Umpires’ Toil Not Just a Job, It’s a Calling : Talk to Those Arbiters in Blue, You’ll Find They’re Human, Too

A man once shared a story about three umpires discussing how they went about calling a game of baseball.

The first umpire, relatively new to the profession, boldly stated he “calls them as he sees them,” and the second, a little more experienced, said he “calls them as they are.”

Finally, the third umpire, weathered by numerous confrontations over his many years, gave his perspective: “You know, I, too, used to be as naive.

“It doesn’t matter how I call a particular play. What I’ve come to realize is, nothing happens until I do.”

Play ball!

Umpires. Umps. Officials. The men in blue. Call them what you want--you’re entitled, aren’t you? They have been as much a part of baseball as the players and coaches.

They might labor in anonymity--in fact, their work might be measured by anonymity--but umpires are people, too.

“The best compliment you can get as an umpire is to walk away from a game and have nobody know you were there,” said Don Robinson, 49, an umpire for 18 years. “That means you did a good job.”

Some reward. It goes with the territory.

Bob Merchant, assignment secretary for the San Diego County Baseball Umpires Assn., described the qualities for survival.

“You have to be tough-skinned. You can’t have rabbit ears because you are going to be insulted,” he said. “Patience. Dedication. A willingness to learn and a drive to excel. Dan Pedersen is a damn good umpire, one of the best around, and the tougher the game, the higher he excels as an umpire.”

And it all starts with attitude. “Without a proper attitude,” Merchant said, “(an umpire is) in trouble from the start. And from that attitude, there has to be responsibility, understanding and common sense.”

He should know.

Merchant, 60, who has been umpiring for 44 years, is retired from numerous occupations. “I’m retired, all right, particularly the tired part,” he says.

His job with the SDCBUA, a 145-member organization that has been ruling over high school baseball for more than 50 years, is to make sure games have umpires. It is a thankless, time-consuming endeavor that only receives notice when a game doesn’t have umpires.

“I never work more than 16 to 18 hours a day,” he said. “But that’s only eight days a week.”

AT&T; loves Merchant.

“I can leave and go to lunch for an hour, and when I come back the answering machine tells me I have 17 messages,” he said the other day via a telephone interview. “My record is 37 messages.”

How long were you gone?

“Not more than two hours.”

As a schedule maker for an outdoor activity, Merchant is hardly fond of rain.

“I used to like flowers, ‘til I found out they needed rain.”

In his position, Merchant deals with high school coaches away from the field too, as they are permitted to provide a scratch list of umpires they do not want working their home games.

“The normal reason they give is they have a personality conflict with that umpire,” Merchant said. “I can respect that. Everybody’s out there to have fun, supposedly, so why start out on a bad note.”

Starting out as an umpire in the SDCBUA comes under the jurisdictions of Mike Hart and Robinson. Hart is in charge of recruiting; Robinson is the instructional chairman.

Before a SDCBUA umpire ever takes the field, he or she must complete 3 1/2 months of classroom training, attend three field clinics and pass a written test by the national federation of high school baseball.

“We try to give them everything we can so they can go out and umpire a ballgame,” said Robinson, who teaches at a business college in Chula Vista.

“For the younger guys, mostly what we do is go through mechanics. That’s the toughest thing to get through to them. To get them in the proper position to make a call.”

The instructional classes are not just for beginners. Every umpire in the association must attend every year. They are held on a weekly basis for the first month (usually January or February) and every other week until June. The classes, held at Crawford High School, are free and open to anyone through the San Diego Community College District.

“We feel, as far as our instructional program, we have one of the best associations in the country,” Robinson said. “We put a lot of pride into what we’re doing.”

Said Hart, 39, who has been umpiring for 12 years and works in radio: “Every year, we’re looking for a minimum of 30 new umpires. Every year, we get a turnover of about 20%. Part of it is jobs change or priorities change. Some just get burned out.

“Last year was a real problem because we have a lot of umpires in the military and most of them were in Saudi Arabia.”

