Review by New York Times Review
All about umpires: their training, culture and experiences. "NO father ever lit up a cigar, pointed to his new baby and said, 'That kid is going to be a major-league umpire.' " This is how Jim Evans, a former major-league umpire, greets students at his Academy of Professional Umpiring. It's one of two schools approved by Major League Baseball, a necessary step on the road to America's most thankless occupation. For future aspirants, the first step should be reading Bruce Weber's "As They See 'Em," a wonderfully detailed look at the craft of umpiring. The author, a reporter at The New York Times, spent a good part of three years in "the Land of Umpires," hanging out with them, attending Evans's school and ultimately working behind the plate in a major-league spring training intrasquad game. Travel tip: Wear a protective cup. Umpire school is a combination vocational school and boot camp, with morning classes and afternoon fieldwork supervised by instructors who behave like drill sergeants. "Don't think!" one of them will scream. "React!" And "Doesn't anybody here want a [expletive] job today?" The 120 students, most of them between 18 and 30, are typically blue-collar guys (and an occasional gal), unsettled in their lives, who basically want to get paid to watch baseball games. "Chasing the dream," they tell one another as they jog from station to station over the five-week course. That dream, naturally, is to become a major-league umpire. How realistic is that? Not very. There are only 68 major-league umps, many of whom work into their 60s. Statistically speaking, it's easier to become one of 750 major-league players. But it does give them a chance to earn upwards of $200,000, receive abuse from very large crowds and be humiliated on national television. The two umpire schools each recommend about 25 students for further evaluation by the Professional Baseball Umpiring Corporation, which is responsible for hiring and supervising umpires in the lower minor leagues. The PBUC watches them work college and high school games for 10 days and then whittles the group down; those left are offered jobs at $1,900 a month for five months. What's it like to work for the PBUC? Request a leave of absence of more than a few days after your wife has a miscarriage, and you might get a letter that says : "Please" let us know "if you wish to follow your umpire schedule as assigned or if you wish to resign from your position as an umpire. Thank you." Meanwhile, the new minor-league umps must drive their own cars between cities that can be hundreds of miles apart, dress in a trailer, eat cold burgers from Styrofoam containers under the stands and share a cheap motel room with a fellow ump trying to climb the same ladder. Then things get bad. In the minors, umpires are calling games that really matter, both to the players' careers and to the fans' estimation of themselves and their communities. It's safe to say no ump ever called a good game, even if he got every call right. Verbal and physical abuse, thrown objects and slashed tires come with the job. (Another tip: Never park your car in a space marked "Umpire.") Yes, minor-league umpires are treated like dirt. But it's different once they get to the major leagues. There, according to the former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, the umpires are treated "like bases": "The owners . . . say, 'We need a base, we need an umpire, same thing.' " Steve Phillips, formerly the general manager of the Mets and now an ESPN analyst, is quoted as saying, "Management never cared for the umpires." The poor umpires can't catch a break. The only thing worse than management may be the umpires' own union. Weber gives a brief history of their legal battles, which continued for years. Bengie Molina begs to differ with the umpire Alfonso Marquez, October 2005. In 1999, frustrated by years of fighting for respect, the umpires, led by their union leader, Richie Phillips, tried to put the owners on the defensive by resigning en masse. This works only if everyone is on board, which everyone wasn't, especially the wives who couldn't believe their husbands had just quit their jobs. The abortive effort was a bonanza for the owners, who used it as an opportunity to accept the resignations of umpires they wanted to get rid of anyway. They also forced the remaining umps to accept new rules and procedures, including the QuesTec system, which uses a network of cameras to define a standard strike zone. That was a good thing. Before QuesTec, each umpire had his own personal strike zone: some widened the zone, others raised or lowered it, according to whim. I recall pregame meetings in which the strike zone of the home plate umpire was part of our scouting report. In addition to history and poetry ("Mother, may I slug the umpire,/ May I slug him right away"), we learn how to avoid "beaking." When an ump is in a nose-to-nose argument, Weber says, he must make sure the bill of his cap is under the bill of the other guy's, "so he can't rap you in the forehead with it." We also discover the 13 grounds for automatic ejection. When I played, we had only one ground for automatic ejection using a certain compound word. I must say that reading this book has given me a new appreciation for the men in blue. (Tip to rookies: Don't ever address umpires as "Blue.") I never realized what it takes to be an umpire: encyclopedic knowledge of constantly evolving rules, and the exact positioning for each type of call; the ability to make snap decisions under pressure; the endurance to stand for three to five hours in all kinds of weather; the personality required to deal with endless criticism; and the presence necessary to command a game. AND I liked the personal stories. My favorite is about Alfonso Marquez, who came to this country from Mexico as a 7-year-old illegal immigrant. As a young man, he nearly lost a finger in an industrial accident, after which he found a lawyer who helped him settle for enough money to pay for umpire school. "Six and a half years later, he was in the big leagues." Weber also revisits classic controversies through the umpire's eyes: George Brett's pine-tar incident; Jeffrey Maier's fan interference; Don Denkinger's safe call at first base, which the Cardinals believe cost them the 1985 World Series; Larry Barnett's decision not to call catcher interference in the 1975 Series, for which he was "viciously booed for 25 years in Boston." And Barnett was right ! While fans never forgive, the players and managers almost always let