True Blue : Volunteer Umpires in Little League Tournaments Call for Love of Game

They have to race home from their jobs--as security guards, engineers, teachers, real estate agents, whatever--change into gray wool slacks and blue shirts, then race to the ballpark to watch other people’s kids play baseball.

They have to stand in the early-evening heat for two hours, concentrating, hustling, making split-second decisions guaranteed to displease half of those kids and irritate half of those kids’ parents.

They have to know the rule book cold, because the damnedest situations inevitably arise.

They have to take abuse from overenthusiastic managers and from overprotective parents.

Well, actually, they don’t have to. Some Little League umpires are paid during the regular season, but come tournament time, the men in blue are volunteers. They receive no pay, no benefits and many insults. Call it masochism. Call it altruism. But they endure the slings and arrows of some obnoxious onlookers because they want to.

“You have to realize that it’s a self-satisfying activity,” says Dick Welsh, a self-employed insurance broker who lives in Northridge. He has officiated Little League games for the past 29 years.

“We love the kids. We love the game. You can’t worry about the guy yelling at you. If you do your best--you call ‘em like you see ‘em, you keep your eye on the ball, you know the rule book inside and out--you’ve got to be happy with that.”

Major league baseball is shiny, big-city stadiums, Diamondvision, the around-the-horn double play. Polished. Businesslike. None of that sentimental love-of-the-game nonsense.

Little League baseball has rough edges. Always has. Little League is rusting chain-link fences, ill-fitting batting helmets, high-pitched infield chatter. It is walks, wild pitches, throwing errors, 16-14 games. Most of all, Little League is weird situations--umpires’ nightmares.

“Every game, there’s at least one play you’ve never, ever seen before,” says Brian Anson, 25, a volunteer umpire from Encino working the Valley-wide District 40 all-star tournament that ends today.

Umps all shake their heads, roll their eyes and mutter the same refrain: “The things you see. . . .” Kids cutting across the mound to get from first to third. Three runners on one base. Balls lost in bushes, stuck in backstops, hit through fences. Anything can happen--and probably will.

Umpiring baseball is not like refereeing soccer, basketball or hockey. You can’t just tell the kids to play on. You’ve got to take a stand: ball or strike, fair or foul, safe or out. There is really nothing to worry about, as long as your call pleases every doting parent in attendance.

The sight lines are always clearer from the bleachers.

“I take more abuse here than I did umpiring high school and junior college games,” says Dave Frey, 39, a general contractor from Northridge. “It’s mostly because of lack of knowledge. The parents are vocal as hell, but they don’t know very much about baseball.”

Think umpiring Little League is easy? All right, you make the call: Infield hit with the bases loaded. Everyone advances one base. But the runner on first left the base too early. (Remember, this is Little League. No leading off, no stealing.) Do you score the run? Or do you record an out?

Correct answer: neither.

“Yeah, that’s a bizarre one,” says Mike Hartman, 41, a Canoga Park real estate appraiser for a savings and loan. “Everyone stays where they are. The runner who scored from third disappears. He becomes invisible. Of course, if we call that, everyone goes nuts. But that’s the rule.”

Larry McCall, an administrator for the Los Angeles Unified School District, can tell bizarre umpiring stories all day. The time he tried to eject an unruly spectator--who turned out to be a professional umpire--from a public park. The time a fan yelled “Foul ball!” and everybody froze. (The call by McCall: a do-over. Only in Little League.)

And McCall’s favorite: The time a T-ball batter swatted a line drive down the third base line, hitting his 6-year-old teammate, who was standing on third.

“Most people don’t know it, but that kid’s out,” says McCall of Granada Hills. “He’s in fair territory. So I call the kid out, and his mother goes nuts. ‘What? My baby was standing on the base!’ So she’s screaming, and her kid is crying, and I’m trying to explain the rule. Wow. Crazy things happen out there sometimes.”

A few years ago, a Seattle-based pilot named Al Haines became an instant hero by guiding United Airlines Flight 202--sans engine power, sans electrical system--to a crash-landing in an Iowa cornfield.

“After the crash, one of the first things he did was call his (Little League) district coordinator to say he wouldn’t be able to make it that night,” recalls Roger Tiedemann, the District 40 umpire coordinator. “That’s the mentality of a volunteer ump.”

