First game of the year

Last night I attended my first in-person game of the year at the ballpark by Elliott Bay, a crisply-played 2-1 victory by Your Seattle Mariners over the New York Yankees, won in the bottom of the 9th when Cal Raleigh stopped swinging for the fences and chopped a base hit over the first baseman to drive in Leo Rivas from third base. 

I took Cal's base hit as a good sign, as in his previous AB Cal struck out with a runner at third and only one out, the very thing that had been the Mariners' bugaboo for years before Dan Wilson took over as manager and the kind of thing that, if I were in charge, would result in a sizeable kangaroo court fine. I may be grasping at straws looking for good signs, though. The M's again broke double digits with 11 strikeouts—against such vaunted pitchers as Ryan Weathers and Brent Headrick—matching their per game average so far. Last year they struck out an average of nine times per game, so it's not all that different (yet) but I still see it as a red flag. In general strikeouts are too prevalent in the majors, have been for quite some time now, and I would like the baseball culture to Make Strikeouts Embarrassing Again, if I may coin a phrase. Put it in play, my dudes.

There are some minor changes to be found at the ballpark this year. One, of course, is the new 2025 Division Champions banner:

Cool, cool, cool. Also, as is the case every year, concessions are more expensive. I got through the evening without partaking but only out of frugality. Anything I wanted to buy in the upper deck would have been at least $20. (Next time maybe I'll be early enough to detour to the lower level before the game and see if the vegan hot dogs are still available and still under $10.) Also, there's a large new Amazon ad under the main scoreboard, which I find distasteful:

I dislike the ever-expanding presence of advertising in our lives generally, not just at ballparks, and I loathe Amazon as an entity more than most other companies, so it's a bit of a double-whammy. On the other hand, thus far the Mariners have refrained from doing what many other teams have done and sold ad space on the field itself; a lot of parks now have ads on the grass in foul territory, a holdover from the COVID year of no fans in the stands and one of Rob Manfred's proudest accomplishments, I'm sure. Manfred would sell ad space or sponsorships on every surface and for every lame excuse for an event imaginable if he could, so despite my disapproval for the new under-the-scoreboard ad I am grateful the grass remains untainted.

Also notable on the scoreboard, at least to someone like me, is a new typeface on the graphics. It's narrower and slightly shorter, allowing for a new column alongside runs, hits, and errors for "ABS"—the number of automated-ball-strike challenges available for each team—and info on the batter/pitcher within the lineup columns without bumping anything from the main screen area or the allocated ad space.

Now, if they would just leave the game info up and not replace it with stupid "MAKE NOISE" garbage every ten seconds that would be great.

Hopefully, when I return to the ballpark in a couple of weeks it won't be 42 degrees out. It was chotto samui last night, I could have used gloves and a scarf.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Posted on March 31, 2026 at 5:47PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

No Kings, rainouts, and roboumps

I went to my local No Kings protest rally on Saturday. Like last time, I opted for the one just a couple of blocks from my house rather than go to the big one downtown, for good or ill. I was on my own, so it wasn't a social thing. Anyway, the turnout was pretty decent for an ancillary/satellite event and I'm glad to have participated. I threw together a quick-and-dirty (by my standard) sign and walked the length of the several blocks long designated area a few times, then across the street, then back again, for a couple of hours. Chatted with a few fellow protesters, mostly about the Mariners but also about our shared outrage at the modern Republican party, which is now basically the new American Bund.

Below are some of the signs people had at my local event.

Then yesterday I had a four-game umpiring shift that only lasted two games; the rains came and the infield became muddy and slippery, so I called the other two off and they'll be rescheduled. Hopefully for a warmer, sunnier day.

Meanwhile, baseball's opening weekend had some good games and also saw the introduction of ABS, the "automated ball-strike system," colloquially known as the "roboumps." In its present form, I actually kind of like ABS. How it works is, if the pitcher, catcher, or batter disagrees with an umpire's call of a pitch, he can tap his helmet and say "challenge." Then the technology which just recorded the pitch on camera replays it through it's computerized wizardry and notes where the pitch crossed the vertical plane matching the front of home plate. If by the system's boundaries—which are calibrated for each individual batter based on his height—it even nicks the edge of the strike zone, it is a strike, otherwise a ball, regardless of what the umpire said it was. Each team gets two failed challenges per game, after which they can't ask for any more.

The fact that it's limited to two unsuccessful challenges per team gives the system an element of strategy to it—do you challenge one early in the game? If it's an obvious miss, sure, but if it's close do you risk it? So I like that. Also, when you've been unlucky enough to draw C.B. Bucknor as your home-plate ump, at least you know you'll have an opportunity to show him he was wrong a few times. But when I really like it is when the challenges fail. That's obviously my bias as a rec league umpire, but I quite enjoyed when in Friday evening's Mariners/Guardians game, HP ump Will Little was proven right all four times he was challenged and the system was off the table for the rest of the game. Little's been one of the better umps for a while now and here's real evidence to back it up.

But I fear the current version of ABS will be short-lived. Things in the early going are trending more toward the C.B. Bucknor side of things than to the Will Little side, with the majority of challenges being successful. The great sportswriter Joe Posnanski has also opined that the day is coming soon when every pitch will be called by cameras and computer tech and the home-plate ump will be essentially just like the other base umpires, there for safe/out calls and random weirdnesses. That I won't appreciate. I like human frailties. I like having to know who your umpire is going to be so you can plan accordingly. I like that some umpires have a tight zone and some a more generous one. Ideally, they wouldn't be inconsistent with it, and that's where guys like Bucknor and Hunter Wendelstedt become frustrating.

One more positive hope I have is that with the challenge system, TV broadcasts will stop overlaying the approximate strike zone onto the camera shot for live pitches. It's become normal over the past several years, and I don't like it. I do like it on replays, but live I want to see the pitch unencumbered by overlays and distractions. On the close pitches especially.

