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Behind the Mask of the Laughing Buddha
I have no talent. Neither do you. No one does. Or at least so few of us as makes no difference. Down in the scorched dust of a Dominican sandlot somewhere someone does. Some farm boy somewhere, some Greek god of hayseeds, he does. But those aren’t mortal men. Those bastard sons of Zeus were born to greatness. We, the vast and faceless throngs, meek and ordinary, whose mothers lacked the good fortune to lie with gods or the foresight to dip us like Achilles in the River Styx, were at best born to watch.
The difference between we, the cursed, and they, the blessed, is not that the immortals dared to dream and we did not. Life just isn’t that fair. We all dreamt together, but cruel fate dictated that for we, the humble, there would come a day on which the dream would die, on which we would discover an awful truth about ourselves that we would have to learn to live with, a stain that we would carry with us throughout what remained of our now emptier lives. For some, the day comes mercifully early; for others, it comes late and hard. But however it comes, whenever it comes, it comes. No mere man escapes that day. No man escapes the day it finally dawns on him after years of passionate self-deception that he truly, truly, deep down, at the very core of his being, at the fundament of his essential self … just sucks out loud at baseball.
The reaper came for my baseball career when I was 14. At 11, I was an all-star. There is a trophy in a box somewhere in the attic of the house where I grew up that establishes beyond all doubt that I was great once. Oh, yes, my friends; I was great once. Your faithful correspondent was a mighty slugger, a hitter of prodigious home runs. Those were days of wine, women, and song. Of course, I was 11: my parents wouldn’t let me have the wine and I wasn’t all that interested in the women yet. But, damn it all, if those weren’t days of song.
Then it all came apart. To this day, I don’t really know why. It could have simply been the ravages of puberty messing with my timing; it could have been a fatal hitch in my swing that a good coach could have worked me through. Whatever the reason, the 11-year old bombardier all-star third baseman slowly deteriorated into a pale shadow of himself. By 14, he — I — was a platoon right fielder who couldn’t hit to save his—- my — increasingly miserable little life.
At the end of the season, I walked away. I gave up. The dream was dead. For me, the day had come. This is the point at which normal young men, sane young men, angrily toss their mitt into the corner of the garage, curse the hateful game of baseball forever, and move on with their lives. They set aside the juvenile fantasy that they will one day play big league baseball and set themselves about the more realistic goal of one day becoming a rock star.
But not me. I was a junkie. I also didn’t own a guitar. But more importantly, I had been main-lining baseball for far too long to just go cold turkey. I needed baseball methadone. I needed a halfway house, a way to stay close to the game, a way to feed a love for something that no longer loved me back. So when a kindly older gentleman approached me after the last loss of my last season and asked if I would consider being an umpire, I agreed.
I mean, what choice did I have? A junkie has needs.
Rookie umpires work with a partner. Ideally, no one is ever asked to umpire a game alone, but in a pinch, a senior umpire can handle an entire game by himself without it descending into lawless anarchy. But no sane person would dream of asking a rookie to solo; not if he ever wanted to see that rookie again.
When I — the washed-up, has-been slugger, jonesing for his baseball fix — showed up for my first ever game as an umpire, my partner was supposed to be an older gentleman with many years of umpiring experience. He didn’t show. I was well-trained by an excellent teacher; I knew what to do. But what followed was a baptism by fire I rank among the most intense experiences of my life.
I had been taught that a calm demeanor was essential to maintaining order on the baseball field and I struggled mightily to appear calm that day. I tell you, friends, by all outward appearances I was positively serene. I was the Laughing Buddha of Little League Baseball; the Dalai Lama of the Diamond. But inside I was a four-alarm blaze of white-hot screaming panic. Outwardly? Laughing Buddha. Inwardly? Some kind of hysterical, lunatic Buddha that runs around hitting itself in the head with its pitch indicator, yelping like a trapped hyena.
There’s a Buddha like that, right? Panicky Buddha. Umpire Buddha.
The pitcher, as is the wont of a Little League pitcher, had a passionate commitment to throwing balls of every conceivable form and variety. He threw high; he threw low. He threw inside; he threw outside. He threw pitches that sailed over my head like they were shot from a cannon; he threw pitches that bounced twice on the way to the plate. Then he threw one right at the batter and hit him in the ankle. No problem; I sent the struck batter hopping down to first base, the proper statutory compensation for his modest suffering.
But the manager exploded out of the dugout in a mad fury. The pitch, he screamed, had hit the ground, and were I a proper umpire, I would know that if the pitch hits the ground before it hits the batter, the batter is not awarded first base! The batter must be brought back immediately!
