did I have much experience with basketball culture. One player, a good player who maybe could have played on the varsity team, was always whining, complaining, carrying on, giving me lip about my calls. Well into the season, I got fed up with his rotten attitude. I gave him a technical foul for his lip. He smiled, looked at me, and said, “about time!” He knew much better than I where the line should have been drawn.
Anyway, at the fields, we spent a couple of hours doing “situation” drills. As the plate umpire I angered a manager when I interrupted his prolonged strategic conference. I didn’t kick him out, but I did toss[4] the player who threw his helmet in disgust. Later, as the base umpire I called a balk, and I ended up tossing the pitcher when he threw his hat in disgust. In both cases I did an acceptable job, but I have room for improvement. (At the plate, I should have allowed the conference to continue a bit longer than I did; on the bases, I should have tried to warn the pitcher to put his hat back on before he threw it, because that might have helped keep the guy in the game.)
Tonight I’ve just finished writing up my Umpire’s Report based on one of today’s situations. Part of our training includes instruction on how to write such reports. Mine is about a handwritten page long, and it took me about ten minutes to complete. Although it was just a wee bit uncomfortable to write – we are not allowed to use euphemisms, we must quote precisely what was said to us, Language and all – this was not a difficult exercise for me. I feel more than a bit of sympathy for some of my classmates, though. Most of these folks may have graduated high school, but are not particularly academically inclined. To write a full page of description, with proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar, may for them conjure previously banished nightmares of Mrs. Marshall’s senior English class.[5]
Stay tuned for the reaction from the “league office” to my report. Considering that I’ve already been given Looks on the field for using the words “unambiguous,” “disingenuous,” and “pi,” I’m interested in how my report will be received. I don’t think I used any arcane language, but we’ll see.
[2] Meaning, “arguments.”
[3] The ESPN piece from 1994 didn’t include the kind of Language I heard today. Huh.
[4] Interestingly, although we spent days and days learning the precise form for the calls of strike, ball, safe, and out, no one ever taught us the proper mechanic for the ejection. I guess it is assumed that anyone who comes to Umpire School is gonna figure that one out for himself soon enough.
[5] Which, no matter how terrifying, can’t begin to compare to Mr. Reimers’ sophomore English class. Woodberry students would do fine here.
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