Springing It on Them : Umpires Can’t Rely on Exhibition Games to Work Out Kinks

These spring training games, how lovable. What a difference from the regular season, huh? Sweet, relaxed, fun, baseball as it ought to be.

Maybe for some.

The only difference umpires notice is, when they throw a guy out of a game, they have nowhere to throw him:

--Tempe, Ariz., 1985. Minor league umpire Pam Postema throws out Herm Starrette, the San Francisco Giants’ pitching coach, because of his insistence on discussing knitting needles.

One problem. It is 10:15 a.m. It is a B-team game. There are Seattle Mariners getting dressed in both clubhouses. There are four people in the stands.

“Fine,” says Starrette upon his ejection. “But where do you want me to go?”

Postema looks around.

“The parking lot,” she orders.

--Yuma, Ariz., several years ago. National League umpire Ed Montague throws out Jose Cardenal, of the Chicago Cubs, after Cardenal has argued a strike call.

After the inning, Montague spots Cardenal running along the outfield fence. He turns to Cub Manager Herman Franks and shouts: “What does he think he’s doing? I thought I threw him out!”

Answers Franks: “It’s spring training. Can’t he get in his running?”

Shouts Montague again: “Sure, he can run. Straight to the bus.”

The next day, Montague passes Cardenal in the runway behind home plate. Cardenal spits on his shoes.

Montague keeps walking to home plate, where he calmly takes the lineup card from Franks, pulls out a pen, and scratches off Cardenal’s name.

“The bus,” he tells Franks. “Put your man back on the bus.”

Upon recalling this story recently, Montague forced a laugh.

“Ah yes,” he said. “Nice, relaxed, spring training. Can’t beat it.”

People forget.

Umpires need spring training, too.

Umpires need time to find the legs, the voice, the reflexes.

During their first day of calling balls and strikes, wondering whether they will be able to walk the next day, umpires don’t need some rookie screaming about an inside pitch.

During their initial base job, while they stand there and tell themselves, “Don’t rush, don’t rush,” umpires don’t need to have be rushed by some kid thinking he made a tag.

People forget.

“We’re just people, too,” said Doug Harvey, a National League crew chief. “We are getting in shape just like the players are.”

Harvey remembers the time Steve Boros, then the San Diego Padres manager, shouted at him to bear down.

Harvey turned to Boros and said: “C’mon, I don’t start getting perfect until July.”

Larry Barnett, an American League crew chief, remembers another manager with a similar beef.

Barnett turned to the manager and pointed toward the diamond.

“Hey, it’s not like I have one of these in my back yard!” he said.

Although an umpire’s spring training is not long--an average of 15 games--it is seldom simple. For the veteran umpire, spring training is the first time he has seen a major league fastball or a close play in five months.

For the rookies, if they louse up, it could their last time.

“And yet it’s always the same,” Barnett said. “They expect us to be perfect from the first day, and then improve.”

Those first days are the worst.

“Nothing can prepare you for your first plate job,” said John Kibler, an NL crew chief. “Guys have tried every kind of exercise in the winter, but nothing can prepare your upper thighs for what happens when you crouch on them for three hours.”

The way most umpires figure it, that’s 250 crouches at 6 seconds a crouch.

“The next day, you can’t walk,” said Randy Marsh, an NL umpire. “It’s that simple.”

The other physical parts of their job need little preparation.

Some umpires walk a mile in the mornings, others runs five miles, and that’s about it. Nobody stands on the hotel lawn and practices safe or out calls on the guests.

“Face it,” Marsh said. “With a four-man umpire crew, you don’t need to run around that much.”

Ever wonder how umpires condition their arms for the 40 or so throws they will make to the pitchers during a game behind the plate? Some go to nearby fields and throw batting practice to their children.

Then there is the mental part. Most umpires compare the return of their reflexes and visual perception to that of a person climbing back on a bike.

“After you’ve done it so long, a couple of pitches, it all comes back pretty quick,” Kibler said.

Not to say that, at first, that bike won’t wobble a little.

“Your first games, you have a tendency to want to call everything fast, because everything is happening so fast,” Montague said. “You are seeing things you haven’t seen for a while.

“You have to tell yourself to slow everything down, to make sure the play is finished.”

To combat this, for the first few innings of his game behind the plate, Marsh mentally checks off every umpiring mechanic, from making a strike call to throwing the ball back to the pitcher.

“When I get done, I have slowed myself down to where I am back in the groove,” he said. “It’s so easy to want to jump the gun.”

And then there is the voice. The first days of shouting out calls, combined with the desert air, can cause the voice to feel like the legs.