I'll be at the game tonight live and in person, so no video overlays to worry about there. Temps in the low 40s, so I'll be layered up. Go M's.

Now, No Kings signage from Saturday:

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Umping, Posted on March 30, 2026 at 4:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Analogies to Doug Fister and Lucille Bluth

A couple of topics today, starting with last night's umpiring.

As on Monday, we were joined at the field by Alfred the amateur photographer and former Army medic. Unlike on Monday, we had no need for his medic experience, though it was a close thing. This time I was the one that went down in a heap.

About midway through our first game of the night, a batter for the team that calls themselves...I want to say Pushing Bunts, but I think that's wrong; they're a new team and their name isn't on the official documentation yet. Anyway, their batter took a cut at a fat pitch right down the middle and juuust got under it a smidge and fouled it straight back. At speed. At me. I instinctively began to turn and duck away, but I was nevertheless struck flush on the temple. I hit the turf and stayed there for maybe 10 or 15 seconds, during which time half the players on both teams were rushing toward home plate. I got up with a painful impact reminder above my ear, but otherwise none the worse for wear. I was good to go after a minute or two and thankfully didn't need to prevail upon Alfred's Army expertise. But it wasn't fun, and I felt it a bit more painfully later in the night well after I'd gone home. I took a couple Tylenol caps and I could ignore it again. Today it's pretty much fine, though I can still feel a phantom sting.

In retrospect, this was not a bad thing for my ego. Because all those players were concerned and one of them—I don't know who, I was still down on the turf, but it was a guy—said, "shit, dude, you can't get hurt, you're the good ump." Anyway, the rest of the night when several of the players came to bat they checked in. "You still OK, man? Only one pitch coming in at a time, right?" I waved them off. "I'm good, no worries. Occupational hazzard." Which is true, but I may be losing a step, because even though I've taken several errant pitches or foul balls to the shins or the sternum, I'd until now always been quick enough to get out of the way of anything at my head. But I think it must have looked pretty bad from the perspective of, well, everyone else, because there seemed to be real concern that we'd have to stop the games. I was reminded of either a World Series or playoff game several years back wherein pitcher Doug Fister of the Detroit Tigers was hit on the side of his head with a line drive back through the box. Everyone was rightly worried, but Fister just waived off the training staff and his manager, or tried to anyway, and shrugged it off like it was nothing and went back to pitching. He seemed annoyed by the attention. Of course, I also thought of Billy Wagner getting similarly tagged with a hard liner to the side of the head and he had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, so...yeah, there's a range of possibilities. At least (a) this is softball, where the ball isn't so dense and the speeds it travels aren't extreme; and (b) this was a foul tip with no extra velocity added to it by the swing of the bat. Really, the time a pissed off soccer player kicked a soccer ball at me was worse.

So we moved on and finished out the games without much other drama. The second game featured less experienced teams, which meant more errors, more weird plays, and, interestingly, a walkoff comeback victory by the team I figured would lose handily at the outset. I had to explain both the infield fly and obstruction rules to newbies, but nothing outlandish.

Alfred again shared some of his photos with me, so I'm including some here. Sadly, he did not get any shots of my close encounter with a foul ball.

Stephen and Colin celebrate finally throwing different options in rock-paper-scissors to determine which would be the home team. I think it took five tries?

I don't recall what this was about, but I'm probably saying something like, “yeah, it's an out, what do you want me to do?"

Here is when I and one of her teammates had to explain to the inexperienced first-basewoman why I called obstruction on her and ruled a runner who appeared to have been forced out to be safe at second base.

This and the next are actually from Monday, but I like them in sequence because this one shows my usual move of running with the batter toward first base in order to be in better position to both see a play at first and hear the pop of the ball being caught...

...and this shows my usual move when Joel is batting; I know he's not only going to be safe at first, but if there's a play to be made on him it will be at third, so I'm hurrying there instead. Typically I can get there by the time Joel's around second. He's not Barry Allen, but he is faster than most.

Onward to topic number two, our demented president.

The felonious moron occupying the White House held one of his mock Cabinet meetings today, wherein nothing of consequence was discussed. In fact, Felon47 was so uninterested in discussing substance that at one point he meandered off into one of his stupid "sir" stories. You know, a story he tells in which some other person addresses him reverently as "sir," which is a sure tell that it never happened. This one was about, I kid you not, Sharpie pens.

Of all the many many things this pathetic excuse for a human being says and does that are horrifying and imbecilic, this rates near or at the bottom of the list, but it still sticks in my craw because what he did with this story was have a Lucille Bluth moment on camera.

Apropos of nothing, he complained that the pens presidents have generally used in signing ceremonies, the ceremonial pens that are then typically given away as souvenirs to people attending the signing, are "thousand dollar pens" and "don't write very well" and that he really prefers the Sharpies. So he found himself talking to someone at the Sharpie company (sure, Donny) and said he'd prefer to use the Sharpie for these things but couldn't possibly use a commercially branded pen in front of the press and so on (sure, Donny), so the imaginary Sharpie guy told him they could make special Sharpies just for him, ones that say "the White House" and even have his signature on them, and that he could have them free of charge. Ever magnanimous, Felon47 insisted on paying for them (I mean, it's not his money, right, it's our money, who gives a damn about our money?) and that he used his "art of the deal" skills to buy them for five dollars a pen. "Five dollars instead of a thousand dollars, and the pens are better."

OK, two things: The ceremonial pens were nice pens, probably a couple hundred bucks a pop, but not a grand per pen. That's one of the fictitious numbers he pulls out of nowhere like when he says there are 15 points in his peace plan (that has zero points because it doesn't exist). And, the retail price of a Sharpie pen, when bought in a box of 36, is sixty-four cents. Even if we factor in the custom branding of "The White House" and all that, you can buy them retail—as I'm sure some White House staffer actually did—for a little more than a dollar apiece if bought in bulk. Good deal-making skills, you idiot. It's no wonder you don't care about inflation and the affordability of goods to American consumers, you've never pumped gas or bought groceries.