He fumed and cursed, stamping in wildly disproportionate, soaring, histrionic rage. I stared back in slack-jawed, wide-eyed horror. For the first time in the game, my Za-Zen serenity collapsed and my secretly suppressed Panicky Buddha became manifest on my ghost-white face. I shot a pleading look at the other manager, hoping he would rush to my defense with rulebook chapter and verse, confirming unequivocally that I was right and that the other manager was not just wrong, but … possessed by demons. Instead, I received a return look that was half, “damned if I know, kid,” and half, “my thermos full of coffee and vodka is running low, so if we could move this thing along….”
I could have caved. Maybe I should have caved. Maybe I should have apologized, admitted I had made a mistake, declared the pitch a ball, and the seething grown-up would have returned to his dugout, content that his version of justice had been served. No one would have faulted me had I just done what the rabid bear demanded and called that boy back from first. No one had to die on that hill.
But I was the umpire. Yes, it was my first time; yes, that coach had seen more games in his life than I had seen sunrises in mine. But it was my responsibility to enforce the rules. I knew he was wrong; I told him he was wrong; and I went to get my Official Little League Rulebook from my equipment bag to show him he was wrong. That game wasn’t going forward a single pitch until I could confirm for myself and all concerned that the boy belonged on first. To Hell with Panicky Buddha; on this ump’s watch, the game would get its due.
Because I love baseball. And I was the umpire. And we’re just … like that.
Tonight, the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets meet in Game One of the World Series. I’ll be watching, and I hope you will be, too. There are few things in life quite as wonderful as watching a game you love being played by the people who play it best. And also by the New York Mets.
But those players aren’t us. Those are the titans, the gods among and above us. Yes, they worked hard to get where they are; yes, they should be proud to have made the most of the gift they were given. But they are a breed apart from you and me. That day that comes for us all — when I was fourteen and couldn’t hit a beach ball with a snow shovel; when you struck out with the bases loaded in the championship game, or whatever awful thing baseball did to you — never came for them. We live with broken dreams; they do not. They aren’t us.
The umpires, that’s us. Sick, crazy bastards who love the game too much to walk away from it even though fate has denounced them as too human to play. Ordinary people, not special people, who feel called to serve the game and are content not to be served by it in return. They are the addicts, the junkies, the obsessives who share our passion for the game and who honor it by enabling the undashed dreams of others. It is easy for the players to love baseball; it loves them back. But if you’re looking for the real soul of the game, the mad love, the unrequited love, don’t look to the players; look behind the plate.
No one will cheer for the umpires tonight; no one ever does. But when you settle in to watch the game after a long day of hard work that probably looks nothing at all like your dreams, try for just a moment to look past the millionaire glory boys to the working-class heroes who make their glory possible. There will be plenty of time tonight to cheer for the stars who represent everything your eleven-year old self imagined he would be. But before you toast the gods, raise a glass with me to the common man. To the boys in blue!
These are tonight’s umpires:
Gary Cederstrom, crew chief, African artifact collector, and Asian history enthusiast
Mark Carlson, a passionate children’s advocate who runs his own charity
Alfonso Marquez, the first ever Mexican-born umpire to make the Major Leagues
Bill Welke, an avid hunter whose brother is also a Major League umpire
Mike Winters, who started his career as a 14-year old umpiring Little League
Jim Wolf, who had to ump his own brother in his first game as a Major League umpire, and
Mike Everitt, a passionate political junkie who really ought to be a Ricochet member
One of the few honors bestowed on umpires is the privilege to ump in the World Series, so these men had to earn the right to work tonight. Well done, gentlemen. Congratulations. And thank you.
Alright, enough of me and my Grantland Rice routine. What about you? In honor of this, the first day of the World Series, I’d love to hear your stories about discovering, as we all did, just how much you suck at baseball. I have more stories to tell, but it’s your turn first. Funniest story wins some wonderful prize I’ll figure out later that you’ll cherish for the rest of your life until you throw it away.
Published in General
Great post. I did a stint of umping in college intra-mural games. I feel your pain.
Let’s hope the Series is free of any clusterfarks like we saw in the Dodgers-Cubs and Royals-Texas contests. To adapt a saying: “Video reviews should be clarifying, consequential, and rare.”
I wrote about my limited baseball experience a while back.
Never had any desire to be an umpire. Why would you want to put yourself in a situation where someone is going to criticize everything you say or do? I guess it would have been good training for marriage though.
First of all, Uncle Charlie has always separated the men from the boys. It was thus and shall ever be. Amen.
I, too, took to the blue to adjudicate in the fields of brown and green. I have had it pronounced that I was blind, deaf and dumb and that parents were unmarried at the time of my birth.
