Archive for October 9th, 2007
Straight Cash Homey Dot Net
Published October 9, 2007 cool stuff from the interweb , sports Leave a Comment
I’ve been to a lot of baseball games.
I played little league for as long as I can remember, at least until high school, where I would have made a heckuva third-baseman or catcher, except I didn’t get along with the coach.
So, at 17, I got my umpiring license and stuck with that for most of the next seven years. I loved the view from behind the plate. I even developed a reputation for being a friend to pitchers because my strike zone was big.
I made a point of waiting until the leadoff hitter approached the plate every half-inning before dusting it off with my brush.
“Can you see the corners?” I’d ask.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. So can I. You’d better be swinging.”
It was good money, too. At the time, I made close to $40 per game — not bad for a couple hours of work. High school ball was easy, too. For the most part, the players, coaches and parents at that level know the game well enough not to argue with the umpire.
I only ever ejected three players and one coach in those years. The first incident occurred in my second season in a close varsity game between two good teams. The yellow team’s best player got picked-off of first base, and instead of sliding, he lowered his shoulder and knocked the first baseman into the stands behind the bag — airborne.
I pumped my thumbs-down fist in the brute’s direction before tossing the same fist over my right shoulder.
“You’re out! And you’re outta the game!”
The kid trudged back toward the dugout while his enraged coach strode toward me, arms raised.
“Don’t say it, coach,” I warned.
“You’re a fucking asshole!”
“You’re out of the game!”
He turned and walked away.
The other time was much more fun. And by fun I mean to say the catcher told the hitter that his mom gave good blowjobs. A shoving match ensued, with me separating the two players by jumping up between them and lifting both off the ground at the same time, one in each outstretched arm.
I wanted to let them stay in the game, but my partner for the game, a grizzled veteran umpire, was evaluating my performance behind the plate for the state athletic association. I had to go by the book and eject them both for fighting.
“Good job with that scuffle, Tony,” he said. “Good job today.”
I stopped umpiring over eight years ago, when I took this job; schedule’s too unpredictable.
* * * * *
As a spectator, I was a teenager before I ever saw an Indians game in Cleveland. In fact, nearly all the games I saw until my mid-teens were at Yankee and Shea Stadiums.
See, my family spent a significant portion of each summer in New York with our family in Brooklyn. The only games we saw were Yankee and Mets games. Naturally, my brothers and I rooted for our “home” teams.
“Can you believe it, boys?” my dad would ask every time we got off the subway on the way to see the Yankees. “Joe DiMaggio played here.”
At that time, Don Mattingly was the Yankees’ best player. I liked him, but my favorite player was the third-baseman, Mike Pagliarulo. A fellow Italian, Pags was known for taking extra batting practice before every game and being a scrappy, hardworking guy in general.
Later that year, at a game at Old Comisky Park in Chicago, we arrived early for a Yankee game against the home White Sox. We passed the visiting players’ entrance on our walk toward the gate and decided to hang around and wait for the Yankee team bus.
Mattingly showed up in a separate cab, signed a few autographs and quickly made his way into the park. A few other players trickled in before the bus pulled up. When Pags got off the bus, I ran straight to him with his baseball card and a pen, in a Yankee jersey, no less.
“Get outta the way, kid,” he said, pushing past me.
The next game I went to really was an Indians game. Cleveland was much closer than New York, and I was ready for a new team, anyway.
