By Matthew Sullivan

Jon walked onto the field wearing gray slacks that were stained brown from obviously years of abuse. Instead of wearing an actual umpiring shirt, he had on a black shirt with a University of Georgia Bulldog logo on the left breast. He had on a cheap mesh hat.

As an umpire, I immediately knew I was in for a long night! From his stained, un-pressed non-official uniform I could tell Jon did not take pride in his work. Imagine, what the coaches thought!

A major key to being successful on the amateur level, is looking professional. Coming to the park dressed in a clean, neatly pressed, official uniform tells everyone you are ready to go. Wearing what Jon had on tells everyone that someone climbed up out of the sewer to work the game!

2. Pre-game

The above story reflects another point, the pre-game conference. I got to the park early, because I knew I was working with someone I had never met before. I went over in my head what I wanted to cover before the game with my partner on the ride to the park. However, my pre-game talk was reduced to next to nothing because by the time Jon arrived, we had to walk from the parking lot to the field to get the game started on time.

The area I wanted to cover the most in the pre-game meeting with Jon was our two-man mechanics. obviously, umpiring two years in the minors, I was very comfortable with the required minor league mechanics, but was not sure about my partner. While there was no way to cover everything in a twenty-minute pre-game meeting, I wanted to cover some highlights. Instead, in two minutes I had to tell Jon:

By the look on Jon's face I knew it had not sinked in. Not once, but twice, I had fair/foul calls down the right field line with no runners on, from barely ten feet up the first base line. Then to my horror, on a ROUTINE fly ball to left with a runner on first, Jon went out onto the infield dirt to rule on the catch. And, of course, the runner on first fell asleep and was on second when the catch was made. Realizing there was a good chance Jon was not going to see a bang-bang appeal at first, I started sliding to first to do, as the pro umpires say, cover my partner's *ss. Well, when the routine catch was made , Jon made a great (sarcasm here) "OOOUUUT" call, wheeling and swirling, and never saw the throw to first. Thankfully the play was wide-open, but I waited a few seconds to make sure Jon never made a call, because I did not want to have two different calls. But Jon still was in his twilight zone, so I said out, from the 45-foot line, only to hear both coaches say, "At least one of you is awake."

The lesson: Invest ten or twenty dollars and buy a mechanics manual, Referee magazine sells a very good one, and the official minor league guide is now available for the public.

In the second game of the doubleheader Jon, against my better judgement, took the plate asking me to watch him and critique him. I went to the bases knowing I better "open up" behind the pitcher's mound on every play, because there was no way Jon was covering third on a first-to-third.

Anyways, the trouble began on the third pitch of the game. The lead-off batter got a single on the game's second pitch, and on the third pitch the third base coach started screaming "balk". First, let me tell you the pitcher did not balk (I'm positive).

But anyways, the third base coach quickly walked down to Jim to argue. I held my ground, watching the situation develop. The coach talked for ten seconds (seemed like a minute) and then Jon looked at me white as a ghost. Jon started walking towards me saying, "Matt, he said he balked, I'm not sure if he did or not."

Now, to Jon's credit I knew that he knew the pitcher did not balk. But his mistake was that he had no confidence in himself. All he had to say was, "he did not balk, coach." But by doing what he did, he let both dugouts know he was not sure of himself, and he caught slack all night long.

Now, obviously, I could not tell Jon to go get some guts when he came to me, so before Jon even finished his sentence I said loudly from position "B" so the coach could here, "The pitcher did not balk, and we're not going to stop the game everytime you think he balks so you can come down to the plate and argue. We'll call it if he does."

The coach said a parting shot as all coaches do, "you guys missed it", but I said nothing more and two seconds later he was in the box, the game re-started and we never heard anything about a balk the rest of the night.

By having confidence in yourself as an umpire you show coaches that you are not going to be intimidated, and at the same time that you are going to be fair and impartial.

