Umpire diary

I worked a shift at the softball field tonight. Two games, both with teams I really enjoy. It was going really well for about an hour—I was feeling good, energetic, had managed to successfully switch my brain over from news outrage to facilitating a good experience for good folks and having some fun in the process.

Then there was an interruption. After which my focus was disturbed, I made a couple of bad calls, and generally went from having a great shift to one ruled by distraction.

I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of the interruption because the point of writing this now is to process my reaction to what was said more than the actual things said. Suffice to say the interruption was from a league office colleague and it turned from a jovial "hey, [name], nice to see you, what are you doing here?" to me considering quitting this gig in the space of about five minutes.

Most (not all) of those things said were, while not delivered with much respect for me or my fellow umps, reasonable in and of themselves; in fact, in large part the message delivered to me was more of a heads-up than a critical berating, but it reinforced the feeling that the league doesn't value me as it should and that it was treating my colleague the messenger even worse. I was, and remain to some degree, pissed off on his behalf.

I've no idea what prompted this interruption, I just know that they're going to be standard for us umps and refs now, at least for a while. It's been determined that we need to be policed, and I resent it. It may have nothing to do with me personally, which, really, is part of the problem—I dislike management types that take a one-size-fits-all approach to situations where context is everything.

Now, I am fully aware that I am overreacting. That I am taking things personally when I shouldn't. I am also aware that by nature I resist taking orders, I insist on things having justifications that make sense, I have very little patience for clumsily disrespectful behavior. I'm not exactly one to just take a metaphorical slap without just cause nor am I one to accept whatever's told to me without knowing some context.

And I have very little context here. Something happened to instigate my colleague being ordered to do what he was doing, and my impression is that he's not pleased with how it's playing out either. Whatever "it" is.

Anyway, there's nothing to be done about it, I'm going to continue to do what I do as an ump for the league just as I've always done it because I know my job and, not to toot my own horn overly much, I do it better than most if not all of my fellow umps and make it a priority to facilitate the players—the people who pay the fees and who we want to see keep coming back for more—having a good time and don't just go through the motions. If I can make it more fun for them, I figure that's part of my job.

So being given shit for wearing grey pants—which is very umpire-norm, frankly—instead of khakis—which are very much not, and that's a thing? Since when is that a thing?—and getting no acknowledgment that, for example, players know me by name and always like games I ump better than games someone else does is ... irritating. Maybe they'd all keep coming back season after season and paying the fees without my being there (they probably would), but I don't think it's out of bounds for me to say that it's an easier decision for them because I am there (me and maybe one or two other well-liked officials). Too bad the league apparently doesn't give a damn.

On the flip side, nearly everyone else on the field tonight, all the players in both games, quite independently of this other crap, went out of their way to say they were glad to see me and let me know I was at least appreciated by them. Boku no ichiban suki na senshu was there for the first game tonight as well, making me appreciate that sometimes a gig is worth having even if the people that pay you think you're a replaceable cog.

Given a couple of days to process/get over this thing, I'll likely pivot to ignoring it and just move on and it'll be fine. In the grand scheme of things it's pretty trivial, after all. And if not, if it gets worse or escalates to a point that it genuinely offends me, well, I don't need the gig. I could get by without it just fine.