A fairly sunny afternoon on the south side of Seattle had me excited for my afternoon game up in Ballard.
Which means only that I’d forgotten how quickly the weather changes between different parts of the city.
The weather was SO nice, in fact, that I called My Barista as I drove north on the Alaskan viaduct along the waterside to tell her she should check out the sun over the sound if she had a chance.
Hence, I was a little bit stunned when I got a call from my partner on my mobile phone asking whether I’d checked the rainout line.
I, of course, had not. As I got further north, however, I noticed a preponderance of clouds gathering. I couldn’t believe it.
My partner said he had checked the line and that our game was one of the few on the north end of town that had yet to be called. Hence, we needed to get to the field.
Upon arrival, it was clear it had yet to rain in that area. The sun was trying to stay visible among all the clouds, but it was a battle. My partner decided to take the plate as his game management skills might better allow us to get as much baseball played as possible before any weather trumped our efforts.
Game management might be the biggest hidden skill of an umpire. There are dozens of little things umpires do to keep the game moving along at a steady pace. It’s likely that all of them are a complete secret to a neophyte until a more-veteran umpire clues them into such things.
The largest one brought to my attention thus far has been keeping balls in play. In my first games behind the plate, I had been a little slow to get new balls to the catcher when a ball was hit foul beyond the fences. Balls hit back to the fences were retrieved by the catcher and then thrown back to the pitcher.
The tip I was given was to allow the catcher to go fetch such balls while I throw a new ball out to the pitcher.
This move is likely obvious to most, but it seemed revelatory to me.
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
So, back to the game at hand.
At our plate meeting, the coach of the hosting team told us we’d be umpiring the first-ever game on their brand-new field. The infield was entirely artificial turf, which I liked quite a bit. The scoreboard wasn’t yet working. Rather, it was likely working, but they were still trying to learn how to operate it in preparations for, I expect, the first varsity game on the field.
When the home team earned their first base hit, the ball was taken out of play and tossed to the head coach who was in the box at third base. Unclear as to why it was done, he threw the ball in to the catcher, who handed it to my partner behind the plate. While all this transpired, there were questions and answers exchanged, none of which seemed to clear up any confusion as to whether the ball should be kept for preservation’s sake.
Luckily, being a smart umpire, my partner kept the ball separate so, when the other coach came up to us between inning to retrieve the ball-I’d come in to see if he had any early observations for me on which to work-he had it ready for him.
He also had ready for me a one-word tip for me.
‘Hustle.’
It wasn’t so much a commentary on what I was doing while the game was in play. What he suggested was that whenever I had somewhere to be, get there a little faster than a walk. That is, when the third out is made, jog out to right field. When a batter reaches first safely and I have to shift over to the ‘B’ position, jog there.
Point taken.
Much like how you want your uniform to be neat so the first impression delivered by your visual appearance is one of sharpness, being seen as hustling between plays during the game gives everyone a good impression that you are serious about what you’re doing and will work hard to get your calls correct.
What’s a little hard about that particular comment for me, however, is that ‘hustle’ should be the one thing I didn’t have to specifically learn in order to be an umpire. Any cognitive person could guess that ‘hustle’ is an important factor in doing anything on athletic field of play, even as an official.
I was a little disappointed, but I assure you that I jogged a fairly healthy pace to each spot the rest of the game.
