This last spring, my son did his HS senior project on Basball Umpiring. His HS requires a College type term paper as a graduation requirement (great idea). He has played Baseball his whole life, so he figured it would be easy. |:o)

So he did his research, read the rules (geeze, I didn't know that, and that, and that !), went through one on one training with me, and earned his Babe Ruth National Certification.

He got an A on the project, and I got to umpire several Babe Ruth games with him. Not many things a dad can do with a 17 yr. old as (almost) equals. I had a great time watching and working with him. He turned out to be a decent official.

I hope to get him doing HS ball with my association this season.

I have worked with both of may sons. I started working with my oldest son on adult double headers 3 years ago. He has nearly stopped, having graduated from college and got a real job. The youngest is still in college and still working games, although we seldom get to work together. However, we worked a summer college player age wood bat DH on Father's Day this year. That was neat, two 5-2 ball games played in less than 2 hours, good pitching, good defense, no *****ing. He said "Dad, I didn't know games like this existed". He has mostly been working a lot of youth games, AAU, and JV high school games.

I've been working with my son since he was 12, and he's now 17. It's pretty cool, I must say. And not a bad gig for a kid. After school hours, as much as he wants to work, and from $45 to $60 a game. Not too many legal ways for kid to make that kind of dough after school.

I work with my dad quite often. He's been umping longer then i've been born(i'm 16) and he knows alot. He's tought me most everything i know so i try to work with him as much as i can.

By the way, my son started out using a helmet. He never even considered using a mask for two reasons. He spent several years in HS as catcher wearing a helmet. And his dad wears and swears by helmets. I had him try a mask, so that he could be sure which he prefers.

He is sticking with the helmet...Smart kid !

Can you guess what Santa is going to leave under the tree for him this year ?

My youngest son and I were scheduled to work a game Sunday. It has rained since Thursday, 3.1 inches in my rain guage at home. We need the rain, it has not rained much here for the past 2 months. I thought for sure it would be rained out. I called the coach an hour before game time, before we left the house. It was sprinkling rain at my house, but the field is 30 minutes away. Coach says field is in good shape and it's not raining there and his team is there and the other team is on the way. So we go.

By the time we get there it is raining lightly with no sign of letup. By the time we get dressed the infield is beginning to "shine". We stand around for 30 minutes and small puddles are forming in the infield. The coaches finally agree that is not a good idea to start the game. I helped them along a little by telling them that under these conditions if we start the game it's likely to be a short game. Also, no high school game I know of would be started under these conditions. This was high school age players playing on a high school field, but not with high school coaches.

Half a game fee for each of us for showing up, and we are on the way home. It rained the rest of the afternoon.