Welcome to Blue Crew Diaries, an Umpire Podcast. My name is Daryl and I will be your host as we take a look behind the mask, so to speak, sharing stories, insights and experiences from the unique perspective of the baseball umpire. In this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about the
things that you can do to make sure you are ready for the upcoming season. If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes, drop me a line at BlueCrewDiaries@gmail.com. So if you're ready, grab your indicator and plate brush and let's hit the field.
All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Blue Crew Diaries. My name is Daryl and in this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about getting ready for the season. Yes, the local little league that I umpire with or for, we're about a month away from opening day.
So, I'm going through my gear bag, making sure I have everything, which I should have everything. I haven't touched it since fall ball last year.
But basically going down through kind of this checklist to make sure that I am ready for the season. You definitely do not want to wait for the last minute to do all this stuff because it's just not going to work out very well for you.
So, starting off with your gear. Yes, your gear. You want to make sure that your gear is ready to go. Like I said, pretty much my everything in my gear bag. I haven't touched since the end of last year.
So, definitely want to go through your gear. So, when you pull your gear out of the bag, you want to check over everything. Okay, you want to check your mask, make sure that your mask doesn't have any damage, possibly from last season where you took a, you know, took a foul ball or something like that.
You want to make sure your harness is in good shape. If you need to make adjustments to your harness, now is the time to do that to make sure you get a proper fit for your mask.
The traditional mask, you want them to fit a little bit loose so that when you tilt your head down, the mask kind of comes off of your face just a little bit. And that will give you a little bit more cushion. If you do take a foul ball to the mask, it'll allow that mask to kind of absorb more of that impact.
Now, if you are using the Force III Defender mask, their traditional mask, they recommend that you have that not tight to your face, but nice and secure against your face, because the springs in that mask are going to take up that impact.
So, make sure your mask and your harness are good to go. Same thing with your chest protector. Take a look over your chest protector, put it on, make sure it fits, make adjustments as you need to with that.
It probably wouldn't hurt to maybe spray the inside of it with a little Febreze or something like that, because it's probably not going to smell all that great when you first take it out of the bag.
Make sure all the buckles are good. You don't have any cracked buckles or broken items on the chest protector.
And just make sure everything fits. Same goes with the shin guards. Make sure that your shin guards fit properly.
Make any adjustments that you need to make there. If you do find broken equipment, now is the time to get new stuff.
You definitely don't want to wait until the first game of the season. You get to the field, pull your shin guards out of your gear bag to put them on for that first game and realize that you have a broken strap or something like that.
If you have the means to carry extra straps, harnesses, even a full extra mask, that would definitely be a good idea.
As I said in I believe the last episode, I am switching to the Force III Defender mask, but I'm also bringing my Champ Pro mask with me in the gear bag, just in case something happens with the Force III.
I don't anticipate any problems, especially with the UMP Life harness that I got for it.
But if something happens, I have that spare mask. Or if I'm working the bases.
Remember last episode, I said every piece of gear that I have, even my plate gear, comes with me to the field no matter what I'm working.
So if I'm working the bases and the plate umpire somehow forgets his or her mask, I can go into my gear bag and they can either wear my Force III Defender or I'll loan them my Champ Pro basic face mask for the game.
So look over all of your gear. Now is the time to buy replacements if you need to.
Another thing is your shoes. Make sure that your laces on your shoes are good, both your plate shoes and your base shoes.
I would recommend a good thorough cleaning of them.
Even if you want to really get in depth with the cleaning and take the laces out of the shoes, scrub them down, clean them up.
The plate shoes, I would recommend putting a couple of coats of polish on them just so they look good.
You definitely want to look good when you're out there. You want to look like you know what you're doing.
So make sure your shoes are cleaned, they're shined up, they're ready to go.
Any other gear that you have, just do a visual inspection of it. Your indicator, if you have the ability to take your indicator apart, clean it, lube it up.
I would highly suggest doing that. I plan to do that on mine here a little later on this afternoon.
Yeah, just go over all of your gear, make sure everything's ready to go for the season.
