Day 24

There's not much to report from the past couple days. I wasn't scheduled for a game Tuesday and didn't get in as the first alternate Wednesday. So now I'm back on track with the same number of games as most people. They've been throwing in a lot more arguments and ejections into both the camp games and cage work, but I have yet to be on the receiving end of anything more than minor chirping. At first, I thought this was not good because they aren't challenging me with tough situations. But upon further review, most of the arguments are a result of somebody messing up a call or somebody getting a call right, but then not being confident about it when questioned by a "manager." I haven't really messed things up, so I haven't given them many openings for confrontation. Still, I predict that in my next game, they're going to have some sort of scripted play where they force me to eject somebody. It's supposed to rain the next two days, so that might not happen till Saturday, but whenever it happens, I'll be ready.

Day 22

Another day, another camp game. I was in line for a potential day off from camp games, but I was an alternate for the second game and ended up having to work again. I'm one of the few, possibly the only one, who has had 5 games already. The craziest thing that got thrown at us was an issue with injuries and trips to the mound, but that was while I was over behind first and I wasn't involved at all, even though the instructor who was playing first base was trying to get me to jump in (clearly a trap). So while my partner messed that up, I stood by and watched, even as he ejected the manager. They also tried to trick us into calling balks on almost every play. We didn't call any, but they did succeed in having me be so focused on the pitcher that I only turned my head when he made a pickoff throw instead of stepping, then turning. I still technically made the right call, but I'll work on getting the footwork right next time. During my plate inning, I had a ball go out of play on an overthrow on a bases loaded hit to the outfield. I awarded the bases so quickly and thoroughly (scoring the runners who had already scored, like I'm supposed to) that apparently almost everyone (fellow students) watching thought I did it wrong at first. I inadvertently confused my partner with this as well, but he got over it. As for making my presence on the field bigger, I tried out the taller, wider mechanics and didn't get any complaints on that. One other thing that I'll be working on is making my steps more aggressive so that it looks like I'm working harder. As a runner, and a fairly efficient one at that, the idea of unnecessary motion isn't at all natural, but if that's what I have to do, then I'll do it.

We have our last written test tomorrow other than the final and possible pop quizzes, so I've got some more studying to do tonight.

And one thing I forgot to mention from last week: They started mixing in some "Good job" comments with the "Not a bad job" comments. This is encouraging.

Day 20

3 weeks down, 2 to go. This was a very very busy week with the beginning of camp games and 5 tests in 6 days. I'll try to update you on everything, but I'm obviously going to forget some things, so I'll just fill in the blanks in later posts.

On the testing side of things, we had 5 tests this week. On 3 of them I didn't miss any and on the other two I think I missed 3 out of 100 between them. Also, on 4 out of 5 of them, my cage group (K-Zone) had the highest average score in the class. We've been at or near the top of the class as a group on almost every test. The top scoring group gets some sort of prize at the graduation banquet (something valued "Much less than $10,000" as Jim says), so I guess that's something to look forward to. We've covered almost the entire rulebook at this point, so I don't think we'll have very many more tests next week. But that just means they're going to find other things for us to do. For example, today we watched a movie about bombing raids during World War II. Also, on the topic of our classroom work, the guy who sits to my left is dyslexic, and the guy on my right has ADD. Hilarity ensues.

As I mentioned briefly earlier, camp games started Wednesday. We run two fields at a time, splitting the class half and half. Between the two games, we get 36 umpires through in each set. We've been doing two sets of games each afternoon. Next week, we might start fitting in a third set of games in the morning once we are mostly done with the classroom work. With the way the rotation has worked, along with me being the first alternate today and having to work, I got my fourth camp game in before some people had even gotten their second one. My third and fourth games were my best ones so far, as I have continued to clean up my mechanics. I do still have one big obstacle. They basically told me today that I'm very technically sound. I recognize my responsibilities, get where I need to be, and make the calls. But I'm not very big. My volume has been good. Now it's a matter of making my presence on the field bigger. They gave me some tips on that for my mechanics and posture, so I'll work on that tomorrow off by myself in a park near here.