In part because of its extensive training program, the SDCBUA has received national recognition and is frequently asked to provide umpires for tournaments such as the Colt League World Series and the Pony League World Series.

Four former members have made it to the major leagues--Doug Harvey, Ed Runge, Paul Runge and Mike Winters--and they have, in turn, served as instructors for the local association.

This year, Winters, a National League umpire, was an instructor and spoke on the subject of game management, this year’s theme in the SDCBUA.

Said Robinson: “We asked him what’s the difference between the pro level and the high school level. He said, ‘At the pro level you try to get (coaches and players) out of the game. At the high school level, you try to keep them in the game.’ ”

Robinson explained further: “My position is, if a coach wants to discuss something, fine. Let the guy say his peace. But after he’s had his say, now I turn my focus to giving him the opportunity to return gracefully to the dugout.

“We’re not looking to eject someone just for the sake of ejecting someone. On the contrary, we try to allow that person every opportunity to remain in the game. But if he persists . . .

“I tell the young guys, if you make a mistake, admit it. Right then and there, admit it. Then go on.

“We’re going to make mistakes. Everyone is going to make mistakes.”

As a recruiter and instructor, Hart said his No. 1 goal every year is to make sure the rookies “don’t get beaten down too badly.”

He added: “If you keep yourself focused on common sense, you’ll be all right. I know guys who have officiated for years, and they have no idea what the rules are. They get by because they exude confidence on the field and they implore common sense.”

But if common sense is so important, then why get into umpiring?

Some, like Marty Vargas, 39, a former pitcher for Sweetwater, do it as a way of remaining close to the game.

“I love the game, and this way, I get the best seat in the house,” said Vargas, who has been umpiring for nine years and is a civil service contractor for the Navy.

Vargas said he also enjoys the personal contacts he has made through umpiring, and he illustrated one friendship that began with an argument.

First, the scene: Southwest was down by one, but had the bases loaded with two outs in the bottom of the seventh.

Vargas picks up the story: “I hollered 2-2 count, then turned to (then-Southwest Coach Hector Espinosa) and showed him my fingers. For some reason, I don’t know if he had a mental block or what, but he thought the count was 3-2, so he sent the runners.

“The pitcher threw a ball. The catcher tagged the runner out. End of game.

“(Espinosa) was livid. He followed me all the way down the first base line. . . . Finally, his scorekeeper caught up to him and said, ‘Coach, it was 2-2.’

“Believe it or not, we’ve become real good friends since then. Every time I see him, he says to me, “ ‘Vargas, you’re the worst umpire I’ve ever seen in my life.’ And then he starts laughing. Those moments are special to me.”

Vargas also gave his insight on the subject of partners.

“You better stick up for your partner,” he said. “That’s rule No. 2.”

What’s rule No. 1?

“You gotta look out for yourself.”

Ed Adrian knows all too well about rule No. 1.

In his 32 years as an official, Adrian, who played offensive guard for the Chicago Bears football team from 1965-70, has been stabbed with a knife, beaten by angry mob and threatened with his life.

One time, in the heat of an argument, Cal State Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido asked him: “Ed, what kind of work were you in before you went blind?”

“I cracked up,” Adrian said. “He was mad as all heck. He didn’t mean it as a joke, but I cracked up. I had tears in my eyes. And then he started laughing. Pretty soon, neither one of us could remember what we were arguing about.”

The stabbing incident was no laughing matter, though Adrian jokes about it today. It happened in a wrestling match some years ago in Kansas.

“I never saw it coming,” Adrian said. “I was on my belly seeing if the guy was going to get pinned, and a father of one of the guys came up behind me and stuck me.

“It was a little knife and I’ve got a lot of fat so it wasn’t too bad.”

He added: “But I don’t want to dwell on the negative. I love this. It’s the love of my life. I’ll be 50 in July, and I act like a 15-year-old. I owe that all to sports.”

Adrian also is one of the few officials in the county who consider officiating an occupation and sole source of income.

“I don’t make much money, but I get by,” he said. “Basically, all I ever wanted to do was play sports or officiate. Sports ruined me because I didn’t want to do anything else.”

