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.