The other part of umpiring is plate work, as in calling balls and strikes. Up until this week, we have been building a foundation for calling pitches. When we've been in the cages, we were just calling 3 strikes and 4 balls on a right handed batter, then the same for a left handed batter. Then we started working in some check swings and adjustments for a batter crowding the plate. This week, we finally started calling real pitches. It took a few times through the cages to get used to actually calling the pitches from the new stance. Pitches just don't look the same as they did from my old stance. But I've adjusted and my pitch tracking today was pretty good. Also, today we added in another way of looking at our pitch calling. All of our cage work is video taped. Today, we still got 14 pitches, but they were all to a right handed batter and there were no check swings or adjustments. We were given sheets of paper with a strike zone printed on them. After every pitch, we marked down where we thought the pitch was. Then, we'll be able to look at the video and compare it to our sheet to see how good our strike zone is. I haven't had a chance to look at my video yet, but I did feel good about my zone today. One other thing I've had to adjust to is that the way a catcher catches the pitch actually matters. I've always been taught that the strike zone is established over the plate, not where the ball is caught. After all, the batter hits the ball out over the plate, not out of the catcher's glove. But in pro ball, they apparently get all pissed off when a pitch crosses the zone over the knees but is dropping and is caught really low and you call it a strike. (I had an issue with a couple of these in my second camp game. I called them strikes, they told me to call them balls next time.) So I'll keep working on that.

Other notes:
-I've never heard the term "Legalized Hooker" so much. (In the rules, Hooker is one of the batters in the batting out of turn examples. I think they did that on purpose)
-There was frost on my car a couple times this week. I know it has been even colder up north where all of you are, but still, this is not the weather I signed on for. It did warm back up the last couple days and is supposed to stay in the upper 70s for highs for the next week or so.
-With the lack of hard field pivoting drills, my ankle and knee are feeling a lot better. I've also been wearing my taller soccer socks this week to keep a little bit of compression on the legs and knees without messing with my mobility, so that has helped too.
-When abbreviating Pinch Hitter in my notes, I found myself writing it "pH"
-I've never been around so many people that chew tobacco
-I somehow managed to inherit a car-load full of riders. They used to ride in the mornings with another guy, but he was late a couple times, so they rode with me. I think they must have hurt the other guy's feelings or something because now he doesn't drive at all, leaving me with my new crew. One of them works security for ESPN, two of them are from California, and the other one is the only girl here that's about my age. (And to head off the inevitable comments, she's from Canada, taller than me, and engaged, so there's no interest there whatsoever)
-ESPN2 is a static POS here. So much for the Australian Open.
-Circuit City is closing all its stores? What?

Day 18

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been really busy, and I still am, so this is going to be short and I'll get a longer update in over the weekend. Also, on top of all the things I have to do, I've been slowed down by left ankle and knee issues, so that's been fun.

Camp games started Wednesday. Of course, I was assigned to the first time slot as the first plate umpire. I was about as nervous as I've ever been for anything. I did alright, but there are still a lot of little things to improve on. Today, I once again got put in the first time slot behind the plate for round two of camp games. But today, I had Thursday on my side. I was much calmer and felt a lot better and more confident out there today. We have yet another test tomorrow, so I've got more studying to do tonight.

Day 14

It looks like there's a flag on the play. Let's see what the call is. False start #3 Offense. Five day penalty. Retry

They decided they were jumping the gun a little bit with the evaluations. (Actually it was mostly our 70-something year old instructor who underwent heart surgery Thursday and was back on the fields Friday who decided we weren't ready yet) So instead of starting the camp games on Saturday, we're going to delay that by a few days. I think the idea is that even though we've already covered all the positioning material, we still have rules to cover and we could use extra review of the field work as well. I know that I could certainly use some extra days to review the footwork and responsibilities on all the situations.