Uniforms. Take your uniforms out, put your uniforms on, make sure that your pants fit.
We are a few months after the holidays, people have been eating a lot.
If you're not involved in any other sports, then you've probably just been sitting around the house all winter doing nothing.
So you may have to make some adjustments to your pants. You may have to get new pants.
Make sure that they fit, make sure that they're the correct length.
Same thing with your shirts. Make sure you put all of your gear on, your chest protector, your shin guards, and then put your plate uniform on.
Make sure that all of that fits together. Make sure that your base shirt and pants fit properly.
And whatever you do, please, please, please wash your uniforms before the first game.
Even your backup uniforms, wash those because you don't want to show up to the field and have a coach walk up to you and go, whoa, boy.
But that shirt apparently has not been out of the bag since last year, has it?
You don't want to be the smelly umpire that just does not does not scream professionalism.
So make sure that you try all your gear, uniforms on. Now, like I said, is the time to make changes.
Ideally, you should start this process a couple of months out from your first from your first game.
But it's entirely up to you. You don't have to do any of this, but don't be surprised when you get to your first game and you find that something is amiss.
Next thing I would highly recommend is brush up on the rulebook.
For 2024, there are not any there. There's only a couple of changes to Little League's rulebook,
none of which on the baseball side affect umpires.
Until you get to tournament time, but that's that's a few months down the road anyway.
But brush up on the rulebook. Make sure you have a basic understanding of the rules.
You don't have to be the the encyclopedia of rules and know each and every one and be able to recite each and every single rule verbatim without even looking at the book.
You don't need to do that. Just have a solid grasp on the rules.
And have a rulebook near you. OK, I carry the the physical copy of the Little League rulebook in my gear bag.
So it's there with all my games. If I am the base umpire, I will typically have my cell phone in my pocket and I have the Little League rulebook app on my phone.
So between innings or after a game, something like that, if I need to reference a rule regarding a call that was made, boom, I either I either have it on my phone.
I can pull it out, bring the app up and and research it that way.
Or I can go to my gear bag after the game, grab the physical book.
Regarding rules, if there are any rules clinics in your area or umpire clinics in your area, I would highly, highly, highly suggest that you attend those.
Not just from the rules side, but also from the mechanics side.
I know one of the high school baseball umpire associations here in Maine was going to have a free umpire clinic.
Back in I believe it was supposed to be the middle of January over at the University of Maine.
Just going over mechanics and they were going to do some cage work and things like that.
And that still hasn't happened yet because the inflatable dome that the University of Maine has that this was going to take place in collapsed about a year and a half ago.
But normally, if you're working Little League, your local Little League district will typically in most areas have a rules clinic or an intro umpire clinic.
I know my local district is having one here coming up in a couple of weeks.
It is, let's just say, not being very well advertised.
And they wonder why everybody short umpires.
So attend those if you have the means.
Also online on YouTube rules clinics can also be very, very helpful of us.
As I said in the past episode, California District 4 Little League.
Look them up on YouTube.
They have multiple rules clinics.
They go right down through the rule book every year.
They've already done their rules clinics for this year.
Believe those were posted last month.
Check those out.
Some really, really good information.
They really break the rule book down very well.
I would highly recommend that.
So YouTube California District 4 Little League.
Speaking of that, master your mechanics.
I mean, I know for a fact that umpires all over the world will sit in their living room or their bedroom with their indicator in their hand watching a baseball game on TV.
And they'll be standing there and they will basically umpire the game.
They'll work on their mechanics.
They'll work on, you know, plate work, stuff like that.
Yeah, you look a little funny doing it, but it does help.
Practice.
A lot of people say practice makes perfect.
My old shop teacher used to say practice makes permanent.
So take that however you want.
In mastering your mechanics, you also want to rehearse other things.
So one big thing is the plate meeting.
What are you going to say at the plate meeting?
How are you going to present yourself at the plate meeting?
A lot of umpires get to the plate meeting and have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
They're just standing there looking at the two coaches like, okay, well, are we supposed to talk about something or so?
Practice that stuff.