Of course, the interaction never really occurred, which means that even in his made-up fantasies about his alleged great deal-making he still fucks up and doesn't know it.

Topic three: Opening Day!

I did not get tickets to this year's opening day game, but will be at the park in person to see your Seattle Mariners on Monday night. Tonight I watched on TV, and for the first time in years did it without having to resort to skirting the system. We now have a local streaming option for the M's, and it's not all that pricey given the nature of inflation and the current economy. Of course, one could argue that the current economy means you don't add new expenses no  matter how reasonable, but the difference between the MLB.TV package I'd been using for years and that plus the new Mariner streaming product is basically the cost of one in-person game. So I put my tickets for tomorrow night on StubHub and assuming they sell will pay for it with the proceeds. It's going to be cold out there tomorrow night anyway and everyone I asked to go with me either said no immediately or bailed later, so this seemed a good option.

Meantime, the M's did play tonight and lost to the Cleveland Guardians. Because the only way the Mariners could score tonight was to hit solo home runs. Jesus, guys, I thought we'd been over this already: There are other ways to score in baseball. Put runners on base and move them along. To be fair, none of the four homers hit by the M's appeared to be "on purpose," it wasn't a case of swinging for the fences, just happy accidents on well-struck liners. But they also struck out 14 times, and the combo of four solo shots and 14 Ks and nothing else (their only other hits were two-out doubles, and not in the same frame) is not a promising way to begin the season.

Well, there's time to turn it around. 161 more to go, after all.

Tagged Umping, Baseball, President VonClownstick, Politics, Softball, Posted on March 27, 2026 at 1:41AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Bloody Monday

Another umpiring shift at Capitol Hill, another game shortened due to lacerations.

Am I bad luck for teams playing at Cap Hill? Consecutive shifts there now have seen a player—two yesterday—get smacked in the face with a thrown or batted ball and have to leave the game. Last week it was a split lip, last night it was a forehead gash. And a bloody nose earlier. And an oblivious bystander got clocked in the head by a deep foul hit into the darkness as well, although that one I was unaware of at the time (I was informed later by the left fielder, who witnessed the impact).

Of course, I've done plenty of games there that didn't feature any blood or injury, so I know this is just the random nature of sports. But it does seem like I've seen more than my fair share of blood on the field this year, and we're only in March.

Also, we had a couple of interesting spectators last night. One I initially put in that Cap Hill Bingo category of "guy talking to no one as he stumbles by the field," but instead he was on a hands-free bluetooth phone call. His side of the conversation was audible to the catcher and myself and we agreed that this guy had some stories, probably invented but at least distorted in his telling. This youngish guy was complaining to whoever was on the other end of the call about how "Trump gave [his] ribbon to some asshole" at the State of the Union, that though he had the medal, the ribbon went to some undeserving shmuck who got feted for it on national TV. He went on about other things too, like how he was barred by a court from seeing his mom in the hospital and that's why he didn't have money to fly back to DC. He seemed quite the character.

The other spectator was a different type entirely (though it turned out he was also a veteran). He introduced himself as Alfred and was taking photos. He said he wanted to take the opportunity to get some experience shooting sports as that wasn't something he had in his portfolio. Nobody minded, so he hung around the sidelines with his camera and promised to share the pictures later. Nice guy.

In the first game, a fly ball carried to center field and the center fielder, Josh, drifted under it to make the catch, only he somehow missed it with his glove and instead took the ball right off his schnozz. He left the game bleeding. He stuck around in the dugout, though, and by the time that game was over and his team was heading out Josh was no longer losing blood and was in good humor. His team lost, too, which added insult to injury. Alas, but I'm sure he's fine now.

The second game ended abruptly on an ambitious infield play trying to nail a runner at second for a double play. The throw from third to second sailed a little bit and struck the second basewoman in the forehead and down she went. She was lucid and alert, but blood was pouring from the wound.

Enter Alfred.

Fortuitously, Alfred was an Army medic, so he offered his assistance—which we all gladly accepted, especially since my first aid kit was truly unhelpful in this situation. It was not a serious injury, just—as any head wound is—rather bloody, and when I got a look at the gash (peeking over Alfred's shoulder) I could see it wasn't particularly long, but it was deep. Though it would likely have healed fine if merely treated with a couple of butterfly bandages, Alfred nonetheless recommended stitches so it would heal faster, so the player and her fellow-player partner left for urgent care. We called the game at that point.

I'm grateful to have crossed paths with Sgt. Alfred the amateur photog and ex-Army medic on this occasion and look forward to seeing the pictures he took, though he made sure to note that he wouldn't send photos of the bloody injury to anyone but the player involved. [EDIT: Alfred sent me some of the pics, but just the ones with me in them (two posted below). Much more curious about the rest of them.]

Not sure "bloody injury" or "made use of Army medic" will make it onto the Cap Hill Softball Bingo Card anytime soon, but we can add them to the potpourri of incidents at that particular field. It's been quite the week.

Tagged Umping, Softball, Posted on March 24, 2026 at 3:19PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Link of the day

As I get set to bug out for the evening, allow me to heartily recommend today's Jeff Tiedrich column to all y'all. It sums things up rather nicely vis-à-vis the news of the day: https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/lets-all-watch-a-french-general-tell...

Not unrelatedly, I'm glad I'm not planning to fly anywhere anytime soon and would urge everyone to delay any flight plans they may have in or out of American airports.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Jeff Tiedrich, Posted on March 23, 2026 at 5:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Am I getting too old for this?

Yesterday was a full day of umpiring for me, and as is usually the case when I have to get up before, say, 11:30am, I was going on short sleep and was maybe a little bit cranky. I was also creaky—for whatever reason, I got out of bed with a sore lower back, just feeling really stiff and achy for no discernable reason other than being well into my fifties. I found myself wishing that it had rained overnight so the field would be unplayable, but that was not this reality.

