I had an odd feeling on Sunday afternoon, as I stepped onto a baseball field for the quadrillionth time: total confidence.
Except for a 19-year hiatus, I have been umpiring since I was 14 — that means I’ve umpired 23 seasons of baseball. I’ve worked games from Little League to NCAA Division I. These days I exclusively officiate Minnesota Amateur games, known colloquially around here as “Town Ball.”
Town Ball is a Minnesota tradition dating back to the 19th century: the Minnesota Baseball Association, which administers Town Ball, is 101 years old, and the umpire association I’m in is a couple years older than that. It’s a wood bat league (which I love), and has players from high school age into the 40s — side note: what other sport can you have a 17-year-old pitch to a guy who played professional baseball 20 years ago? — with the bulk of players being in or just out of college.
It’s a high level of play, and games can get intense. And I love the challenge of it.
As an umpire, I’ve long projected confidence. It’s the only way to be when you walk onto a field and up to the plate to have the pre-game meeting with managers. It’s like when I was approaching my first foray into undergraduate teaching after years of teaching grad school. I reached out to several profs I know and asked them how I should teach differently; several came back with the same answer: From day one, own the classroom. They were telling me that exerting control and displaying confidence is essential for teaching undergrads.
It’s the same in baseball. When an I walk on the field, I have to project confidence — frankly, I think most of us umpires try to exhibit an easy confidence, that we’re comfortable in our skin, we’re going to call a good game, and we’re not unapproachable.
But the confidence that I project is not always reflective of the confidence I feel. I have bad games, as every umpire does. Managers and players and fans complain about my strike zone. And at least three times this year, I’ve gotten a rule wrong. When that happens, it chips away at my confidence.
However, recently I’ve had a string of good games. Some have tested me physically — like a couple triple-headers in 90-degree heat and humidity — but in regards to my officiating, everything has been clicking. Of course I missed some ball-and-strike calls, which is inevitable, but the vast majority of my calls were right, my mechanics were solid, and, most significantly, I felt comfortable and confident. Plus, after umping solo for most of the season, now I’m umpiring with partners in the playoffs, so I’m getting some positive feedback from them.
I had my last one-man game of the season on Sunday. It was scorchingly hot but mercifully windy in Webster (pop., 1,865) as they took on the visitors from Veseli (unincorp.). Being the last game of the regular season for these two teams, lots of fans showed up, many of whom sat in lawn chairs under the shade of trees planted along the first baseline. I’d had Webster earlier in the season, but had not yet seen Veseli. At the plate meeting the Webster manager asked me about a rule change (the size of the runner’s lane to first); I’d explained the new rule at the earlier game, and he’d subsequently asked a couple other umps, some of whom told him that the rule has not changed. I explained the rule again — I knew I was right, and that exchange put a little wind in my sails.
Webster jumped out to a big lead in the first. But then both pitchers settled in, and the game flew by.
After the game, I had a funny experience on my walk back to my truck: I thought, I’m pretty damn good at this.
(I realize that I often come off as supremely confident. But as any preacher or stand-up comic will tell you, when you walk off the stage, the feeling is rarely, I killed it. It’s usually, That sucked.)
But the corollary thought was even more significant: That means I’m getting better.
Some of you aren’t middle-aged men, but I’m guessing you can guess the gist of lots of our conversations. We often talk about our aches and pains (my bad back, my plantar fasciitis) and about what we used to be able to do that we can’t do anymore (drive through the night to Colorado and ski a bunch of black diamonds the next day). Hell, if you were to ask me the best decision I’ve made in 2024, it’s the commitment to take Metamucil every day. (Life changer, I’m telling you.)
But in contravention to the many ways that my body and mind are degrading, a few endeavors in my life stand out: the ones that I’m getting better at.
Umpiring baseball is one of them. Pheasant hunting is another.
And writing. My decade of editing others’ words affected my own writing massively (which I can see only now, with some hindsight).
If you’ve read my book, or some of my previous posts here, you know that the end of my father’s life serves as something of a cautionary tale for me. When he retired, he had no hobbies and a dearth of close friends. He didn’t learn any new skills, didn’t exercise, and barely even read books. I do Turkish Get-Ups every day at the gym because he couldn’t get up from the floor in his last year.
I don’t want my adulthood to be defined by what my dad was not (how very Oedipal), but it is a motivator for me to keep improving, learning new skills, and making new friends and keeping in close touch with longstanding friends.
Thanks for reading.