“That’s how you can tell the big shouters from the quiet guys,” Montague said. “The loud guys are always hoarse.”

Other than that, it’s not a terrible month. The umpires make $150 a game for spring training, plus a per diem that covers much of their hotel and rental-car bills. They are required only to work 12 games.

After that, there are not too many rules. Thus, they have come up with a few of their own:

Get assigned to Arizona.

Umpires hate working Florida spring training. They would rather umpire in Central America. They would rather umpire for Larry Bowa.

“In Florida, they play every game like it was the World Series,” Montague said. “You haven’t lived until you’ve done a Mets-Cardinals game in St. Petersburg. Or a Yankees-Orioles game in Fort Lauderdale.”

In Arizona, an Indian-Mariner game doesn’t produce the same fervor.

“In Florida, they come to win,” Montague said. “In Arizona, they come to train.”

This makes Arizona good for the home life. Two-thirds of the 20-23 umpires in Arizona annually congregate at the same hotel, a cozy all-suite place with a pool and free breakfast. They bring their families and golf clubs and bathing suits.

Entering the hotel at 10 a.m. any spring day is like entering a private party. A couple of umpires will be debating in lounge chairs at the pool. Another umpire will be videotaping several other umpires’ children as they splash around the shallow end.

The joint will be filled with new stories and old jokes, and for once in an umpire’s working life, something that feels like family.

“It’s the only time of the year we can share our job with our family, and with guys from the other league,” Marsh said. “That makes it very special.”

In Arizona, that feeling can carry over to the job. The umps can feel relaxed enough to try different things, much as a pitcher does. Eight years ago, for instance, Montague tried a slightly different position when calling the second half of a double play. He moved inside the first baseman. It worked, and he has been doing it every since.

“You wouldn’t dare try some of that stuff during the regular season,” Montague said. “There’s too much pressure. Now is the time to get it worked out.”

Spring is also the time to get adjusted to new rules, although the umpires claim the new strike zone and balk call won’t be a big deal.

“The strike zone really isn’t new,” Kibler said. “And we are looking and thinking about the balk all the time anyway, so it doesn’t change much.”

As it was, the balk rule was one of the best things for spring training.

“I heard what happened to Charlie Hough the other day,” said Kibler, referring to the nine balks called on the Texas Rangers pitcher in one game, “and that brings back the memories.

“One spring we’re in the ninth inning and it’s a tie game, and nobody in their right mind likes to go extra innings. Well, this Oakland pitcher walks a guy, and then has an obvious balk. We call it, and then he balks again, and we call it again.

“Now Billy Martin is screaming at us, asking us what he did. I say, ‘Billy, we aren’t running a clinic here. The guy has to come to a stop before pitching, and he didn’t, and that’s that.’

“Next pitch? Another obvious balk. The runner scores. We all go home.”

Get assigned for only the second half of spring.

“Anymore, I make sure I don’t work the early games,” Harvey said. “I want to get all of the college and minor league stars out of the way. I like the kids, but I don’t necessarily like the problems they cause.”

In other words, umpires don’t like screwy plays that can force them out of position.

“We get used to the way the major leaguers play, we get to expect certain things,” Kibler said. “We know that a grounder is going to be picked up and thrown and we know where to make the call.

“We never like unusual plays--high throws, wild throws--because sometimes they can leave us in the wrong spot. And with kids, you get them a little more.”

Don’t come in without a position in the regular rotation.

For young umpires, this is virtually impossible, but nice to shoot for anyway, considering what tryout umpires must endure.

“A tough time,” Marsh remembered. “You usually work on the same crew with the other guys fighting for the same spot, and you spend all the time watching each other.

“And it’s a terrible thing to say, but if nothing happens to you out there, it’s all routine, your chances diminish. Supervisors like to see arguments, tough plays, anything that will show how the umpire reacts under pressure.”

This season there are, surprisingly, two National League openings--”It’s like the floodgates opening” said Marsh--and six umpires in contention. Four are last year’s substitute umpires (who fill in for vacations and illnesses), plus two top minor league umpires, including the much-publicized Postema.

“I don’t envy them,” Montague said. “You never know what will happen. Every game is a big game.”

But the veteran umpires will tell you that, no matter what happens in spring training, no matter how long you have been umpiring, every game must be treated as a big one.

“The players remember, everybody remembers,” Kibler said. “Who was bearing down on the last game of spring training? Who was bearing down when it didn’t count?

“Sure enough, you don’t bear down, the first game of the regular season, some guy is going to shout, ‘I remember you. Last week you didn’t care!’ Spring training is a great idea, but for umpires, every game is real.”