[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

MTD, Jr.'s first baseball game of the season was this past Tuesday. He was the Base Umpire (BU) for a boys' H.S. jr. varsity baseball game; the home team won in 4-1/2 innings by the mercy rule.

Yesterday was my first baseball game of the season. Mark (his second game of the season) and I had a boys' H.S. jr. varsity game that was scheduled for 11am. The 11am game was the first game of a doubleheader between the two schools and our assigner tries to assign two seperate crews for a DH which he was able to do.

Normally, Mark would have been the PU in our game but the scheduling supervisor where he works scheduled him to start work at 2pm even though Junior had told him that he could not start work any sooner that 3pm. Therefore I was the PU so that he could boogie off to work as soon as the game was over. We walked off the diamond after 7 full innings at 1:5pm. Needless to say, MTD, Jr. did not get to work until about 2:45pm.

But it only gets better. Midway through our game the H-AD comes to me and asks if I can stay and umpire the 2nd game because the 2nd umpire for the 2nd game thought the game and been canceled and had gone out of town. I said yes. The 2nd game started at 2:30m and we walked off the diamond at 4:50pm after the home team had lost in 5 innings, 22-1.

The first game was played under overcast skies and the temperature the low 40's. The weather got better in the 2nd game, LOL. A very stiff wind from the west made the temperature feel like it was almost freezing and we had intermintent drizzles for most of the game.

Just another early spring day in NW Ohio.

MTD, Sr.