baseballrules

It is a time for celebration when a person advances from AA pro baseball to AAA. However, the celebration for umpires making the jump should be a bit subdued. After all, the best umpires are those who call a good game and whose names are not known by the fans.

Toby Basner just got his promotion. If he eventually makes it to the major league level, let’s hope his skills, youthful enthusiasm and his sense of fairness and knowledge of the rule book come along with him. All of these attributes are lacking right now at the MLB level.

Read all about Toby in the Gwinnett (Georgia) Daily Post.

The Professional Baseball Umpire Corp., a subsidiary of Minor League Baseball and responsible for training and evaluating all Minor League Baseball umpires in the domestic-based leagues and two minor leagues in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, has unveiled a new logo.

”We developed our new logo to reflect PBUC’s important role in the game of baseball, not just professional umpiring but the amateur umpiring community as well,” said PBUC Executive Director Justin Klemm. “Our logo represents PBUC’s continued commitment to the training, development and evaluation of professional umpires within our 18 domestic and foreign leagues. It will brand our efforts moving forward as we expand our presence through our resources in Durham and Vero Beach.”

Learn more about what PBUC does and see the new logo at MiLB.

New Jersey’s Mike Walsh made his debut as an umpire in the Gulf Coast League. He hopes this will be the first strike toward the major leagues.

The 23-year-old Walsh, from Old Bridge, has umpired local baseball and softball leagues since 2004. He enrolled in the Harry Wendelstedt School for Umpires in Florida. Wendelstedt spent 32 years umpiring games in the big leagues. His school feeds college and professional leagues. The faculty is composed of high-level professional umps, including 11 current major leaguers.

Walsh finished at the top of his 120-student class. Along with 25 other students, he was selected to attend the Professional Baseball Umpire Corp. (PBUC) camp in March. PBUC is responsible for the training, evaluation, and recommendation for promotion, retention, or release of all umpires in the minor league baseball system throughout the United States and Canada. PBUC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL).

After he excelled at the 10-day camp, Walsh and eight others were offered umpiring jobs in the Rookie League (the Florida Gulf Coast League).

This Mike Walsh got his encouragement from his father, also Mike. The senior Walsh is a well-respected local umpire who has worn ump blue for 38 years.

“My dad told me I should try it because it would be a good summer job,” the younger Walsh said. “He taught me the basics and I got better with each game, and I started picking up some things on my own.”

At the Wendelstedt school, participants thoroughly reviewed the rulebook — spending three to four hours a day in the classroom in addition to on-field instruction and game situations. At the PBUC camp, the focus was on the nuances of the two-man umpiring system employed in the lower minor leagues, college, junior college and high school.

“It’s a tough system because you can’t see everything,” he said. “You have to keep your focus, be in position and just try and do the best you can. You also have to be able to work well with your partner, and that comes down to training and communication.”

Like everyone else, umpires make mistakes, and Walsh acknowledges that it’s impossible to be perfect. The toughest calls for him include plays at first where the first baseman may have pulled his foot off the bag too soon and a swipe tag play where the fielder is pulled off the base while trying to tag a sliding runner.

“You always want to get a rules interpretation right, and if I’m not sure, I’ll always ask my partner for help,” Walsh explained. “Judgment calls are almost always bang-bang. You have a split second to make the call you have to call as you see it.”

He’ll be on his own and earning $1,900 a month plus housing and meals this season. The PBUC will rank the 16 umps in the Gulf Coast League. Those at the top of the list are likely to move up to Class A ball. If an ump does not move up after two years in rookie ball, he or she is released.

“I want to do well and keep improving,” Walsh said. “My goal, along with everyone else, is to one day make the major leagues. That’s the ultimate experience. And as an umpire, you have a great job with the best seat in the house.”

One call from an umpire can change the game just as one hit, error, or pitch can change the game. While fans know the players’ names, few can name an umpire unless he blows the call.

