Robservations: Umpires have a tough job
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One? Roofing. For obvious reasons. But the second one may surprise you.
When you think of the thing you most wouldn’t want to be doing on a given summer day or night, I’ll bet umpiring a ballgame never comes to your mind. But in my mind, from what I’ve seen over these 8-1/2 years of getting paid to go to athletic contests (and even spending a summer or two behind the plate myself), being the man (or woman) in blue has got to be one of the toughest gigs in town.
Think about it. If you’re an umpire, you get everything bad that comes from the playing field, and none of the good stuff.
You get the sunburns, the heat, the sweat-stained clothes, the thirst, and dirt collecting everywhere the sun shines and in many places it doesn’t.
But you never get to enjoy cranking that double to the wall with a couple of men on base. You never get greeted at home by your teammates after launching a shot over the fence. You never get a round of high-fives after a great play in the field, and you don’t even get the obligatory handshake and “good game” after it’s over.
To top it all off, no matter what you do at any point in the game, half the people in attendance and half of those on the field think you made the wrong decision. And, for the most part, all you can do is stand up there and take it, and wait for the next play so you can make another call half of them will disagree with.
It’s tough work, calling a game. And it doesn’t exactly pay well, either.
But for some reason, many of these officials seem to have the patience of Job about the whole situation. Here’s some examples from games I saw just in the last couple of weeks.
In a contest among players ranging probably from 9 to 11 years old, I saw an umpire that couldn’t have been older than 18 get charged by a coach that was at least 15 years older than him.
The call was a close one, and from where I was sitting, it looked like “Mr. Ump” may have actually missed it. But why go after a kid, to argue a point in a game that’s being played by even younger kids?
At another game, I saw a home plate umpire that has to be the most patient man on the planet.
For three innings of what was, in fact, a pretty close game, a few bad apples on the team that was trailing on the scoreboard just couldn’t contain themselves any longer. They started mouthing after every pitch, after every call, and only once did this umpire even give them a second glance.
When the final out of the game — another close play, wouldn’t you know it — was made, one particularly loud voice called out from the dugout how, in his opinion, that call reminded him of… let’s just say horse “excrement.” Never mind the older folks and little kids in the crowd, and never mind that the game was over. He was going to put on his little show for everyone to see.
And the umpire, bless his abused heart, never said a word.
I don’t know how they do it. If I was calling that game, I believe I’d have had to make an example out of one of those complainers — especially since their team was out of substitutes, and losing a player would’ve meant a forfeiture of the game and an early quitting time for everyone involved.
I’ll tell you, not having any direct relationship with anybody on either team makes me pretty impartial. In fact, I could care less who wins pretty much any game I get paid to go see.
So when I watch displays like these, I don’t think about whether or not it was a good call, or whether that umpire is qualified to officiate games.
All I can think is how embarrassingly out of line people are for making such public displays out of themselves.