Even so, things started out fine. My first game featured a number of players who also play against me in my Wednesday night summer league with the Smiling Potatoes of Death; one of them was catching when a particularly errant pitch came in. My call was, "low, outside, flat, generally bad, ball one." This got a chuckle from the batter and this comment from the catcher: "You've been hanging out with [Spuds teammate] Mack too much." I disagree. Anyway, it was a crisply-played affair with good defense and no troubles; we burned through all seven innings in under an hour and even though I had said we'd do extra frames if needed, the home team pulled out a run in the last of the 7th to walk it off in regulation. So I had 30 minutes or so to wait around for the next teams to file in for the 1:30 game. If you're going to have a 58-minute game, I said to no one, can't we have it at the end of the shift instead of the beginning? Alas, no.

Generally speaking, the teams that play in this bracket of the league at Northacres park are all good folks, we all get on well and things are usually copacetic, but there's one guy that bucks the trend. He was there for game two. I ignored him best I could, especially since his teammates all were enthused to have me on the field for them and since we'd finished the prior game early a couple of their early arrivals had time to chat me up a bit. I like the rest of them a lot. But this guy is one of the few players I've ever ejected from a game, and when he's pitching he pushes all my buttons. Sometimes I think on purpose. I really, really dislike him. He tries trick pitches, he snorts and scoffs at my strike zone, he even shouts at me, as when he responded to my call of a low pitch with "LOW??!!" and I replied, incredulously, "yes, it hit the plate, so LOW." And his catcher jumped in to say that it did, in fact, hit the plate, so move along. It crossed my mind to wonder if he was trying to provoke me to throw him out again. Can't imagine why, but I don't grok the macho nonsense some of these guys live with in their little minds, so who knows. When the game was over, he tried to bullshit me about why he was challenging my calls, but I knew it was BS and he likely knew I knew it was BS and again I was befuddled and annoyed and just wanted him to go away. Which he eventually did, because I had to get the next game rolling with different teams, ones with no troublemakers on their rosters.

Aside from my back stiffening up even more, my stomach starting to rumble that breakfast was many hours past, and my feet demanding some downtime, the rest of the games were good, though I did screw up once: in an infield fly situation, a batter lined to the shortstop, who caught the ball—I immediately called "OUT!"—only for the shortstop to intentionally drop the ball in the next instant to turn a double and potential triple play, the entire reason the infield fly rule exists but for good or ill the rule exempts line drives. In the end I allowed the double play but awarded the batter first base safely as he had stopped running as soon as he heard me say "out." In retrospect I should have disallowed all of it, just said, "no, batter is out and everyone else back to your bases, because that was a dick move." And that I had already called the out, so play should have been over. But really I was too quick on the draw, it's my only bad habit (I think) as an ump. I need to learn to take a beat before making those calls just in case.

Then the real fun of the day. As the final game was in its late innings, someone came down to the backstop and asked me if I had a key to the gate. "Gate? What gate?"

It seems someone—the consensus was "probably kids. Meddlesome, troublemaking kids."—closed the gate-like barrier to the parking lot of the park and slapped a padlock on it.

Of course, I did not have a key, nor did anyone else, but I was still working the game, so while we finished up I called the league office and asked if they might call the parks department for us and get someone out to open it up. Game ended, I packed up, and no parks people. One of the players had called the police as well. No help there. Ultimately, one of the players who had parked outside of the gate drove to Home Depot and bought bolt cutters. She returned and I attempted to aid a few of the burlier players in cutting the lock off the gate. In the end, I was no help at all; it took some physics ingenuity and muscle from Brent, one of the late-game pitchers, with the aid of a metal tube that was lying around as part of the parking lot's security apparatus (which he covered one arm of the bolt cutters with to get more leverage), to snap the lock off. We and a smattering of non-softball people could all then leave with our cars and I arranged with the office to have the player reimbursed her outlay for the bolt cutters. The whole thing took an hour or so, by which time I was truly and thoroughly Done With All This for the day. When I got home I made one of my rare uses of the bathtub to soak my aching back before spending the rest of the evening reading a brain-candy Star Trek novel and trying semi-successfully to get to sleep early (for me).

Unfortunately I have to go back out there tonight. Cap Hill this time, so different kinds of wackiness is bound to ensue. My back still hurts some; better but not really better, if you know what I mean. At least it's only two games, and at least ichiban suki na senshu's team is on the docket.

Tagged Umping, Softball, Posted on March 23, 2026 at 3:51PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Rain, blood, and laughs

Kind of a weird night on the softball diamond last night. I arrived way early, as the last time I had a shift at Capitol Hill on St. Patrick's Day parking was so impossible I didn't find a space for an hour and then had to pay at a commercial lot and beg the league to reimburse me for it. Wasn't going to let that happen again, so I factored in extra time. Of course, this year was different—it was rainy and cold, for one, but also it's a lot harder to be festive in 2026. So the crowds at bars were not what they were. Nevertheless, parking was worse than is typical and I had to park blocks away, but I still had gobs of time.

I spent some of the excess checking in with Marty on the phone and looking in on the WBC finale game, which was in progress (yay for Venezuela beating the jingoist Team USA, too bad it wasn't an 18-2 shellacking). Then we set to work. I had a good group for the first game, and as always I was greeted by name as I approached the field. (It is nice to be everyone's favorite.) The weather made things somewhat unpleasant, but the flip side at Cap Hill is that rain also keeps soccer hooligans away, or at least more subdued, and the only people I had to shoo away were some very accommodating LARPers who were content to stay in deepest left field.

