Around the World of Umpiring

I worked as a sports official for more than 37 years, starting my career in California doing sandlot, little league and Division II college games. At one of those games I was introduced to the legendary umpire Shag Crawford, who had an umpire school in San Francisco for Triple-A umpires. He asked me if I would be interested in coming to his school and that I was good enough then, at age 20, to be accepted as an umpire in Triple-A baseball. What a thrill that would have been, but unfortunately I had just committed to re-enlist in the Air Force (eventually retiring after 26 years) and was waiting for an assignment, which I felt fairly certain would take me to Vietnam.

I also worked in Texas and Maine but the majority of my time, more than 18 years, was spent at overseas assignments. During that time I was either in charge of, or basically responsible for training, officials assigned to local associations. These associations provided officials not only for base-level sports, but also grade-school and high-school games, as well as local universities. University level in this case would have been equivalent to Division III or possibly II in the US. There were also instances, such as in Korea, where I officiated, and trained officials for the Korean Professional Baseball League, which at that time was basically equivalent to Double-A ball in the US.

For the most part, the local officials I worked with were college-aged, especially those in Europe: Germany, Italy, Austria. The hard thing about baseball here was that baseball being played was not on baseball fields, as we know it, but on makeshift, empty fields, with diamonds haphazardly laid out. No mound for the pitcher, in the case of school-aged ball [which as we see now may have been a good thing] and most times slightly less than 90 feet between bases; and less than 60 feet 6 inches from what would pass as a pitching rubber to the cardboard box cut out to resemble home plate. Italy probably had the most well-defined baseball fields, even if some were laid in the middle of a soccer pitch! In Greece, on the island of Crete, it was US baseball almost exclusively, between the Air Force and the Navy.

In the Far East, Okinawa, which at that time was still under US jurisdiction, probably had the most regulation fields as the Okinawans followed Japanese and American professional baseball almost as fanatically as some of the servicemen stationed there. Vietnam provided spectators for baseball, but very few participants. In my time there I trained 15 officials, only one of whom umpired any of the service games (more about Captain Do later). The Philippines had one of the best structured associations I have worked with outside of the US, with professional level training facilities and staff that worked with all levels of officials year round. The baseball played there in the ’70s was between Double-A and Triple-A level, and involved not only base teams from all the services, but Philippine teams as well, who were well coached, and motivated.

TRAINING OFFICIALS

The first thing in training any of the officials, in any region, was common language. It did no good if you could not communicate the intent of the rule. As both the Rulebook and the Umpire’s Manual were written in English, and then translated into the native language, there was a loss of nuance, so to speak. For instance, when making a call on a very close play, the manual’s intent of the rule was: “to be ‘emphatic in the call, leaving no doubt as to your decision.’” For the Asian umpires this was extremely difficult to get across, as their culture was not one where you intentionally ever made someone “lose face.” And to their way of thinking, that “emphatic call” was definitely a “loss” for the individual. It took much persuasion to bring them around to the idea of the correct way of doing it.

Another universal difficulty was going behind the plate and making the interpretation of the strike zone [not an uncommon factor in any league]. To tell them that the call is to be made on any ball that “passes over any part of the plate while being in a zone between the bottom of the letters/elbows, and the hollow of the knee, while the batter is in his regular stance …” took a considerable amount of time and effort. First of all one had to be able to tell what was a “regular stance” once the batter entered the box, whether it was a 6-foot-3 American, or a 5-foot-1 Asian. Also, about 99 percent of the trainees had never been hit: By a pitched ball, not to mention a foul ball, in their lives, and the first time this happened it was a complete shock! “Geez, that HURT!” or some form of that were the first words normally uttered; not “foul” as was required. We spent one entire week in this training alone; eventually it ended up that the Americans had to actually stand on the mound and throw hard balls at the trainees who stood on the plate and let the balls hit them. Of course the trainees all were protected with masks, chest protector, and shin guards, but it still took a great deal of courage on their part to stand on the plate and get plunked by baseballs; some of our guys could get the ball on the plate upwards of 90 mph.

Once we had gotten them over the stigma of being hit, then getting them to be able to stand in the proper position to call the pitch was paramount. The difference in size between umpiring behind an American catcher and an Asian was considerable and played a huge role. Eventually it came down to the Asian umpires almost having to stand side-saddle to the catcher on the inside of them between the batter and the catcher to get a decent view of the plate. We also tried having them stand on the opposite side of the batter, which worked fairly well, but did not “catch on” as a standard.

Another difficulty was getting equipment to fit. A standard mask was always too large, and getting Pony League type equipment took a while. Learning how to properly wear a cup was another shock for the Asian men, except those who were martial-arts students, who were familiar with the practice. Most of the students could not understand why it was necessary, until we gave them a practical demonstration (which I shall leave to your imagination). Fitting the mask was the most difficult of the ensemble as the straps on most masks were just not long enough to be pulled tightly enough to fit properly; it was either too loose at the top or kept bouncing off the chin as the umpire moved. In some cases we had to take the mask to a local belt maker and have extra-long straps made.

