Confessions Of An ASA Umpire

by John
(Southern California ASA Umpire)

Greetings from the capital of fastpitch softball.

I love football. I love to sleep. I love to watch Sunday morning political talkshows, and I love my Tivo. The alarm went off at 5:50 AM, giving me 70 minutes until I had to pick up my partner. I have to tape up my ankles, take a whole bunch of medicine for my arthritis, and be 30 miles away by 7:30 for four games at a school in South Orange County, and I do this willingly.

Sure, the 140 bucks for six hours comes in handy for six hours of work, but what I love the most about the sport of softball, is that I have seen hundreds of girls who have earned scholarships, coaches that I have developed great respect for, and parents that probably do not remember me. The main goal of a good umpire is to be totally irrelavant to the game. I want to put as much ball into that 90 minutes that I can. I do not want to walk girls because the game dies during walks. If a player stands there and lets the ball hit her, I will not give her first base. Simply put, in my games, you have to earn reaching base.

Back to Sunday, well I was prepared because I downloaded the schedule off of the host team's homepage, so I knew I had some pretty good 14U teams on tap for the day, but after doing this for 30 years and being out of shape, the morning for me is very difficult, and the first game feels like I am walking on legs that just do not want to work in the cold. And believe it or not, it does get cold in So. Cal in Winter.

It was 39 degrees at 7:40 and my normal feeling the first game is that I am in so much pain, that I do not know if I will be able to make it through the first game much less than four straight. After a while the Gabapentin, Naproxen and Vicodin kick in, and by the last 20 minutes of the first game I am starting to feel better. However, I have not had any caffeine and I am dragging around. I do not move the way I should and while I am on the bases, my partner has to make adjustments to make up for my lack of mobility. Umpiring is more about angles than anything else.

The first game was the most competitive of the day and everything went well. In fact, the whole day went well because everyone did their job the way they should. The friendlies organizers did a great job, 90 minutes on, 15 minutes off.. lather, rinse repeat The seven other guys umpiring on those four fields probably had 120 years of umpiring experience between them, and some of us have done many seasons of high level ball, high school and college ball.

Things went great, and while my partner and I had one of the better teams in So California for three of our games the day went without discussion. The only real interesting thing on the day is still on my right leg above my knee... A good hitting lefty drilled a line drive that hit me and hurt like hell. I will have that bruise until next week. It is really hard to escape a ball that is tracking you, but thankfully I was in foul position so it did not have an impact on the at bat. However, I found it amazingly cute how the first baseman asked me how I was before she tracked down the ball since she had no idea if it was fair or foul since, as I remember, my partner did not make an immediate call. I guess that last sentence says more about the game that I love, than anything else I could write

I took two vivarin before my last two games... you know on the plate, you have to be alert... Because afterall, the world needs more Lerts.

Play Ball.