Game one saw some lively back-and-forth both with runs across the plate and with words in the form of a lot of good-natured banter between players and me. It ended in what would have been an exciting 16-15 finish if not for some minor injury drama in the final frame that turned it into a more sedate 16-15 finish. Nothing really serious, a hard grounder to someone's ankle that required giving him some assistance to get off the field and undoubtedly left a nasty bruise. It also delayed things for a while, so when a player from the upcoming game three stopped by on her way to a pregame meal at a local bar and asked when I thought her game would really start—knowing as she does that Cap Hill schedules almost never stick to time—I told her "probably 9:45." This was as we were starting game two, with one team I like to draw and one I have mixed feelings about. We were moving along OK until the bottom of the second, when on a play at home plate the catcher took a one-hop throw from the outfield that glanced off the tip of her glove and into her face. She went down in a heap bleeding profusely from a split lip. Ultimately she left the game with her husband and teammate to go to urgent care for a couple of stitches, which left her team with just seven players—insufficient for a legal game. So that game ended right there in a forfeit, her team dispersed, and the other squad and I just hung around for a while as that team had a doubleheader and was awaiting their opponent for game three to show up. Only I had just told their representative that we'd probably start late.

Fortunately, another of that team wandered by on his way to the bar and we corralled him to explain the situation, hoping he would find his entire team at the bar and they would come back to the field sooner than later. Not to be, though. We had a good 45 minutes or an hour to kill. Some of them practiced on the field, I hung out with some of the rest in their dugout under a tarp talking about the WBC and other stuff. When we got going again it was less bantery and more okay-I'm-tired-of-being-in-all-this-rain, but still fun and saw the ultimate winners come back from being down 7 in the first to make a game of it and eventually pull ahead to victory, thanks in large part to some great play by their first-basewoman. As a fellow first baseman, I appreciated (and envied) the skills.

Then this morning I received a rather thoughtless text from the league regarding something trivial from last Sunday, when I had two games of four on the schedule (the prior two being handled by someone else, whom I am pretty sure did not get a similar text despite identical circumstances), which annoyed me and added to the growing pile of less-than-pleasant interactions I've had with the league office this year. I swear, if not for the players letting me know how they feel I'd have quit by now. And it's a good thing I haven't, because when I calm down and think it through I realize these interactions are all most probably because of poor communication within the office and get distorted when they get down to me. (To be clear, it's not that today's missive was particularly bad, it wasn't, and in isolation I'd think nothing of it; it's just that these things are cumulative and each time they erode my patience a little bit more.) We had different personnel there when I started this gig and there was a changing of the guard, as it were, a bit more than a year ago when it comes to field staff liaisoning. Have to keep all that in mind when this shit goes down.

At some point I need to update the Cap Hill Softball Bingo Card to include some new squares: Foul ball off the light pole, threats from misogynist spectators, and cop on a bullhorn to vagrant elsewhere in the park saying "Wake yo' ass up." The latter happened last night.

Tagged Umping, Softball, WBC, Posted on March 18, 2026 at 7:38PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Jingoism and the WBC

Woalter and new acquaintance in Miami

This year's World Baseball Classic is not proceeding to my liking. Mostly because what I still maintain is the best baseball team on planet Earth, Team Japan, was bounced out in the quarterfinals the other night.

It wasn't a great game—the other four Japan played were better, or at least more entertaining, not just because Japan won them but because they were more evocative of the kind of well-balanced, multifaceted baseball favored in Japan. The quarterfinal against Venezuela turned out to be more USA/Latin America style ball, i.e. home-run dependent. 13 runs scored in the game, ten of them on homers. And one of them on a mind-blowing error by Japan pitcher Atsuki Taneichi (of the Chiba Marines in his day job), which really did Japan in even though the score remained relatively close.

Anyway, Japan's exit from the tournament would, you might expect, also end my interest in it; usually, you'd be right, but there are two mitigating circumstances: One, my young friend Woalter, the softball player I took to my last regular season game of the year, is from Venezuela and is attending the Miami games of the WBC. So he was in the stands, cheering on his guys, when I texted him to say, "your guys beat my guys and I am holding you personally responsible." Woalter replied by sending me video of the final play, Shohei Ohtani popping out to shallow right-center field, he'd taken on his phone. Sigh. Well, if I have to be disappointed, at least he is getting his money's worth down there. He's clearly having a blast, as evidenced by the photos he sent.

A lone Venezuelan surrounded by a pack of Dominicans and having a blast

Meanwhile, there's mitigating circumstance number two: Team USA, who will play for the title tomorrow against either Venezuela or "Italy." The members of Team USA are acting like assholes. On purpose. You've got pitcher Paul Skenes entirely missing the point and declaring, "We’re America. We’ve got to assert our dominance over everybody else." You've got team manager Mark DeRosa enforcing a sort of Bob Gibson-esque "no fraternizing" rule among the players, leading to guys who are teammates during the season snubbing each other on the field in the WBC. Seattle Mariner Cal Raleigh has been the most visible doing this because he's a catcher and everyone who comes to bat has a chance to greet him, so we saw his Mariner teammates Randy Arozarena and Josh Naylor both offer him a warm greeting only to be given the cold shoulder out of what appeared to be misplaced macho bullshit (which is indeed what it turned out to be, just teamwide rather than Raleigh-specific). You've got right-wing military asshats being brought into the clubhouse to give motivational pep talks. You've got a team of guys behaving like jingoistic ugly Americans you'd hate to cross paths with on a foreign vacation, behavior that embarrasses themselves and offends their peers, in a sporting tournament that is designed to promote and share the game of baseball with the international community. DeRosa and Team USA appear to be taking cues from our current despotic regime in their manner and attitude, and I find myself rooting hard for Venezuela to kick their asses tomorrow evening.

Here's how our pal Craig Calcaterra explained this yesterday:

While the other countries in the World Baseball Classic are celebrating their culture, engaging happily with their opponents, and appear to be having a wonderful and even joyous time, Mark De Rosa's squad has leaned into jingoism, militarism, and redass chumpfuckery. I suppose that's inevitable given that American culture and identity has increasingly become little more than an economy backed by a military. But Jesus, guys, you could do a hell of a lot better.