We had another test Saturday. I got 30/30 on that. We also went over the details of what we're getting ourselves into. If you make it out of here and get selected to go to the PBUC evaluation course, you do that in March. While there, you umpire high school and college tournament games and are evaluated. They rank you and place you into minor league positions, depending on where the jobs are available. In your first season, you get $1900 a month in season, plus $20something per diem. You get small raises each year and for getting promoted to certain levels. The rookie leagues are fairly compact geographically, so they put you up in a condo and you commute to the games every day (they pay you a little bit per mile if you're the driver). In A and up, you get put up in hotels in whatever city you happen to be in. In AA they start giving you your own room instead of having a roommate. When you're going to be making the jump from A to AA, which is 2 man to 3 man crews, they usually send you to the fall instructional league to learn the 3 man system. At AAA, you are no longer evaluated by the minor league people. Instead, the major league supervisors start to look at you. If you're good enough you start to get fill in games and spring training games. And eventually, you hopefully get called up to the majors. So that's my potential career path.

For my off day today, I didn't do much. Last week I did the pizza buffet, so this week it was time to try the Chinese buffet. It was a small place, but they had decent food. Plusses: salmon, shrimp with lobster sauce, and water that doesn't smell awful. Minuses: chicken with broccoli instead of beef with broccoli, iffy fried rice and lo mein, and bad crab rangoon. Overall, I give it a 3/5. Tonight, I went to a laundromat for the first time. I'm pretty sure I was the only non-hispanic person in there. Since I'm fairly tan after being down here for a couple weeks, I blended right in. Everyone talked to me in spanish. One guy tried to sell me razors. Another guy complimented me on my folding technique. I'll definitely be going back there next weekend.

Day 12

This morning we had our hardest test so far. I missed one question out of 80 because I missed a word when reading the true false question which made the statement false instead of true. My group still managed the highest average test score in the class, so at least I didn't cost us there. When we're taking tests, they like to play music as a distraction of sorts, since we won't be umpiring in a sterile environment. The Livin' La Vida Loca singing and dancing gorilla was quite entertaining during the last test. This time they were playing a country album recorded by a major league umpire (Joe West). It was terrible, but that just made it easier to tune out.

The real deal starts tomorrow. Since we've covered the material faster than any class before us, our evaluations are going to start about a week earlier than they did last year. So that gives us more chances to shine (or more chances to screw up). The main part of our on-field evaluations come in the form of camp games. They give you a partner and a time slot. You spend half an inning as a plate umpire, sit out half an inning, and spend another half inning as a base umpire with you and your partner switching positions. They set up a bunch of scenarios for you as the inning goes on and you and your partner have to umpire them. The first ones will be basic and as we go along, they'll start throwing more things at us, like interference, check swings, angry coaches, and so on. Supposedly, if they're taking a serious look at you, they start to pull all sorts of tricky plays on you, so hopefully I'll have a few of those coming my way. I'm getting the hang of most of the footwork now. It's just a matter of reading plays quickly enough to get into the proper position. My plate work has been good over the last two days. I've been keeping the volume up while being well positioned and tracking the ball. My shifty eyes help a lot since you have to keep your body and head still while tracking the pitch all the way in by only moving your eyes. On the other hand, when you're looking at almost every other play on the field, they want you to move your whole head, not just your eyes. I think most of the reason for that is so that everyone, especially coaches and players, can tell from far away that you were looking at that play. If you just move your eyes, they might think you didn't see it since your head isn't pointed in the direction of the play. I don't really think about it anymore at this point. I just "keep my head on a swivel."

In closing, the most fun call I had today: "He's Out! He's Out! He's Pulling It Out!"

