How to Umpire Baseball and Softball » spring training

Chapter Eight: Opening Day

Editor — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:28:04 +0000

April 10 Potter County Memorial Stadium, home of the Amarillo Gold Sox, is a huge iron-beamed dinosaur of a park. Set in an industrial neighborhood of factories and vacant lots, this relic can hold 6,500 fans, but never does. Lugging equipment bags and hangered uniforms, Charlie and I trudge through the turnstile and into the bowels of [...]

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Chapter Eight: Opening Day

Chapter Six: The Pursuit of Excellence

Editor — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:10:16 +0000

March 24 This week’s piece of work, Fred Frazier. The second baseman for the AAA Salt Lake team is of the Billy Martin mold. Small in stature, volcanic in temperament, he exacts the utmost in patience from an umpire. Today I am on the bases, and rookie Chuck Neisler is calling his first triple-A game behind the [...]

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Chapter Six: The Pursuit of Excellence

Chapter Four: Fraternizing

Editor — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:00:09 +0000

March 17 Charlie has a facility for banter with black ballplayers that I lack with most white players. It’s as though they’re members of a secret club, with a secret language. Actually, Charlie speaks two languages. When he meets my white, middle-class parents, he sounds like Eddie Haskell greeting Beaver’s parents. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Boga. [...]

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Chapter Four: Fraternizing

Chapter Three: Rosie

Editor — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:57:43 +0000

March 14 Lounging around the motel pool this evening, I thought of spring training two years earlier, this very motel. Charlie and I were rookies, Bill Rosenberry the crew chief. “Rosie” was one of the many unforgettable personalities that litter the baseball scene—in his favorite expression, “a piece of work.” I see him sitting outside room 13, [...]

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Chapter Three: Rosie

Chapter One: Two for Texas

Editor — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:50:20 +0000

El Centro, California, March 1977 Spring is a dicey season in the Imperial Valley. As I drive south toward the Mexican border, desert winds torture the powdery landscape. A fast-flowing river of sand obscures the highway; a gritty gray haze hangs in the air, and I periodically dab my nose with a wet handkerchief. My VW [...]

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Chapter One: Two for Texas