As I type this, though, Venezuela is losing 2-1 to "Italy" in their semifinal game. They've got three innings to come back and win it. Otherwise, the championship game will be Team USA vs. a Team Italy that is 90% American. "Italy" even getting this far is a tremendous upset, but since there are only three Italians on the roster it would be far less satisfying for them to take on Team USA tomorrow.

Plus, it would make Woalter sad. And we don't want that.

Tagged Baseball, WBC, Umping, Politics, Craig Calcaterra, Posted on March 16, 2026 at 7:05PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

New sketch

Nothing much to say today, just that there's a new sketch posted in the sketchbook. One of my cats.

I watched some of the WBC quarterfinal between Team USA and Canada yesterday, and as I was rooting for the Canadians it didn't go well. Surprise advancee Team "Italy" is playing now. I haven't checked, but I expect they're getting beaten by Puerto Rico in a contest of two teams of Americans. At least the Puerto Ricans can actually lay legitimate claim to Puerto Rico, unlike 90% of the Italian team. But the one I care about starts in a few hours, Japan vs. Venezuela. I'll be watching.

Tagged Sketches, WBC, Posted on March 14, 2026 at 2:29PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

Ump tales, WBC action, and a few links

I've been feeling pretty good lately—the Black Hole has been keeping its distance and there's been little to no slow-witted gauzy-brain to impede my thinking. So when I found myself making mistakes during last night's umpire shift I had nothing to blame it on; I was somehow off my game in some other way.

Nothing was seriously bad, the games were not close and no one took issue with me in any major way. But, being the perfectionist I am, I noted the mistakes even if no one else did (or no one else said anything, anyway).

The most egregious thing is one I don't even know if I got wrong: for the second time in the same game, a specific player slid into a close play at third base in a forceout situation. He beat the fielder to the bag, just as he did the first time, in a comical slide, just as he did the first time. But this second instance had people objecting to my call, and since the fielder did in fact have the ball ahead of the runner making it to third, it was more than conceivable that a tag had been made at an angle I couldn't see. So, I did what you're really not supposed to do as an umpire, and polled the players that were involved and/or had a better view; no one was willing to state firmly that they were right and I was wrong, but the runner himself was so wishy washy that I took it as a tell, he knew he'd been tagged. So I overturned myself and called him out. No objections. But I have no idea what the right call would have been. He was definitely not forced, but might have been tagged, and if we'd had a second ump it might have been a sure thing. Alas.

Also, on two occasions a batter hit a ball down the left field line that skirted the third-base bag and I called them both fair. In almost immediate retrospect, I knew that they weer actually foul, but too late to change the call. In these cases, though, I do have an excuse: the turf at Bobby Morris Field has been slowly and steadily migrating north over the years, which is most notable when placing the bases in their postholes because every now and then I have to take a knife and cut the turf a bit more to extend the hole in the turf for the base peg, which no longer lines up with the hole below the turf. Those holes began as squares, but are now rectangles of around five or six inches long. This also means that the third base/left field foul line, which is supposed to overlap the edge of third base, is several inches to the outside of third base. This is wrong. But in the split-second I have to make a fair/foul call as a ball skitters past the bag, my brain noted the line and said fair when it should have noted the base and said foul. Eh, at least in those cases I can shrug it off.

There were a few ball/strike calls I messed up too, which happens here and there, but when I called ball four on one batter on a pitch that did nick the top of the strike zone, it is not unreasonable for that batter to assume that will be the call the next time she gets that pitch. In her next at-bat, the same pitch came in and I called a strike on a 3-1 count, costing her a walk. It was correct, but she was annoyed at the inconsistency (and as I had just given Todd Tichenor crap for being all over the place with his zone in the WBC game the other night I sympathized). She grounded out to end the inning.

Anyway, for the most part we all had a good time despite the frigid temps and sporadic rain and I didn't make anyone too mad. Most of the players in the three games are league vets and knew me well enough to give me a pass. Or they didn't notice or care. (Like I said, the games weren't close.)

After the shift, I got home around midnight and then stayed up all night to watch the final World Baseball Classic game from Tokyo, which saw the Czech team shut out Team Japan—for my money the most well-balanced, fundamentally-sound, top-quality team on planet Earth—for seven innings before Japan realized, hey, we're the best team on planet Earth! and opened up some whoop-ass on the poor Czech relief pitchers. A nine-spot in the 8th and a 9-0 final score. But for those first seven innings it was really something; these Czech players are pros in their home country, but mostly on the order of what we'd think of as semi-pros; the starting pitcher, who was awesome in a Jamie Moyer slow-curves and changeups kind of way, earns his living as an electrician. They take vacation time from their jobs to do these tournaments. There is one (maybe two?) player on the team that is in American minor-league ball, but generally these guys play in a low-tier European pro league that pays next to nothing and keep day jobs. Their manager is a neurosurgeon. It's impressive as hell that they shut the Japanese out for seven frames. All four of Japan's games thus far in the WBC have been tremendous: the whomping and near no-hitting of Taiwan, the tightly contested game against Korea, the pitcher's duel with Australia, and then this one against Czechia. 4-0, undefeated going into the next round in Miami.

Some observations from these four Tokyo games relevant to the coming season: White Sox fans will be happy on balance with their new slugger, Munetaka Murakami, but he's streaky. Don't be surprised if he slumps here and there. Also, if the Sox are planning to use him at first base instead of third, don't expect any gold gloves. He's fine, but I've noticed a few times he's poorly positioned for a throw and wasn't reading the ball off the bat as well. But the grand slam last night was pretty. Meanwhile, Blue Jay fans will be ecstatic at the play of their new third-sacker, Kazuma Okamoto. Okamoto has gold gloves at both first and third, showed impressive range at the hot corner, and is going to draw lots of walks. Red Sox fans will probably continue to suffer at the underuse of Masataka Yoshida, who is a lot better than the Boston people think he is.