Day 10

The weather got a bit cooler here (low around 40, high in the low 60s) but it's still way better than back home. The rain has cleared out and it's supposed to be sunny the rest of the week. We had another test today. I missed a question about the umpire interfering with a catcher's attempt to throw out a stealing runner. I was torn between two answers and picked the wrong one. The rest of the morning was typical lecture material. In the afternoon I had some ups and downs. On the positive side, I did really well in my field work. We have added in awarding bases on overthrows and I nailed that a few times and was pointed out as a good example. On the negative side, when my group went into the cages, my stomach was killing me for some reason, so I was a little off, especially with my volume. But I'll get that fixed up for next time. On the entertaining side, I played a little shortstop today and had a hillarious play where the pitcher deflected the ball, causing me to charge in and barehand the ball. There was no prayer of me making the play at first, but I still flung it over there completely offbalance. It turned into a chance for the umpires to practice their out of play and awarding of bases mechanics.

Other notes:
-The stretching routine was a little slower today. That was probably just by chance, but maybe they listened to my comments a little bit.
-Jodie Meeks
-I forgot to mention this before: On my way down here, I was looking for a place to stop for lunch. I was near Gainesville, but I wasn't about to stop there, so I kept on going. Meanwhile, I kept seeing these billboards for a 24-hour strip club that welcomed couples and served lunch. The quantity of billboards rivaled Tom Raper. I even exited at the exit for that strip club. But I couldn't find the place, so I ate at Burger King instead.
-We had some impressively bad beef with broccoli for dinner last night. I think I was the only person who liked it even a little bit and that's only because I really really like beef with broccoli. Then tonight, we had a lo mein dish that had eerily similar beef and broccoli in it, along with some chicken and water chestnuts. It was better, but still nowhere near Wah Fu, Sesame or King Doh quality.
-My fortune cookie tonight said "As long as you don't sign up for anything new, you'll do fine." I don't know what to make of that.

Day 9

It was a rainy day today, so the schedule was a bit messed up. We took another test this morning. I stopped messing up and got 100% this time. The people who sit around me are starting to notice this and have started checking with me for answers on some things. After the test, we quickly went over a the R1-R3 positionings, then went out to the fields and did our outside work. After lunch we were going to try to fit in a little more field work, but it started raining about 3/4 of the way through our stretching drill, so we ended up back inside for the rest of the day. Speaking of the stretching drill, we had to write a short essay today talking about how things have been going for us so far. They asked for constructive criticism, so I gave them my opinions on our stretching drills. So we'll see if they decide to change that up a bit. Probably not, but you never know. The rest of the afternoon was just lectures on rules and their application. We do a safe-out concentration drill at the end of almost every day, but it involves running around outside. Since we were inside this afternoon, they had us do it while running in place behind our seats. This was fine for the Out calls, but on the first Safe I nearly got my head taken off. We toned it down after that.

Yesterday was a review day, so this week hasn't been as intense as the first week in terms of tons of information being thrown at us. Since there isn't a lot of new stuff, they are getting more picky when critiquing us in drills and with our plate work. We had a competition yesterday between 4 of the groups on taking grounders on the infield at first. Of the 40+ reps, only one of them (by my roommate) was deemed good enough to get a point. I like how they specifically say "Not a bad job" instead of "Good job" when they're complimenting us on our field work.

Yesterday one of the instructors asked me if I like Nelly. I replied, "I have to."

Today's Spanish billboard of the day is brought to you by Bud Light: La diferencia es TOMABILIDAD (I no longer take credit/blame for the Bud ads now that they have been bought out)

A sidenote: Part of today's test material involved substitutions. This got me thinking about how the Cardinals could apply these rules. One of the biggest issues that the Cards have been trying to fix this offseason has been the left handed relief pitching. They've signed a few guys, but really nobody better than they had last year, and honestly, possibly worse. But they have a Lefty that they didn't use at all last year who they could use this year: Rick Ankiel. You're allowed to move a pitcher to a different defensive position once per inning. So you could bring in a righty reliever, switch him with Ankiel for a tough lefty batter, then bring the righty back a batter later. Now there are obvious issues with having your relievers playing defense and Ankiel saying he never wants to pitch again, but really, I think they could make this work. And it would be great.

Anyway, time for dinner. Later

Day 7

The day of rest...sort of.

