Without the Inside the Pork Home Run, This Would Have Been a Boring Day

We’ve settled into a routine here at Umpire School. That routine is pretty, um, boring. I’m certainly having fun, learning a lot, the course is challenging me both physically and intellectually… but most of my days consist of standing around a lot.[1]

After class each morning, we head to the fields for 5-6 hours of instruction and drills. On Saturday and Monday combined, I umpired exactly 13 plays. Of those, I made one significant mistake, one complete embarrassment of myself, and 11 good (though never perfect) efforts. I also called balls and strikes in the batting cage for 20 pitches, and though my stance needs fine tuning, I didn’t do anything majorly stupid.

Those 13 plays and 20 pitches took maybe ten minutes or so to occur. That left about 10 hours of unbilled time on the fields. Okay, well, maybe an hour or so of that was lunch, but the rest was waiting in line, playing in the field, running the bases, and so forth. The most exciting part of the day came after a series of more and more intricate questions to chief instructor Paul Nauert: “What if the ball is thrown out of play and the batter had reached first before the throw? What if the batter hadn’t turned toward second base yet? What if the ball doesn’t go into the dugout but just gets caught in the first baseman’s jersey?” Fellow major leaguer Sam Holbrook came to Paul’s rescue, asking “Yeah, and what if a pig runs onto the field and eats the ball?” Paul was ready for that one: “Then you’d have an inside the pork home run.” Groan.

The instructors pound and pound at us about paying attention in line… we are told that if we only get 5 turns in a day, we really should have had 100 turns, because we should simulate each play while waiting in line. Yeah, well, I do that. Every pitch. And yet I *still* forgot to take my mask off on a ground ball toward third base.[2] Mental reps just don’t take the place of real reps, and real reps are in short supply when there are three fields for 120 people.

This afternoon marked my first foray in front of the pitching machine, and, more significantly, my first time wearing full plate equipment. I might be a football coach, but I certainly never was a football player. Yet, I have to wear a chest protector that bears tremendous resemblance to football shoulder pads and harnesses. I put on shin guards, steel-toed shoes, a mask, and a Personal Protective; wove my ball bag through my belt; carried[3] a ball-strike indicator and a plate brush. I decided that what I really need is full Imperial Stormtrooper apparel – it probably feels about the same as umpire gear, and looks cool, too.

As an aside, the plate brush comes with an interesting story. When I purchased my equipment from the Gerry Davis Equipment representative, he showed me an official umpire’s plate brush that he told me cost about $10. I asked him why I shouldn’t just head down to the hardware store and buy a cheap-o paintbrush for $1.50. His answer: “Yeah, that sounds expensive, but you’ll take not just 10 but 100 dollars worth of ribbing for using a paint brush.” Just a “ribbing” wasn’t enough reason for me to put down the ten bucks – for Bob’s sake, I’m a physics teacher who can quote from Star Trek… I know all about “ribbing.” However, my question got the guy thinking… he actually looked at the price in the catalog. The brush we were looking at was considerably cheaper; with the Umpire School discount, I think it came to just over a couple of dollars. So I bought it, and I will have to be ribbed for issues unrelated to my plate-cleaning methods.

Tonight I studied and did laundry. Tomorrow I have to get my new Umpire Pants hemmed.[4] Ho, hum, an exciting day in the life of an Umpire School Student. The scary thing is, despite all of the mundane standing around, I’m still having fun. Am I weird, or what?

[1] Sounds an awful lot like PLAYING baseball, doesn’t it?
[2] For the second time in four days.
[3] But did not use
[4] I asked the equipment salesman what to do about the 45-inch-long trousers that I had tried on. He told me to get them altered, and pointed to a sign on the door: “Jenny, 386-555-1345, $10. On the left, just before the bridge.” Is what I’m doing moral?