Since returning to umpiring amateur baseball after two years in the minor leagues, the one question I get asked the most by umpires who want me to critique them is, "what can I do better." The answer to this question with 99 out of the 100 amateur umpires who ask me this question is: improve your timing.

At least three times last year, I saw my plate umpire begin to call a strike, only to have the batter swing late. So my partner, who was coming up with a solid called "STRIIIIIIKE" is now showing up the batter. Or worse yet, I've seen my partner's right hand come up, only to have the batter make contact and put the ball in play.

The next question that follows is, "Then what can I do to improve my timing?"

There are several things an umpire can do to improve his timing behind the plate. I personally feel that I truggle with my timing early each spring. This was a result of having the whole winter off. So to combat this I decided to tape several major league playoff games. Then, to my wife's horror, I put on my plate equipment, took a chair (that represented the catcher) and started calling balls and strikes off the game tape in my living room. (For this to be successful, you MUST ignore the home plate umpire on the tape. A major league ump's timing is much, much faster than you or I because he is much better than you and I combined. Secondly, don't worry if he calls it a ball or strike, because we can't really tell on the tape which it is due to the distorted camera angles, but that is not important in this drill) In this drill, the umpire should follow the ball into the catchers' glove. When the ball hits the glove, the umpire should say in his head, "A thousand and one," or "That's a strike (or ball)". Then he should make his call aloud, either by coming up with a called strike or staying down and saying "ball". By keeping that pause, and doing this drill over and over, you will begin to develop good timing.

Another, drill, that I still do when I find myself missing pitches in a game and need to bear down, is: to call the action in my head. When the pitcher gets on the rubber, I say in my head "On the rubber," this means I should be done looking at my indicator, or getting new balls, etc., and now be focused on the pitcher. When the pitcher comes set, or starts his windup, I say in my head, "Set!", at this point I get into my final position to watch the pitch, in my case I drop down in the box. Then I watch the ball into the catcher's glove. Then I say in my head, "That's a ball (strike)". Then I make the call. This will do two things: a) re-establish your timing and b)Focus your concentration on each and every pitch. A key point that is often missed among amateur umpires, is that good timing on the plate is only half the battle. To be a solid umpire, one must have good timing on the bases, especially in a two-man crew.

While we have all been there, nothing looks worse than making a call, only to change it a second later because the ball was dropped or mis-handled. As Joe Brinkman has said (and I am paraphrasing), "Baseball is unique because it is slow. This is not basketball were you have to make a call quickly because the ball will be heading the other way if you don't, this is baseball where most outs on the bases are followed by a lob throw back to the pitcher."

Baseball allows us base umpires so much time on most plays to make the call, that every other official from every other sport should be jealous! Good timing on the bases will be achieved if we just do what were supposed to do.

For example: No one on base, a ground-ball to short. We come in and get our 90-degree angle. We focus on the base, knowing we are watching the runner touch the bag, and listening for the ball hitting the first baseman's glove.

Where many umpires go wrong, is they are so anxious to make the call on a bang-bang play, they don't finish their job! On this play we hear the ball smack the glove just before the runner's foot comes down on the bag. In our mind we know have an out. But our job is not done! Before making the call, we should take our eyes off the bag, and look at the first baseman's glove. We are looking to make sure he has complete control of the ball, and that it has not been misplayed. If, for example, he picks the ball out of the dirt, causing his glove arm to recoil, we should wait for him to bring the glove back down, making sure the ball does not pop out. I don't know how many times I have seen an umpire call a runner out while still staring at first base, this is wrong!

By looking at the first baseman's glove, we have slowed down our timing. When we see he has complete control, we then come up out of our set position and "whack" the runner out. If we institute this glance (and hence pause) on our first close call, we won't catch any slack when we pause on a close one in the bottom of the ninth.

This glance is extremely important on the back end of a double play. We are often making a close call right after we've had to move quickly, we are not in our normal position and it is often very, very close. But by installing this glance in our fundamentals, we give ourselves an extra second to re-see in our minds the play at first before we make the call, a trick everyone should use!