Sundays are off days here. We also got done about 2 hours early on Saturday to give us some extra free time. They put together a cookout for us down at the pool last night. It was okay. I'm sure I would have cared more if I had had any desire to consume any of the free beer.

There isn't much to update on the umpiring school front. We took our 3rd test Saturday. I missed two questions; one because I'm an idiot and one because I thought the question involved a fan reaching out into foul territory, not straight up in dead territory. My field and plate mechanics continue to improve. We've covered almost all of the different runner situations, so it's just a matter of repetition on a lot of the field work with some small differences depending on where your runners are. In fact, they told us that this is the most material they have ever covered in the first week of training in the history of this umpire school. We're supposedly picking up on things faster than any class had before us, so They've added another aspect to the plate stance, so I've got new things to work on there. My voice is holding up a little better now than it did earlier in the week. I was still recovering from a cold and my voice was a little scratchy by the evening, but it's staying strong the whole day now, as long as I'm staying hydrated.

I took the off day as an opportunity to get a run in this morning. I ran a couple miles to a park behind the nearby community college. They had some baseball fields there, but they were locked up. So I used the bullpen plates to practice my plate mechanics and worked on my fielding footwork in the grassy area next to the fields. I got in a solid set of stretches after my workout. They have us do this warmup routine here every day before we do our field work, and I think some of the leg stretches do more harm than good. They should really consult a runner when designing leg stretches, not baseball people. They don't feed us on Sundays, so I'll either be hitting up a Chinese buffet or Cici's pizza for dinner in a bit. I have to maximize my calories per dollar down here with my limited spending funds.

Some other assorted notes about life in Florida:
-The hotel is about what you would expect from a place with "Quality" in the name: decent, but not great. The internet connection has been sketchy, but we do have 2-ply toilet paper so that's something.
-The water here is a little sulfury. It's not quite bad enough for me to go out and buy bottled water, but I do drink the Kool-Aid at the catered meals instead of the water.
-We have 3 HBOs, 5 Spanish channels, but no music video channels. So, while I have not been able to watch any new music videos, I have gotten in some entertaining TV time, including Spanish dubbed versions of a Japanese war movie and Batman (the Tim Burton one).
-1-800-ABOGADO
-The weather has been warm and sunny pretty much every day, resulting in some sweet tan lines. I think this is something I'm not going to be able to avoid for the rest of my life.
-Ben Roethlisburger is apparently left footed.
-I'm getting very tired of all the commercials they show during NFL games.

Our next test is Tuesday, so my next post may be Tuesday night, or maybe later in the week.
Also, if you have any questions for me that you think everyone would want the answer to, go ahead and make comments on posts and I'll answer what I can.

Day 4

Happy Green Shirt Thursday. We are now a few days into umpire school. It’s been a lot of information and instruction to take in in a short period of time, but I’ve been through my share of intense courses before, so I’m better prepared than most for this. We had our first test yesterday. I got 50/50. We had our second test today. I missed one question because I answered it with the strict rule interpretation rather than how it’s actually enforced in professional baseball. I wish the tests counted for more, but obviously it’s more important to be able to put it together on the field than it is to answer test questions right. But it doesn’t hurt to dominate the tests too.

Our other written work comes in the form of worksheets and position reports. The worksheets essentially serve as study guides for our next tests. The position reports are a review for field work. They give us a situation every day (for example: runner on first, ball hit down the left field line, ball drops fair, R1 makes it safely to third base, BR makes it to second). Then we have to list out what the plate umpire and base umpire are each supposed to do on that play and show their positioning on the field.

For the field and cage work, things really started to come together for me today. Yesterday was our first day in the batting cages. That’s where we do our Plate work. We’re divided into groups of 5 for the cage work. In my group I have two guys who were at this school last year, a lady from Australia, and a guy from the Czech Republic. Lucky for me, the Aussie lady is shorter than me and the Czech guy is way taller but quieter than me, so I think I look a little better by comparison when we go in as a group. We each take a turn at Plate Umpire, while also rotating through catcher, batter, and pitching machine operator. All of it is video taped for us and we can view the video later to see what we need to work on. They’ve got me using a completely different plate stance than I used to use, so I’ve been practicing it a ton in the room (I have tape down on the floor and the mirror in my hotel room to mark positions). Today, I even got a compliment on having good voice, especially for someone my size. [Wow that Florida DB just lit up that Oklahoma WR] There’s still a lot of tweaking to do with my new plate stance, but the major changes are feeling more routine now.