But even the professional umpires are freaks as they tower over us mere mortals. To see behind the plate they must match the catcher inch for inch.
As a vertically-challenged individual, my usefulness to the game became limited to short people. Even players on the high school level began to tax my ability to get the appropriate angle on balls and strikes. Catchers who insisted on a more upright stance with the presence of men on the bases became the bane of my existence.
Once at a summer league game of 16 and 17 year olds I was presented with the polar opposites of catchers. One young man, around 6’3″ insisted on catching standing up, the other was an acolyte of the great Tony Peña, who crouched so low you could read the soles on the batters shoes.
CONTINUED
My very successful husband still sometimes gets a faraway look in his eyes while watching a game and intones, “I wonder if I could have…” He gets no further. I bring him back to earth. “No, dear, you couldn’t have.”
The disparity in styles caused a disparity in strike zones, duly noted by the manager of Mr. Upright. After about three innings of his whining I threw my mask on the ground, went into the dugout and sat next to him and yelled, “play ball!”
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Well,” says I, “the rule book says I can take up any position to call balls and strikes, it’s just that behind the plate is preferable. However, it’s hot as hell out there. Why should I sweat my (rear end) off when you have such a (deity-condemned) good view over here in the shade?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Drop dead serious. Now you can either shut up or I’m calling the rest of the game from right here.”
But I got a good reputation for knowing the book. I’ve had little leaguers so astonished at their first hit they’ve carried the bat with them to first base (legal) and even advised coaches to file protests against umpires who didn’t know the rules and wouldn’t listen to my counsel on the infield fly rule.
EJ Hill, you have done the Lord’s work.
I couldn’t hit a lick. When I went to take my drivers test at age16 I found out why. I couldn’t see. I was swinging at three balls before I got glasses. By 16 I had lost interest in baseball.
Don’t get me started on video reviews. They are a pernicious evil that should be banned by constitutional amendment and a special government task force appointed to find and destroy all record of their ever having existed.
I was gonna say, Vance, I do that every morning when I roll over and wake up my wife.
You are a man I could come to like, Mr. Hill.
For some reason, your story reminds me of a time when a near-fist fight broke out in a game I was officiating over whether the Year 2000 or the Year 2001 should be properly thought off as the first year of the 21st century. Ahh, baseball.
After two innings of constant, on-field bickering between the players, I felt compelled to remove my mask, step out in front of home plate, and pronounce authoritatively that on my field, the 21st century began on January 1st, 2001, and that anyone who cared to disagree with me could do so from the parking lot.
Well, get back out there, son. :)
Funny story–a friend of ours, who died at the age of 90 something about 5 years ago, was in his youth a very good pitcher. I forget the exact details of the story, but somehow he ended up pitching to some major leaguers, his talent was recognized, and he was invited to play for a major league team. Back then they didn’t make so much money as they do now, and his very practical wife nixed the idea, saying that grown men do not make a living playing games.
I’m guessing his wife never got that far away look in her eye.
I have two little league age sons (you met one of them a few weeks ago), and I get that far away look in my eye every time one of them gets a hit. “Genetics,” I think. “With genes like that, I should be playing pro ball.”
In my youth (college age) I liked the tax-free occupation of baseball umpire. There were Summers when my game count approached triple digits.
Proudly I once went two and one half seasons without tossing anyone. The Whitey Herzog balk rule ended that streak.
On the occasion that I did a game by myself and I heard unsportsmanlike chatter from the bench, I’d just take off my mask, wander over to the offenders and say, “Now, I have no idea who said that, but if I hear it again I’m going to start tossing folks randomly. Actually, I’ll start with your number four hitter and work towards the top of the lineup.”
That usually took care of it.
My other favorite is a pitcher asking for a new ball. In the ignorance of youth they don’t understand that if you knew what you were doing you’d never want a new baseball.
Pitcher: Can I have a new ball?
Me: What geometric shape is that one?
Pitcher: Round.
Me: Wrong answer. If it’s round you can pitch with it.
Amen. I remember being elated when they told me they would pay me $25 a game, no withholding. The league rules said that no game was permitted to last longer than two hours, so umping was a $12.50 an hour job, tax-free. At the time, I was working as a dishwasher for $5.75 an hour and the government took a bite out of every measly check. I thought I’d hit the lottery.
Allow me to blow your mind. Before hanging up my mask, I officiated a few hundred games, easy, and I never once — not once — had to throw someone out of a game. Partly in response to the baptism by fire described in the post, I learned early to begin every game with a warning. I would tell both benches that I had absolutely no tolerance for misbehavior and that they were listening to the very last warning they would receive from me. I explained that I had never and would never reverse a call, either one made by me or by one of my crew mates, so complaining was a waste of breath and the fastest way to find yourself in the parking lot.