Tiedemann, 42, is a volunteer ump’s volunteer ump, an unsung hero among unsung heroes. He is a full-time sheet metal worker from Calabasas, but this month, he has been laboring 30-plus hours a week to ensure that an umpiring quartet arrives at each of the district’s nine daily playoff games. Then he goes to the games, fetches the umps coffee, takes pictures of the umps for a photo montage he is assembling and cheers the umps on close calls.

“Volunteer umpires are underappreciated,” Tiedemann says. “Paid umpires are paid to take crap. We’re working guys, but we take crap for free.”

One Saturday this month, Tiedemann’s phone rang at 11:30 p.m. A Long Beach league administrator was on the line: Could Tiedemann lend a few umpires for a Sunday doubleheader?

Tiedemann lent himself. Typically, the doubleheader became a tripleheader, but Tiedemann didn’t mind giving up his one day of rest. He has been doing it for 21 years.

“I got hooked on umpiring right away,” Tiedemann says. “I don’t have any big philosophical answers why I love it. I just love it.”

Someday, Tiedemann hopes to work a Little League World Series. So far, the closest he has come was the Senior Eastern Regionals in Manchester, N.H. Still, a man can dream.

The regionals were six years ago, and Tiedemann is still glowing.

“Sure, I had to pay my own way, but that was an absolutely wonderful experience,” he says, gushing. “That was just great. They had dugouts underneath the stands, and runways, and umpire showers, and umpire locker rooms. Gosh, that was neat. That was my biggest thrill.”

It’s 5 p.m. at Lawson Field, home of the Woodland Hills Sunrise Little League. It’s a fancy field for Little League: lush green grass, well-kept infield, dugouts with roofs, 13 billboards on the outfield fence--including ads for Merrill Lynch and Shearson Lehman.

But the action on the field is typical Little League. Similar scenes take place every day, almost everywhere in America.

A kid in a red uniform squeaks the Pledge of Allegiance over the P.A. system. A kid in a white uniform makes a brave attempt at the Little League pledge. (“. . . I will play fair and strive to win, but win or lose, I will always do my best.”) Tiedemann mouths the words along with them.

The red team takes the field. The announcer requests that the fans please treat today’s volunteer umpires with decency and respect. The fans--except for Tiedemann, who shouts his approval--clap politely.

Welsh, 62 and a Little League ump for nearly three decades, is working the plate and carefully explains the local ground rules to two obviously impatient managers: “Hey, I know you don’t think the ball is gonna go through the fence, but if we don’t talk about it now, the ball will go through the fence.”

That resolved, Welsh turns down his hearing aid--the better not to hear hecklers--and booms out a “Play Ball.” A 12-year-old kid with freckles grits his teeth and steps to the plate.

Four pitches. Four balls. Four more pitches. Four more balls. A few of the pitches are close, but Welsh isn’t in the business of giving breaks to struggling pitchers. “Come on, Blue!” a frustrated father yells. Tiedemann shakes his head.

“Do you realize that these four umpires have more than 80 years of volunteer experience?” he asks no one in particular. “You can’t expect Dick to give him that call. During the season, you see a kid with tears in his eyes, you might feel bad and give him one you shouldn’t. But not during the playoffs. No way.”

If you watch the umpires, as Tiedemann does, one thing becomes clear: During the tournament, at least, they take their jobs as seriously as major league umpires.

They sprint down the line on fly balls. They call balks, catcher’s interference, batting out of order. They warn pitchers not to touch their hands to their mouths. They shoo photographers out of foul territory. Maybe they’re niggling, but they’re playing by the book.

“We try to be as professional as possible,” Tiedemann says. “I think we owe it to the kids.”

The red team pitcher finally finds the plate, but the batter connects for a single to right. The right fielder throws home, but the ball bounces off the catcher’s shin guard to the pitcher, who tries to throw out the batter at second. The throw caroms off the shortstop’s glove into center field. Another run scores, and the batter streaks for home.

The center fielder’s throw is perfect, and the play at the plate is close.

“OUT!” Welsh shouts.

For those of you scoring at home, that was a 9-2-1-6-8-2 putout. Only in Little League.

“Strange stuff happens out here,” Tiedemann says. “But that’s all right. I’m not rooting for the red team or the white team. I’m rooting for the blue team.”