Umpiring the Women's World Cup of Baseball Championships in Taipei last August was a great experience not only for the opportunity to work with umpires from other countries, but also the fun of seeing young girls play the game usually considered the exclusive province of boys and men. Seven countries were represented at the tournament - USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Cuba, and Taiwan - and an umpire from each participant country was selected by USA Baseball for officiating duties. As the umpire representing the United States, I was not permitted to work games in which the USA team played. Similar restrictions applied to all the umpires except the seven Taiwanese gentlemen whose on-field ubiquity was unavoidable since we worked a four-umpire system, and excluding them from any Taiwan games would have been a logistical impossibility.

Working with umpires who spoke three, sometimes four different languages per crew was a challenge, to say the least, but we rose to it with enthusiasm and respect for each other. Having some very adept translators around helped a lot too, especially during on-field discussions with managers. We umpires became a tight group, and the Taiwanese umps proved very skilled and gracious hosts. On nights when those of us who had the energy went out for dinner or drinks, our Taiwanese compatriots seldom allowed us to pay for anything, and they knew all the good places to eat and have fun. We spent a memorable evening at one of the storied night markets, where dozens of vendors who stay open until the wee hours of the morning have stalls and storefronts set up for blocks and blocks featuring clothes, trinkets, and apothecaria. I gave a crowd of locals a huge laugh when I walked up to a vendor selling snake oil - they harvest it from these huge dead snakes they have hanging on hooks from the ceilings, often with live ones slithering around the floors of the stalls as well - and asked him for a glass of the bile. He handed it to me and I chugged it right down! The snake juice was mixed with alcohol so it tasted a little like wine and was not unpleasant at all.

Taipei itself was an interesting city both geographically and culturally. It seems to have been built haphazardly, with few zoning sensibilities of the kind American city-dwellers are used to. Imposing Buddhist temples stand vigil over catacombs of back alleys housing mom-and-pop businesses and unassuming family dwellings. Modest residential areas intertwine with rows of high-fashion stores like Fendi, Bulgari, Dunhill, and Ralph Lauren. It was also interesting and somewhat alarming to see how western culture has invaded the east; there were at least one McDonald's and one 7-11 convenience store literally every three blocks in the section of town in which we were housed. Baseball is big business in Taiwan; the professional league over there is very popular, but the local umpires told us it has been riddled with bribery scandals the last few years, which is practically unheard of in the United States. Of course, we were closely observed and evaluated by members of the International Baseball Federation in attendance as well as by our fearless leader, Dick Runchey, who offered us great constructive criticism and invaluable insight into our on-field performances. It looked like Japan was going to obliterate the competition early on - they had a couple of pitchers who were clocked consistently in the low seventies and an offense that shut out the competition by scores of 9 to nothing, 43 to nothing, and 15 to nothing the first three days - but they faded down the stretch and USA held steady to win the Gold on the final day of the tournament in an extra-inning nail-biter that was plate-umpired superbly by Lisa Turbitt, representing Canada.