My turn. Where do I start?
Okay - lets try my 'partner'.... 'Walt' might be the poster child of old style umpires. Name an old mechanic, and he just might use it. He is also the classic, "widen that zone for me boy, so we can get out of here' type. (Although...admittedly, I don't blame him - he is married to an ex-ROCKETTE
). 'Walt' is somewhere in his late 60'S..maybe early 70's, and is also one of those whose last act before going up to the field is taking that last drag on his ciggy (yes, on SCHOOL PROPERTY).
Lets try the setting - a school field that is literally on top of a hill where one either walks up about 50 steps, or steep drive to get to the top. It is ALWAYS windy up there, and the fence surrpunding the field - where there IS one - is about 5 ft high, so you go thru balls like water, Speaking of which, afer a very cool and wet April so far, yesterday it decided to shoot up to like
80 degrees..and yes, Guess Who had the plate?
This was a matchup of two what NY calls Class C teams ( NY deleinates by school enrollment) at the JV level. The pregame was ok, but then the home team gives me its lineup on....a full sized sheet of paper...terrific.
The game starts up , and it is not TOO terrible, typical low to mid level JV around here.The visiting teams pitcher doing a lot of arm swinging before her delivery, and I finally had to nail her for starting and stopping her delivery. Lots of D3Ks, lotsof BBs, and especially by the visitors, lots of hesitant fielding. My friend 'Walt' then comes in the picture. Runner on 1st....B hits a little looper just beyond 1B, takes a little spin, and rolls foul in BACK of the bag, with me properly pointing 'fair'. Guess what happens, my dear friend calls "FOUL" and everything stops. Both sides look at him very questionably, and I am shooting daggers at him. He finally realizes what happened and we correct matters.
After the longest three innings you can imagine, it is 9-7 for the home team. When they go out for the 4th, all of a sudden I hear POP from the catchers glove - the home coach put her #1 in. This kid, unlike her teammate, could hit corners - with some pop on them. Talk about a relief! Three very quick Ks later, the visiting coach puts another P in, and whereas the first one was high and wide and low, at least this kid could put the ball in the hitting zone. So the home team started cuffing her around pretty good, and we got out of there in 5, 23-8....still took us 1:45 to get thru 5.....sigh....a long season ahead...