Umpire-Empire

I’m honored to have the opportunity to interview Hunter Wendelstedt for our first interview in this new feature.
Warren: This will be your tenth year in Major League Baseball. Looking back what are some of your favorite experiences?
Hunter: Every time I walk onto the field, I still get excited. I enjoy being a part of a [...]

I’m glad to have the opportunity to ask Jim Kirk, owner of Ump-Attire, a few questions. I think you’ll enjoy some of his insight as a supplier.
Warren: How did you originally get into the business of being a supplier of officials’ products?
Jim: I wish I had some grand story, but it is one of those [...]

I’m pleased to have the second interview in our interview series with Bob Bainter former AAA umpire and founder of the Oceanside Umpires Training School (OUTS). We spent a quite enjoyable few hours on the phone recently discussing Bob’s career and umpiring in general.
Warren: Bob, start out by telling us a little about your umpiring [...]

There are many aspects of umpiring which often go un noticed unless they’re not there or something’s wrong. Often times it’s the little things that make people successful. This holds true as an umpire.

Arrive on time – Don’t start out behind. It puts you and your partner in a bind.
Appearance – I can’t say it [...]

The plate conference is more than an annoying pre-game ritual we have to go through each game; It sets the ground work for your game management. You can earn huge credibility points here. It’s sad to say that this critical part of the game is done so poorly by so many guys its frightening. Most [...]

It was with a heavy heart I removed TheUmpireLife from the links section of Umpire-Empire and from my bookmarks. I first visited TheUmpireLife in January of this year when doing some research for this site. At that time the site was a modest blog. The content wasn’t all that it grew to be at that [...]

In this world one of life’s greatest truths is nobody is just going to give you anything you have to earn what you want through hard work. I’ve had an interesting few weeks in my baseball career. At the beginning of the month our association made its promotions for the upcoming year and I was [...]

Getting ahead of the game and shaking off the rust early
It’s that time of the year again were starting to gear up for the 2009 season. I’m sure you want to make this your best season ever. Here are my thoughts for shaking the rust off early and being ready to go for the season.
First, [...]

 
Don’t Be “That Guy”
Forward—I write this not to say I am the world’s greatest umpire, or my partner sucked, because my partner called a good sound game. But I write this as a demonstration of how drastically game management effects the game. I initially I was going to title this article “don’t be a Smitty”, [...]

So You Want to Be an Umpire?

Well it all starts right here at the amateur level. Whether your goal is to do local youth recreation games, to be behind the plate for the College World Series, or to make it to the big leagues; amateur umpiring is a rewarding endeavor not to be taken lightly. [...]