THE “TORNADO”

Vietnam in 1967-68 was still quite new to American baseball. Having been a French colonial possession, the country’s main passion was soccer. However, on the American bases, particularly in and around the Saigon area, service teams played baseball and softball on regulation fields over the weekends, and the Vietnamese service members and their families would come out to watch and cheer along with the rest of the crowd. I arrived in May of 1967 and started umpiring games in July. It was basically myself and three other Americans who could get the time off from our busy schedules (I was working as part of an Inspector General team at the time) to do games in what was considered III and IV Corps (military designated districts of South Vietnam) encompassing most of the area in the southern part of the country.

In early September, I was approached by the commander of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF), stationed in Saigon. He asked me if we would train some of his officers to be umpires so that his men could play “regular baseball” and possibly be able to compete with the American teams by the coming year. I was one of the trainers for our blossoming umpire program, which unfortunately was ended by the Tet campaign, and had not been resumed by the time I left in May of 1968. I told him we would be glad to have them, but they must remember that we were the instructors, and they were students, not “officers,” and that our instructions were to be obeyed; questioned as necessary, but obeyed. He agreed to this, and the next night, fellow trainers and I were introduced to 15 VNAF personnel. Among them was one Tho Tran Do, a captain, and pilot.

Tho Tran Do stood all of 5-feet-3 in his stocking feet. I had met him previously as we had been ferried by him in his helicopter for a couple of missions. He had a specially designed helicopter, with wooden blocks on his anti-torque pedals so he could sit in the pilot’s seat and see out of the wind screen!

Do took to the training with a will, and was especially delighted at the maneuver necessary to come in from the first-base line and pivot to make a call at a base on a ball hit into the outfield. As we basically worked only a two-man system, this required the first-base umpire to enter the field from his position on the foul line, keeping an eye on the batter/runner, as well as sighting the ultimate contact point of the fielder and the batted ball, all the while anticipating whether the batter/runner was going to make a turn at first and attempt second base, or just run out and then return to first.

Captain Do’s approach was unique, to say the least, and thus earned him his well-deserved nickname. As a student of the martial arts, he was already quite fluid in his movements, and as a pilot his anticipatory powers were better than average.

With a ball hit into the outfield, Do would “launch” himself, literally, from the foul line into the field of play, sometimes by as much as three feet into the air. Landing in a full run, he would then proceed past the first baseman and, jumping in the air, complete a 180-degree pirouette, landing on his feet, with his back towards the plate, his head on a swivel looking at the batter/runner, and his body in a position to turn towards first, or to follow into second base! It was amazing to watch, and justly earned him the ‘moniker’ “Tornado”! He would have made an exceptional umpire in any league; his knowledge of the game was good, and his moves were up to our expectations. Unfortunately, he died in February 1968 during the Tet campaign when his helicopter went down near Saigon.

BEST EXPERIENCE

The best experience I ever had as an umpire occurred while I was in Korea. Some of the Korean air force personnel who worked for me at the time were going to Soul to see a Korean Professional Baseball League game. They asked me if I’d like to accompany them, and I said I’d be delighted. We boarded the bus outside the base, and an hour later arrived in front of the stadium in downtown Seoul. It was not impressive, massive concrete from the outside, and gray. But inside? Bells, whistles, cheering, and colorful costumes were the norm. The fans loved their baseball, and were there for the spectacle of the game, as well as to be seen and heard. It was wonderful, and exciting to be in the middle of it. About half an hour before the game was to start there was an announcement over the PA system. Since my Korean was rudimentary at best, I had no idea what was being said, but all of a sudden all my friends were jumping up in their seats, turning towards the press box, and waving their hands. I just sat there, wondering what was going on. Five minutes later one of the security officials came down to our row, and started talking with the “leader” of our group; he then turned to me and asked in English: “Are you an umpire?” Well! I told him I was and asked why. “The third umpire in this crew is sick and cannot get on the field, we would consider it an honor if you would take his place and help with umpiring this game.” Not having a uniform or anything remotely resembling one I said, I’d love to help, but was not dressed for it. “No matter,” he replied. “We keep umpire uniforms in all sizes on site.”

Fifteen minutes later, to the cheers of my friends, I accompanied the other two Korean umpires on to the field, and assumed my position at third base. I had one call the entire game, a foul ball outside the foul pole.

In my experience, umpiring is how you were trained, and most of the world’s umpires have, ultimately, been trained by American sources. It is fairly standard, with slight cultural differences in body posture and gestures being the only real modifications to an otherwise excellent system.