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Hehehe,
Pete:
What an interesting post.
I have worked games before 39,000 and 40,000 people in the stands. The advantage of working in an MLB Stadium is that the crowd is so far away you really can't hear any comments directly from the fans. You, of course, can hear the huge crowd noise but I have heard many, many more comments in high school games where the "crowd" is sometimes less than 15' from the dish.
I have also seen myself work on TV. Some of our college games are played live on TV and then re-cylced on cable over-and-over.
I also have hired an evaluation firm each of the last three year to video me when I umpire.
Here's point:
When you see yourself on the big screen it sure doesn't happen the way you think it does!
Seriously, I was flat out embarrasssed by my "look" in my plate tape of three years agao. If, as the experts say, TV adds 25 to 30 pounds to the average person think what it did to a 275 pound FATTY! It was flat out embarrassing.
My tape from this season if much better simply because I am just under 200 pounds now and that makes me not only look better but I do move better.
From my college tapes it is fortunate (?) there is no centerfield camera to evaluate my "K Zone" . . . I know I call the bottom of the knee and I am afraid of what it would look like when the catcher snatches the pitch just above ground level.
I don't buy outright your concerns over the size of players -- I work plenty of high school games where heights of players are drastically different. I adjust the best I can -- sometimes you win, other times you tie.
In another thread SDS speaks of "pressure" of working sub-varsity games compared to varsity contests . . . while I have identified that it is just a different type of pressure . . . REAL PRESSURE is to walk out of the tunnel and see a see of 40,000 fans that don't give a $hit about the job you are about to do . . . and noticing how FAST real baseball (tm) happens.
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