Meanwhile, Felon47’s regime of bigotry and authoritarianism has, for the moment, cost Cincinnati Reds (and former Seattle Mariners) third baseman Eugenio Suárez his chance at being a US citizen. Geno's citizenship application was cancelled even though the processing for it had already been scheduled for later this year. Why? "Because of the Venezuela thing," Suárez said, which is a slightly more polite way to say, "because I am a Latino guy and the people running this country are racist assholes." Most ballplayers don't pay much attention to politics, they don't understand how different things are today from two years ago or why, and Major League Baseball, in the person of Commissioner Idiot, is not doing anything substantive to help the scores of foreign players in the major and minor leagues. Suárez would like to be of help to his fellow would-be immigrants and other Latino players, as a source of information if nothing else. "[It's a] good platform for us as baseball players," said Suárez, "to be able to help people know [what's going on]. We need help with that." Don't expect any help from the Commissioner. Here's what he had to say when asked about Suárez's citizenship and the legitimate fear of arrest and worse from Felon47’s DHS brownshirts: “Look, obviously I worry about anything that could be disruptive to the very best players in the world being out on the field. But the prospect of that disruption, given that our players all had visas, it’s speculation at this point.” Is it really? Let me quote our pal Craig Calcaterra on this subject: "I don't know what makes anyone think that a ballplayer, even one carrying their visa, is immune from Trumpist brutality. ... How anyone could read the news over the past two or three months and think that the brutalization of Latin Americans in this country is the stuff of 'speculation' or that if someone has their paperwork in order they're all safe [is beyond me], but that's Rob Manfred for ya."

Stepping away from the diamonds to close this post out, here are some tidbits worth a link or a note:

• Paul Waldman wrote about the current White House Cabinet as "the worst in history" and at one point refers to them as "a kind of Bizarro World 1927 Yankees," thus combining three of my nerd spheres—baseball, politics, and comics—into one statement.
• Meanwhile, Dan Froomkin takes mainstream journalists to task for failing to adequately sound the alarm about Felon47 being loony-tunes and demented when it comes to his unconscionable and incoherent war on Iran. Addressing the press at large, he asks, "Doesn’t the fact that he is bombing the hell out of a country for no particular reason, endangering the region, and destabilizing the world make it incumbent upon you to be blunt about the problem, rather than dancing around it? Isn’t it time for clarity instead of euphemism? Isn’t it time to put aside your aloofness, your concerns about appearing partisan, and your fears of offending your corporate masters? Isn’t it time to tell the whole truth, in the best interests of the country and the world?" He goes on to detail what's not being reported, then continues: "When [an] obsessive pursuit of impartiality leads them to deny or obscure the objective truth, it’s gone too far. And the objective truth is that Trump is deranged. Choosing not to make that explicit doesn’t win over new readers. It doesn’t change MAGA minds. The people who think Trump is rational get their news elsewhere. It’s bad journalism. It normalizes something that is very alarming. And it pisses off their own readers."
• Jeff Tiedrich makes the observation that Felon47 accidentally told the truth in response to a reporter's question regarding the girls' school the US hit with a Tomohawk missile and the 160+ people killed in the strike:
  
  Reporter: “You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you’re the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn’t say that, when he was asked, standing over your shoulder, on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this?"
  Felon47: “Because I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation."
  Tiedrich: “'I’m insisting something is true even though I don’t know enough about it' just might be the most honest thing Donny’s ever said, even if he’s far too demented to realize that’s what he’s saying.”

That's all for now. I'm going to fix myself some dinner and watch some TV. New episode of Paradise is out.

Tagged Umping, WBC, Baseball, Politics, Republicans, President VonClownstick, Posted on March 10, 2026 at 11:06PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

New sketch, the WBC, SFA, and cabinet chaos

Masataka Yoshida homers against Korea, demonstrating that the Red Sox have criminally underused him the last two years

A few disparate things today...