In the field, I’m getting better with my footwork. There are very specific pivots and steps that need to be done depending on the situation. My experience as a soccer ref messes me up a little bit with the footwork because I’m used to backpedaling or side shuffling for certain situations. But for umpiring, you might take a drop step every now and then, but you’re always running forward while keeping your head pointed at the ball. So I have to keep reminding myself to turn and run forward. Also, as a runner, I’m not used to running one direction with my lower body while turning my upper body a completely different direction. But I’m getting better and within another week or so it’ll be routine. When you’re waiting in line, they tell you to get reps in as if you’re the umpire out there on that play. I do that about as much as anyone else. I also play outfield during some our drills and if it isn’t hit to me on a play, I do the umpiring footwork and signaling for that play out in the outfield.

Our first day off is Sunday, so my next update will probably be Saturday night or sometime Sunday.

Day 1

We just completed our first full day of training after having a lengthy orientation meeting last night. It's been very intense so far, as you might imagine. When I looked in the mirror when I was practicing my plate stance before dinner, I seriously looked older than I did this morning. Which is good, considering I look like one of the youngest people here, even though I'm about average. As for being short/small, a couple of the instructors (who are minor league umpires) are about as short as me. There are a couple of smallish people too, but it's very possible that I'm the lightest person here. I'm doing my part to change that though by getting seconds on every meal so far. About half of the students look like the average former baseball-playing 20-year olds. There are a decent number of older guys, a few guys from Japan, a few from Latin America one from France, one lady from Australia, and a few Canadians. So it's a pretty diverse crowd. I really enjoy hearing everyone's accents on calls. My roommate is from South Carolina. He's my age and has a fiancee. He knows a guy who used to be an instructor here, so he gave me a heads up on a couple things. I have no idea where he is right now.

As for the training, I've already learned a lot of things I've never been properly taught before about positioning and responsibilities on the field. One thing that's very clear to me is that I picked the right umpire school. The instructors are very clear, direct and helpful. The teaching philosophies make a lot of sense. And they're up front with you about what they're looking for in a prospective professional umpire. Hopefully I'll be able to take that and show them what they want to see. One surprising thing is that my volume hasn't been an issue so far. I know. Shocking. We'll see how that holds up over the next month. Anyway, back to studying and practicing for me. And maybe some football.

Day -1

After a long day of driving, I am finally at my hotel in McDonough, GA (just south of Atlanta). Highlights from the drive include a truck on fire somewhere in southern Illinois, a University of Kentucky Tennessee license plate, a Gas Station-Fireworks Store-Grocery Store near the Tennessee-Alabama-Georgia border, Bud Light billboards for 3 different NFL teams, and a spectacular wreck just north of Atlanta that had a couple cars on their sides. Add in fairly constant misty rain and fog and it’s a wonder I even made it this far. A shorter drive tomorrow puts me in Florida. Before I crash for the night, I figured I would give you a little bit of info on this whole umpiring school thing.

Orientation is Sunday evening, with regular training starting Monday morning. The course runs through February 8 with plenty of lectures, field work and plate work. At the end of the course, the best prospective umpires are named Honors graduates and are invited to the PBUC Minor League evaluation course in March. At the week-long evaluation course, they take a look at the Honors students from both of the umpiring schools and rank everyone. Then they start placing people into open slots in rookie leagues. From there, you get evaluated constantly and try to work your way up toward the Majors. But that’s getting a bit ahead of things. For now I’d settle for a good first day, which is why I’m staying at a Holiday Inn Express tonight.