I never had a problem.
That is absolutely outstanding. In our league, you had to write up every ejection for review by the head of officiating. I would have loved to have submitted that one. “Reason for Ejection: Excessive competence as a hitter.”
I used to have the same speech. Except for rules interpretations. If a manager thought I misinterpreted a rule I wanted to straighten that out immediately. I didn’t want to have to come back and do 4 to 5 innings for free. I would also only talk to one designated coach. No group chats.
Working with an incompetent partner is a nightmare. I once had a plate umpire call an infield fly with runners on 1st and 3rd. After an unsatisfactory discussion between the at-bat manager and the umpire, the manager looked to me for help. I told him straight up, I can’t overturn my partner but I can advise you that it is a protestable call. And if you win this game just forget about it.
I predated the speed up rules, too. I never let a batter wander up that line between pitches. If he left the box I’d give the pitcher the sign to pitch. And every pitch was a strike at that point.
And let me blow your mind. I estimated I called 1,500 games in a twenty year period and 80% of those were behind the plate.
Garret, I am back out there with my granddaughter.
The experienced managers knew my big speech was mostly to keep the players in line. They knew that, so long as it was done respectfully outside the hearing of the players, I was more than happy to discuss anything they wanted and many a time I stood with them between innings, my tattered rulebook in hand, discussing the finer points of the game. But as far as those players were concerned, I was an angry god with a quiver full of thunderbolts.
Our league wanted us to work in crews of two, but I got so sick of making excuses for my partner, that I actually preferred to work games alone. There were never enough trained umps, so someone was always working solo somewhere. By the end of my first year I was volunteering to take the solos and in my second year, I just had them schedule me straight solos all season. The others thought I was nuts … maybe I was.
I don’t know which part is more mind-blowing: the 1,500 games or the 80% dish work. That is hardcore, EJ. Impressive.
Such enlightenment as you describe, Garret, does not come only on the baseball field. But it eventually rains down upon most of us – sooner or later.
My awakening came in an audition room at North Texas State University. One moment I was certain I was to be the next Buddy Rich. Fifteen minutes later, after hearing a fellow freshman play things on a drum set I could only dream of playing, I realized my fate had changed forever.
Thanks to that kid (who is today one of the premier jazz drummers in NYC), my pen name here at Ricochet is “Songwriter” and not “Drums McParadiddle.”
I played Little League as a kid. Great on defense. Couldn’t get the bat off my shoulder.
However, to know the difference between being merely mortal or being a god is to play golf.
Golf doesn’t have to be a very young man’s game like baseball, football, or basketball. But….
Watch Ricky Fowler drop a wedge shot from 150 yards away onto a spot on the green the size of a napkin. See Jason Day drive the ball 350 yards and land it in the middle of the same (!) fairway he was aiming for. Watch Jordan Speith sink yet another 35 foot putt that requires the ball to wander a path more curved than the Mississippi River. See exactly (with multiple replays from eight different angles and in slo-mo) in excruciating detail why you are sitting on the couch watching.
You simply know in your soul that thousands of balls hit from the practice tee, the latest special clubs, unlimited lessons and you were just never going to be that good…ever.
And you sigh. And you go out and hope for a round in the low 90’s. And love it. ‘Cuz it’s fun.
You inspire me with lines like” . . bastard sons of Zeus . . ” From the bleachers perspective:
Trink Wilson
Ahh, but it all works out in the end, doesn’t it? Were it not for that young drummer, history would have been denied my up-coming, highly-compensated, Ricochet-only command performance as No-Longer-Tiny Tim Cratchett.
In the ways of poetry I am the Goliath of Philistines. Was that lovely poem original work, Trink? Because if it was, we’ve got to get that on paper. Much too good to be buried in Ricochet comments.
Well, Garret . . . even as the “GoP” . . . you have still warmed my heart on a rainy late-October morning in northwest Ohio. Thank you.
Investors are already lining up. Somewhere. I just don’t know where yet.
Bad enough to give up the ghost because you just can’t make the grade. The good news is you can outgrow it. What about the athlete who was good and had to retire because of age, health, etc.? Even tougher maybe. Now take the case of Pete Rose. Granted, he did know when to quit playing, but he didn’t abandon baseball. He was forced out of the game for betting while a manager. He probably gambled as a player, but they couldn’t prove it. Watching Pete on FOX, in my opinion, he should be banned from all media. “Charlie Hustle” looks like a candidate for “Charlie Alzheimer”. This is the poor slob who can’t give it up -ever. Chasing the Hall of Fame until death do them part. Unless some fool new Commissioner lifts the curse and opens the door.