• ITEM: I've Just Seen a Face! The sketch I was working on the other day is now finished and can be seen in the sketchbook.
• ITEM: Dig It! Kristi Noem got taken to the metaphorical gravel pit! May she be but the first of many to fall. Meanwhile, the nominee to replace her is quite possibly the dumbest person in either house of Congress.
• ITEM: I'm Only Sleeping! This week saw the start of the 2026 World Baseball Classic, which opened with games held in Puerto Rico, Miami, Houston, and Tokyo. Naturally, the ones I'm most interested in are being played in Tokyo and they start at 2:00am PST. So I've been even more nocturnal than usual, staying up to watch Team Japan live rather than wait and watch a recording of the game during normal waking hours like a sane person would do. And they've been really fun games, too! In the opener, Japan clobbered Taiwan in a fashion that was reminiscent of some softball games I've both played in and umpired in recent years: the 13-0 drubbing ended early by WBC mercy rule, and one 6th-inning single is all that kept Taiwan from being no-hit by the loaded Japanese squad. Last night/this morning was more of a fair fight, with the Koreans nearly matching Japan play-for-play until the home 7th, when Korea brought in Young Kyu Kim (one of their many Kims) to pitch with one on and two out and poor Kim couldn't find the strike zone. Which, to be fair, was rather variable. The home plate ump in that game—Todd Tichenor, who is generally well regarded as an MLB ump—was truly bad, not remotely consistent with high strikes, low strikes, edge strikes, pretty much nothing was certain unless it was down the middle. Even so, Kim was wild and walked Kensuke Kondoh and Seya Suzuki after intentionally walking Shohei Ohtani, forcing in the go-ahead run, then Masataka Yoshida delivered a 2-RBI hit to put Japan up by three. That was enough for closer Taisei Ota to seal the deal in the 9th with help from Ukyo Shuto, just into the game in center field after pinch-running in the home 8th, who made a leaping catch against the wall for the second out.
• ITEM: She Came in Through the Bathroom Window! Once again, the eligibility rules in the WBC are a little too lax for my taste, though I get the rationale. Players can be on a nation-team's roster not only if they're citizens or permanent residents of the country, but if one or both of their parents are/were citizens or were born in the country or if they would be granted citizenship if desired under the country's laws. That last one is mostly for Team Israel, basically if you're Jewish you can play for the land of King David. So we have, for example, three Americans playing for Korea (named Dunning, O'Brien, and Whitcomb) who have never lived in Korea but have Korean-born moms; a Great Britain team with only two British players; a Team Italy with only three Italians; 13 Americans playing for Mexico; and an entirely American Israeli team. The Latin American teams have no trouble filling out their squads (you'd think Mexico would be fine under stricter rules too), of course Japan is a baseball powerhouse, the Netherlands is well-stocked because of that kingdom's Caribbean territories, Canada has plenty of Canadians, Taiwan is stocked with their own pros, and, kind of a surprise, Team Australia is almost entirely Australian, save for a couple of guys born in South Africa to Australians. So it's improving, but between Team USA, Team Puerto Rico, Team Israel, Team Italy, and Team Great Britain, the tournament has basically five American squads out of 20. I'd say it feels like stacking the deck, but only USA and Puerto Rico have a prayer of moving on.
• ITEM: It's All Too Much! On a less pleasant topic, Kristi Noem may be out of a job, but ICE hasn't changed its ways. The new American Gestapo have a betting pool going at their El Paso area detention camp, but instead of picking winners of football games they're betting on which of the incarcerated will kill themselves. In addition to being unconscionable and cruel and spot-on emblematic of our current presidential regime, this is encouragement for these thugs to treat their prisoners—you can call them "detainees" if you want, but they're prisoners—even worse than they otherwise would. It's a low bar to begin with, but this is insane. More insane, I mean.
• ITEM: Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey! Alleged attorney general Pam Bondi has been subpoenaed to testify in Congress and there have been articles of impeachment filed against her over her coverup of the Epstein files. About fucking time. Bounce her ass out, then bring her up on charges. (I know it isn't likely to get anywhere real, but we've got to try anyway, repeatedly, and with many other Cabinet officials, preparatory to when we have a majority and can impeach Felon47 and his bearded bootlicker.)
• ITEM: Don't Let Me Down! Starfleet Academy has been surprisingly good, and dropped it's ninth episode this week. The season finale streams Wednesday night, and I'm looking forward to it—when the series started, I had no idea what to expect; could be good, could suck. But it's been largely excellent considering its target audience as a YA show. It's improved on the other streaming-era Star Trek series by having an apparent quality control process with scripts. The writing is better structured and when there are holes in the stories they're forgivable. Like in this week's penultimate episode, the villain's dastardly plan is revealed to be, essentially, a blockade of the reborn Federation of Planets; how this was accomplished stretches my suspension of disbelief, that's an enormous area of space to cover even with this post-Burn mini-Federation. But the twist worked, the story that plot point is in service of is valuable, the situation it sets up for next week's finale is compelling, so I forgive the implausibility. It helped that this week's ep was a Jonathan Frakes episode, Frakes in the director's chair always elevates the material. But, the real make-or-break for this new show will be episode ten. Will it continue to be solidly written and character-focused and maintain its themes, or will it take a page from Discovery or the first two seasons of Picard and completely drop the ball at the end of the season, wrapping things up in a sort of, "shit, we're out of time, I guess just shrug off what we did earlier and invent some deus ex machina that we can forget later?" I'd be more optimistic if Alex Kurtzman wasn't a credited writer on episode ten. At least he's just the co-scripter of the teleplay. (Am I too hard on Kurtzman? Is my bias against anyone involved with writing the JJ movies too strong? I guess we'll see next week.)
• ITEM: Get Back! Or, more accurately, go forward—we begin our annual 8-month-long social engineering trickery tonight, turning the clocks ahead an hour for no good reason. The tyranny of morning people continues, and we night owls are shoved to the ground in our grogginess and given the finger. Tonight's WBC game in Tokyo will now start at 3:00am, which is so much worse than 2:00am, because the Japanese are smarter than we are and don't do stupid Daylight Saving Time.

That's all I have for now. Umping this week was good, no highlights/lowlights to speak of. Back out there Monday evening.

Tagged Baseball, Sketches, Politics, Republicans, Star Trek, Daylight Saving Time, The Beatles, WBC, Posted on March 7, 2026 at 7:45PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

There's one for you, nineteen for me

Doing my taxes is always one of those things that in advance feels like it's going to take forever and end up making me mad. Sometimes that's true; being a self-employed person makes it a lot more complicated than it was in the days where I just had a W-2 or two and could file a 1040EZ in five minutes on the phone. But, for better or worse, my business activity is a lot less than what it had been in pre-COVID years so it actually wasn't so time-consuming this time around. I think I spent around two hours on it start to finish.

It didn't make me as mad, either, because I don't owe as much as has been typical. Usually I owe the Feds a couple of grand or more, but not this year! The upside of not making as much money, I guess. My income was down considerably in ’25, thanks to the loss of a client or two and umping fewer games on the side. But I'm still a little mad, because (a) I know the current edition of the Federal government will misuse my (and everyone else's) tax money; and (b) I also know that next year's return will be worse because of Republican fuckery in ’25 affecting 2026 tax policy. Between ACA subsidy cuts, loads of fraud and graft conducted by the Felon47 regime, and an even further shifting of the tax burden off the Epstein Class and onto the rest of us, this is and will continue to be a painful year, financially and otherwise.

But for now I only had to cut a check with three digits before the decimal, so I'll take the "win."

Tagged Money, Republicans, Posted on March 4, 2026 at 8:34PM   |   Permalink   |     |