Bruce Weber spent time learning how to call balls and strikes for his new book “As They See ‘Em.” He interviewed dozens of professional umpires about their craft, and discovered that umpiring is an eccentric secret society, with its own customs, rituals and colorful vocabulary.

(I can verify some of this. During the late 1970’s, I interviewed the late Ron Luciano at Yankee Stadium for a radio feature. He said I had to put a dollar into an envelope before he would agree to the interview. I still believe to this day that my contribution was part of that crew’s take from probably a number of sources that was used for drinks at the airport, but then I could be very wrong. Luciano was one of baseball’s biggest characters and always joking. By the way, he did a great 20-minute interview.)

Weber also describes what it’s like to work in ballparks where fans, players, managers, coaches, owners and even announcers second-guess their calls.

Listen to a 30-minute podcast on NPR.

Dana DeMuth will be behind the plate and the crew chief during the 80th All-Star Game in St. Louis’ Busch Stadium on July 14.

DeMuth is working his 26th season in the majors and has been a crew chief since 1999. This will be his third All-Star game. He has worked a total of 13 postseason series, including three World Series.

The rest of the crew includes Brian Gorman at first base, Jeff Kellogg at second base, Angel Hernandez at third base, Tim Timmons in left field and Paul Nauert in right field. This will be the second All-Star Game for Gorman (1998), Kellogg (1997) and Hernandez (1999), and the first for Timmons and Nauert.

The Minor League umpiring crew for the XM All-Star Futures Game on Sunday, July 12, will be Matt Schaufert (home plate) of the Southern League, Mike Jarboe (first base) of the Pacific Coast League, Chris Ward (second base) of the Southern League and Shaun Francis (third base) of the Eastern League. These umpires also will work the State Farm Home Run Derby on Monday, July 13, with Jarboe and Ward also overseeing the Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game.

What does Independent League’s Long Island Ducks Mascot Quack Erjack have to do with umpiring or the rules of baseball? Absolutely nothing, but I thought, with the rainy weather in the northeast continuing for a third week, that he could help me make the statement that the weather has been for the birds.

Many games at all levels have been through long delays or canceled.

Quack Erjack looks happy here during a recent game. The skies were overcast but not a drop fell from the sky that day, and the Ducks won this one with a walk off hit in the bottom of the ninth.

Congratulations and thanks to all the umpires who participated in this weekend’s prostate cancer awareness campaign as we celebrated fathers. MLB umpires and those in many minor league games across the country raised awareness about this disease and urged men to get tested and catch it during its early stages.

Umpires wore blue wrist bands. MLB players also had blue ribbons on their uniform jerseys. I was at an Independent League game on Father’s Day to see the Long Island Ducks–a wonderful day courtesy of my son. The three umpires officiating that game wore the wrist bands. However, I can’t recall the Ducks bringing attention to the campaign to fight prostate cancer on the stadium scoreboard or over the PA system. I could have just missed it, and apologize to them if I did. Maybe they should have done more to create attention for the cause.

One of the major drivers behind this campaign is Ed Randall and his Bat for the Cure campaign. Randall has handled minor league play-by-play, PA duties and now hosts a fabulous Sunday morning baseball show on WFAN radio in New York City. He said the disease is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men, with 240,000 new cases expected this year. He is a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with the prostate cancer during 2002.

The umpires’ wristband program began last year with support from minor league baseball and the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation.

I believe Ed got his sports broadcast career off the ground at WFUV-FM in New York while a student at Fordham University. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I believe I am correct. At least, I hope I am correct. I hope Ed sees this posts and gets in touch with this blog to let us know, because I also started my career at WFUV-FM while a student at Fordham.

Takeshi Hirabayashi came from Japan to learn about umpiring in the professional leagues of the U.S. He has had some interesting experiences in the minor leagues. His thoughts about American and Japanese baseball are interesting. Great story about him in The Virginian-Pilot.