Umpire angst

Yesterday was another five-game Sunday for your friendly neighborhood umpire, only it wasn't quite in my friendly neighborhood. Usually on Sundays I get assigned the park that is, in fact, nearest my neighborhood; close enough to comfortably bike there if I so choose, which I have on occasion. No, this shift was in my old neighborhood, the first Seattle neighborhood I ever lived in atop Queen Anne hill.

The hill has changed a great deal since I lived there, but it's still a terrific little community within the city. What hasn't changed much is the West Queen Anne park, with its three ballfields and playground. That's where I spent my day, field number one, which thankfully has shade over home plate for most of the afternoon.

It wasn't as hot as the previous Sunday, about ten degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler, so in that respect it wasn't as bad as last week. Nevertheless, eight hours plus is a long time for me to be out there umping, and as expected, by the time I was five hours in I was getting cranky.

While the first game included a few people I like and the second featured a team I've become rather fond of, game three was with two teams I didn't know. New to the league and/or new to me, they were a little on the too-competitive-for-my-taste end of the scale and there was a fair amount of weirdness in the game. Add to the weirdness was the fact that we were behind schedule by 20 minutes as it was, thanks to the first game going off the rails in the seventh inning with the then-losing-but-ultimately-winning team plating 11 runs and forcing a bottom half of the inning; that hosed the schedule for the rest of the day.

Anyway, there were a few arguments in that third game, none of which lasted long but also none of which I was sure I was on the right side of given the circumstances. When there's only one ump working a game there are bound to be things that fall outside one's visual field, and I was getting tired and cranky anyway, so by the time we got an hour and ten minutes into our eighty-five allotted minutes of gametime, I had to call a conditional last inning—though we were only going into the 6th, it would be the final frame unless this top half went by in under five minutes. It did not, so when the bottom was completed, I called an end to the game and some of the players were pissed. "But we started 20 minutes late!" "You didn't call 'last inning!'" "What the fuck, man?" I had zero patience left and my replies showed it. "Yes, and if we continued we'd be at least thirty minutes late for the next one." "I absolutely did, you just weren't paying attention." "Say that again, see if it helps your cause."

We moved on, but as the teams were clearing out of their respective dugouts I felt a need to extend an apology for the sake of keeping peace within the league if nothing else, saying sorry for the sharp tone, this wasn't my best game and I'm a little pissed with myself about a couple things and it's leaking out. Half true, half CYA.

The final two included a doubleheader with a team two guys I know from Cap Hill games were subbing for, so I had some friendly faces there. It went OK, but I was beat. By game five of the day I could barely muster enough energy/motivation to jog down toward first base to make calls, I stayed in the shade and hoped nothing was too close half the time.

My fellow ump working the opposite QA field got the short end of the stick in the sense that he had to work the field with no shade for the first three-plus games, but then one of the teams scheduled for his fifth game didn't show up, so he got to declare a forfeit and bug out early. He could have come over and been a base ump for my game, but I don't begrudge him for taking off. Five-gamers are brutal, even for a twenty-something punk like him. (Kidding, I don't think he's a punk. Barely know the guy at all, really.)

As I was returning our gear to the office, I ran into another ump who had the games at my regular Sunday spot and asked him how it went and I learned that I'd been shifted to QA for the day because he had newbies to train and the schedule worked best to do that at Northacres. Huh, OK. Nothing against my fellow ump there, but he's relatively new himself and maybe the youngest guy on the staff. I later looked over the rest of the assignments for Sunday and saw that every field except QA had trainees.

Used to be, I trained a lot of new umps. Then the owner of the business came down to check out one of my trainee games and undercut everything I said the the new guy and I told him off, not knowing who he was. Oops. (On the other hand, if you ask me he wasn't helping the new guy at all and I was prevented from doing so myself.) Since then, what do you know, I don't get trainees anymore. OK, that's their business and all, but I kind of resent it; teaching is one of my roads-not-taken and I enjoyed training the new guys, I think I was good at it. But whatever, their loss.

Anyhow, after I got home I was completely wiped out and nursing a headache; I watched the afternoon's Mariner game and crashed hard, then slept away a goodly chunk of today. Spent the rest of the day lounging on the balcony reading and dozing. These long Sunday shifts do me in for far too long, I shouldn't accept them anymore, at least not more than once in a while. Next week I'm back to my normal spot and it's only four games, so that's good. And I have a relatively small schedule of games during the week too, which will be a welcome little break.

Between the long Sundays; the fact that I as one of the senior, seasoned, most popular umps is barred from training newbies; and the fact that I am thirty years older than most everyone else on field staff (and probably older than everyone in the office too), I have been wondering again if I'm much longer for this gig. We'll see. I think the thought will pass, I'll get over my age-related insecurities, and keep on doing it as long as I feel fit enough to and they keep asking me back.

But no more  five-game Sundays, maybe.