Come On Blue

[fletch_irwin_m]

I have done three games this year where from the stands I here them yell "Come on Blue, get in the game" "Call the foul blue". Being the amateur rocket scientist that I am, I noticed neither team was wearing the color blue and deduced they were talking about me. Why blue? My hair is a light brown, my wife makes sure I have the black polyester pants, the shoes are black. (One time I did have navy blue tights on, but not sure you could see those, I checked for rips)
Has anyone else been called "Blue"? Am I missing out on some great cultural phenomenon?

[mick]

Originally posted by fletch_irwin_m
I have done three games this year where from the stands I here them yell "Come on Blue, get in the game" "Call the foul blue". Being the amateur rocket scientist that I am, I noticed neither team was wearing the color blue and deduced they were talking about me. Why blue? My hair is a light brown, my wife makes sure I have the black polyester pants, the shoes are black. (One time I did have navy blue tights on, but not sure you could see those, I checked for rips)
Has anyone else been called "Blue"? Am I missing out on some great cultural phenomenon?

I blue one last weekend.
Diamond fans call umpires blue, yo?

[gsf23]

Yeah, Fletch it comes from baseball.

I've coached baseball for the last 10 years and took my first basketball job this year. I had to work real hard the first few games to say "ref" instead of "blue" or "ump".

The same thing goes the other way. When Michael Jordan was playing baseball I remember sportscenter showing an interview after one of his games and Michael kept calling the umpires, "refs"

[PublicBJ]

It's a baseball/softball umpire thing. When I umpired ASA softball, we wore the same Elbeco blue shirts that the US Postal Service wears. (Same manufacturer and everything, just a different patch on it.)

Players would always call umpires "blue". I always thought it sounded nicer than "Ump".

[stripes]

I had a coach continually call me blue one game. So I asked him if he was trying to insult me. He looked back at me kind of funny and I said, well, I figured you were because of all of the over-weight out of shape softball umpires you are used to and you were trying to lump me in with them. Stopped him dead in his tracks and he didn't say a word after that.