Umpire "Evolution"

[BretMan]

The "two-hand" catch likely was due to the gloves and mitts used back then. Up until about 1950, first base mitts were little more than a leather oven mitt.

Speaking of old-fashioned mechanics, this past spring I had the opportunity to work a few games with a couple of guys that have been umpiring almost longer than I've been alive.

One of them is the last guy in our association that still uses the outside protector. He moves around pretty good for a 68-year old, better than some of the younger guys I've worked with. A solid partner, but I really think that his stance with the raft blows the bottom end of his strike zone all to heck.

The other guy was older yet, 70, and had a couple of mechanics that, to a guy who was crawling around in diapers forty years ago, were interesting.

On pitches called balls, he would extend his left arm out and downward, with an open palm facing toward the pitcher.

On checked swings, instead of pointing and saying, "Yes, he went", he would raise his right hand, index finger extended, and make a little twirling motion, kind of like what you might use to signal a home run, to indicate that the batter had indeed "went around".

The "ball" thing I didn't care for, but the "twirly" thing looked kind of cool!

I have a vague memory of umpires doing this when I was kid, but that was well before my time of actually calling games. Were these at one time considered to be "standard" umpire signals?