In Hart’s case, he got into umpiring after being challenged by his wife.

It all started with Hart’s dissatisfaction with Dave Pallone’s calls during a Padre game in the early 1980s.

“A week later, there was a note on my desk along with this ad from the Joe Brinkman Umpire School in Florida. (The note read:) ‘OK, big mouth. Let’s see how good you are.’ ”

After five weeks of intensive training, Hart returned to San Diego and joined the SDCBUA. For the past six years, he has served on the board of directors.

Until he steps down after the June election, Bill Boyd, 49, is the president of the SDCBUA.

Boyd, who is retired from the construction business, has been an umpire for the past 30 years. As president for the past three years, one of his duties has been to serve as a liaison between the San Diego Section commissioner’s office and high school administrators.

Randomly, here are some of his thoughts on various subjects:

* “The majority of our umpires are professional people who give of their time and energy because they love baseball. . . . These are dedicated people. They’re not in it for the money. Very few, if any, can make a living doing this. We do it to give something back. It’s nice that we’re enumerated. But it’s probably not at the level it should be.”

* “I think as you mature as an official and mature as an individual, you bring that with you to your officiating. What you get back is that youth is not as bad as we see printed.”

* “This county is blessed with very, very good varsity baseball coaches. And yes, we do make mistakes. And we do blow calls. And most of them realize that’s a part of the game. And hopefully, the kids will realize that’s a part of life.”

Fights? The biggest fight ever staged in this city--Muhammad Ali vs. Ken Norton in 1973--was officiated by Frank Rustich, the oldest--and still active--member of the SDCBUA.

Rustich, 79, is both a legend and a kick. Listen in:

* “When I first came here (in 1947), there weren’t many ball diamonds around. Heck, there weren’t many high schools.”

* “From where I live, it’s a 35-mile drive to the North County, but I still love going up there. At places like Carlsbad, El Camino, San Dieguito and Mt. Carmel, they have diamonds up there that match the minor league fields of the old days. I just love to see those beautiful diamonds.”

* “A lot of people see me umpiring and think, ‘He’s an old geezer. He shouldn’t be out there.’ But I really enjoy it. Hell, I still do basketball. As long as the legs hold up, I’ll be out there.”

* On coaches and arguments: “In the old days, they used to come charging out of the dugout and really rip into you. Now days, they walk out real slow and discuss things.”

* On ejections and paperwork: “If you run a player or run a coach, you have to write a report to the association for the CIF. If you forfeit a game, your writing memos for a month. It’s not worth it.”

Despite Rustich’s 46 years as a local official (55 overall), there is still one umpire more recognizable than even he, and no story on local umpires would ever be complete without . . .

Bob Moss. Mr. Hubba Jubba!

Moss, 52, is a native San Diegan. He played baseball and football at Lincoln, baseball at San Diego State under then-Coach Charlie Smith. He now is a physical education instructor at UC San Diego, and he has published books and articles.

But to most baseball fans around the county, he is simply Hubba Jubba, the most outrageous, most candid, most entertaining sports official in the county.

“If you umpire, No. 1, it pays to have some kind of style,” Moss says. “And No. 2, it pays to have human relations skills.”

Moss excels in both areas.

“For me, umpiring is an expression of my lifestyle. I see it as an opportunity, as an art. It’s a tremendous vehicle for expression.

“I can’t say I’m highly successful, because there are some people who don’t like what I do. Those who enjoy what I do, appreciate what I do.”

Mike Allen, 45, vice president of SDCBUA, is one who appreciates. “I challenge anyone to go to a game and not crack a smile with him out there,” he said. “He’s good. He’s good for the game. And when he’s gone, he’ll be missed.”

Said Hart: “Bob is in his own category. No one can do what he does.”

What Moss does is put laughter and fun into every call he ever makes.

Take a called third strike and you’re liable to hear something like this: “Pow. Pow. Pow. You can’t get a hit with the bat on your shoulder.”

And like it or not--like his style or not--Moss gets away with it.

Why?

He cares.

Believe it or not, most umpires do care.