Taking off the mask

[BretMan]

I'm a righty, but I'm so used to using my left hand to pull off my mask that I don't even think twice about it. It was so long ago that I first started doing it that I can't even remember if it was awkward for me or not- but it probably was.

I'm lucky in that when I first started out I had a pretty good trainer who was really strict about doing things the right way. So I knew that you were supposed to use your left hand right off the bat and that's the way I always did it.

It's kind of the same with holding your indicator in your left hand. I seem to remember that feeling strange to me at first. There was a point early in my umpiring career where I broke my left hand and had a cast on it. So for a few weeks I had to hold my indicator in my right hand. That felt really strange! About the time it started to feel normal, the cast came off and I switched back- and it felt strange all over again.

Even though it's not how we're supposed to do it, I still see a good number of umpires around here that always use their right hand to remove the mask, as well as guys that hold the indicator in their right hand. Sometimes they're rookies and that kind of explains it. But I still see some guys with 20+ years of experience that do it "backwards". And it bugs me!