it go. Or they have fun with it. Twenty years after his call against Whitey Herzog's Cardinals, Denkinger was invited to appear at a charity dinner in St. Louis, where Herzog presented him with a watch. A Braille watch. It seems the funniest baseball stories involve umpires. Evans recalls going out to the mound to check Don Sutton, who had been accused of doctoring the ball with a nail file hidden in his uniform. "Let me see what you got in your pocket," Evans said. "And he pulls out a card and gives it to me, and it says, 'You're getting warm.' " Weber also quotes Bob Uecker, the former utility catcher and famous baseball humorist, on his introduction in 1962 to the umpire Jocko Conlan, who did not appreciate rookies questioning his calls. "So the first pitch comes in and it's in the other batter's box, and Conlan says, 'Strike one! "... So I stepped out and I looked back and I said, 'That wasn't a strike.' And Conlan doesn't even look at me. He just says, 'So's the next one.'" By contrast, in a chapter called "Strapping It On," the author gets behind the plate in an exhibition game and fails to call a tipped ball foul. To help him out, the first base umpire calls it foul. Weber writes: "The catcher . . . got set to squat behind the plate again. " 'That was foul?' he said. 'I didn't hear you call it foul.' "That's when I proved I wasn't an umpire. " 'My mistake,' I said. 'Sorry.' " Jim Bouton, a former pitcher for the Yankees and the author of "Ball Four," is the commissioner of the Vintage Base Ball Federation.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* t's a wonder that, given their central role in the game of baseball, from Little Leagues to major leagues, umpires have remained a mystery to fans for so long. New York Times reporter Weber corrects that in this sympathetic, thoughtful, highly engaging account. Weber spent months, including a five-week course at one of two major league-approved umpire schools, talking with dozens of umps as well as the players, managers, owners, and league officials who live with their calls. Out of this exhaustive research, and after strapping on the gear himself, Weber reveals how exceedingly demanding the profession can be. At the same time, he shows how disrespected, if not reviled, umps are by nearly everyone in baseball, though they serve as the last some might argue, the only line of defense for the integrity of the game. Weber shares the particulars of umping a game, the torturous path to becoming a major league ump, and some hot-button issues such as the umps' 1999 strike, instant replay, and the pace of games. And for the starstruck baseball fans among us, there are lots of stories about umps, players, and managers we know. An outstanding book that demands a place on any sports shelf.--Moores, Alan Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In a no-holds-barred insider examination of the private world of baseball umpires, both minor and major leagues, Weber, a New York Times reporter, dives into the rough basic training school for the men who call balls and strikes in this irresistible book. As a 52-year-old student umpire, the author dons the mask and learns the fundamentals, while spending almost three years visiting baseball venues across the country, as well as interviewing former umpires, players and coaches. Many candidates dream of making it to the majors, as about 100,000 amateur baseball umpires call games in the U.S., Weber writes, but only 68 pro umpires make it to the big show. Baseball fans will love the insightful, richly textured account of Weber trying to master the plate stance, monitoring each pitch and maintaining a proper strike zone in a physically demanding occupation. However, his book lifts heads-and-shoulders above other baseball tomes by putting a funny, surprising treasury of anecdotes from the sport at its entertaining core. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
New York Times reporter Weber attended the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring and takes readers into "umpire nation," a land like no other realm of baseball. However, through no fault of Weber's, it's not really such a fun place to visit. Weber relates his encounters with umpires across leagues, amateur and pro. Umpires in detail turn out to be no more appealing than we guessed, but there's little on this topic, so sports collections should have it. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The largely untold story of professional baseball umpires, perhaps the most secretive sect in the most sectarian of sports. New York Times reporter Weber, who initially became interested in umpires when he wrote some articles on the subject, tried entering the umpires' mysterious world through every wardrobe he could imagine. He attended a five-week umpire training program at one of the two sanctioned schools. He interviewed every umpire who would talk with him; few were candid, some refused, most offered only platitudes. He attended countless games and watched hours of video, especially those with controversial plays (e.g., Robby Alomar spitting on an ump). He spoke with players, managers and owners, some current, some retired. He umpired some amateur games and called some innings at an intrasquad Major League spring-training contest. It was all part of a largely successful attempt to chart one of the last frontiers in sports reporting. One of the author's most appealing qualities is self-deprecation. He continually makes fun of his clumsiness as an umpire, twice comparing his called-strike gesture to an awkward girl's ball-throwing motion. His text proceeds somewhat like a baseball game. There is organization, a beginning and an end, but things can drift along for awhile without much apparently happening. Then, suddenly, action erupts, the unexpected occurs and people are screaming. The text evokes a gamut of emotions: hilarity (a pregame encounter at home plate between manager Ralph Houk and umpire Jim Evans); outrage (a crackling chapter on the 1999 umpire labor dispute); excitement (thoughts and worries pinballing around Weber's head the night before he works behind the plate at spring training); frustration (the refusal of hotheaded, umpire-baiting former manager Earl Weaver to speak on or off the record). It's educational too. We learn the rules for player-ejection, the history of the rulebook, the choreography required of an umpiring crew as a play unfolds and so much more. Thorough research, crackerjack reporting, pinpoint control. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