In my lineup card holder that I keep in my shirt pocket, I have a little checklist on the inside that I printed out with things to talk about at the plate meeting.
Not a bad idea.
But rehearse this kind of stuff before you get on the field.
Rehearse how you're going, how you would deal with an angry coach or manager, an angry player, angry fans.
How are you going to respond to that?
Make up random situations in your head.
And then mentally rehearse your response and how you would handle that situation.
On kind of a side note, a gentleman that I worked with about 15 years ago was also a part time police officer, as was his brother.
And one night, his brother responded to an incident and a person approached him with a knife.
And he was forced to draw his firearm.
Luckily, he didn't have to pull the trigger.
He got compliance from the individual who put the knife down or whatever.
But in talking about this incident, he told his brother, my former coworker, that he completely froze when he saw this situation developing.
He didn't know what to do.
He didn't know what to say.
He was just frozen.
And then he thought, OK, I need to, you know, return a greater amount of force.
So he drew his firearm.
But he said that the gun was shaking in his hand because he just massive adrenaline dump.
He didn't know what to do.
So my former coworker thought about that and started thinking about different situations that he could run into while on patrol.
And about six months later, he was approached by an individual holding a knife walking towards him.
But because he had rehearsed how he would respond to a situation like this over and over and over again, he was calm.
He was cool.
He knew exactly what he needed to do.
Drew his firearm, ordered the individual on the ground, ordered the individual to put the knife down, you know, and said what he had rehearsed.
And he very quickly gained compliance. The subject put the knife down, responded to his orders and the situation was resolved.
So mentally rehearsing situations that you can come across on the baseball field can definitely be to your benefit.
So rehearse this stuff, have a game plan for when something happens.
Always try to be proactive, not reactive.
And lastly, just take a look at your overall health and fitness level.
This is something that I'm trying to to get into.
I'm a real hard person to motivate, but I will get there.
But just just think about it.
I mean, if you're working the plate, you're going to be doing, you know, a couple of hundred squats in a game.
Just standing behind the catcher, getting down, you know, squatting down into your stance, call the pitch, stand back up, get down into your stance, call the pitch, stand back up.
You're doing hundreds of this of these every game.
And if you're working a double header, boy, you know, part of being an umpire is also the hustle.
Getting into position, getting where you need to be.
You know, if you are working the plate, there's a ground ball to say the shortstop.
Your job, if there's nobody else on base, your job is to hustle up that first baseline.
Behind the runner, behind the batter runner and make sure you don't have a runner's lane violation.
You're looking for the first baseman's foot.
Make sure it does not come off the bag until after he has secure possession of the baseball.
You're looking for stuff like that. You're looking for obstruction.
You're looking for interference.
Same thing if you have runners on base and you have to take a call at third.
You've got a runner going from second to third. Your base umpire is already occupied.
He's going going out for a fly ball.
You've got to get down there to to watch that play if the ball is coming in.
So there's there's a lot of hustle that goes on between the base umpire and the plate umpire.
Base umpire, you're all over the place.
There have been times I'll be over in the seat position last year with a runner on third and something happens.
That runner gets thrown out or they take off for for home on a ground ball.
They're out at that home plate.
So now I'm over in C. Well, now there's nobody else on on base except for first base.
So now I got to hustle all the way back over there, you know, over to B.
Or if there's there's no runners on, I got to go from C position almost at third base all the way back over to the A position.
And I want to get there as quickly as I can because I don't want to hold up the game for the next batter.
So there's there's quite a bit of hustle there.
So just make sure you don't have to be, you know, in the most brilliant, perfect shape that anybody has ever been in the history of of mankind.
But just make sure you're not going to drop in the middle of a game.
So that is it for this episode.
Hopefully you are looking forward to the season.
I know I am only about a month to go, and then I'll have I'll have people throwing baseballs in my face.
Can't wait.
So, yeah, look forward to the season.
Try and be the best umpire that you can both physically from a from an appearance standpoint and also working.
You know, try to make the correct calls if at all possible.
Study up on the rulebook so you can at least appear to know what you're doing.
That's half the battle.
So as always, thank you very much for listening and I will see you on the diamond.