A friend of mine, Phil De La Rosa, shared a version this story one year after the end of the Fireworks Tournament:
I was working a 12U game and the catcher couldn't catch a cold. I was being used as more of a backstop than an umpire. After what seemed like the hundreth time I had been hit with a pitched ball, I took my mask off and said to her coach, "If your catcher isn't going to catch, you need to put someone in who will." The little 12U catcher turns around and says to me, "Sir, you chose this profession. Now get back there and take it like a man."
Phil told us he was laughing so hard it didn't hurt any more.
May have been the tequila. I don't know.
