Leaderboard

I use the UmpLife XL 6.5" magnetic holder. I always have two, 3X5" unlined index cards under the magnet on each side of my book. After approving the lineup cards, I fold them up so they will fit the dimensions of the book and then I write Home or Away, the color of the team's uniforms and the manager's first names on each folded up lineup card. I wear two ball bags. One is a Force 3 Dry-Lo WITH accessory pockets, one is a Force 3 Dry-Lo WITHOUT accessory pockets. The bag with pockets goes on my right hip. The bag without pockets is on my left. I keep my brush and indicator in the pockets on the right bag and I keep my book and pen in the non-pocketed bag on my left. I used to use my shirt pocket but, even with today's modern materials I just found my book and or indicator were wearing holes prematurely in my shirts around the pocket... ~Dawg

As most of you know I stopped umpiring in 2018. But I ran into a friend I met umpiring and he informed me that this was his last year he was hanging it up. He was much more accomplished than me. He was a regular in collegiate post season at the D-II level and he was on 1 or 2 D-I conferences staff. I'd feel confident that he did some D-I conference tournaments if not maybe a regional. But I told him he was one of my all time favorite partners and he asked why. So I thought I'd share my thoughts on why he was one of my all time favorites. He was straight up honest with me. He pulled no punches his feedback was just like his umpiring, he called it like he saw it. He was one of my first collegiate partners before I was on any conferences. Where I'd get a call as a last minute fill-in and such. Post game I thought I did "okay." But his first comment to me was, "You're in over you're head dude." And yes, that hurt, but he went into detail of what he saw and how I could do better and that helped. Being honest with myself I could see exactly what he was talking about. Another instance of brutal honesty was that he was really pissed at me for not being good enough of a rodeo clown after a debacle on the field that led to multiple ejections. At the time I thought I was controlling the situation the best I could given everything going on and I ended up having an ejection in the situation too. But his feedback helped open my eyes about what to do in that type of situation. I honestly think he may have been tougher with his feedback to me because he knew I was absorbing it and trying to make the necessary adjustments. He had his partners back. I've written before that I believe umpires go through a swinging pendulum when it comes to ejections. At first they have either way too many or way too few. then they go back and forth adjusting until they figure it out and normalize. I was early in my career. The year prior I had a crazy high number of ejections so I was a bit trigger shy. I had a situation where an ejection was more than warranted, but I didn't pull the trigger. I had this coach eating my lunch on the field, and I think beyond being trigger shy I was not correct. Either way I was not fairing too well with this coach and he very professionally took control of the situation without throwing me under the bus and got the coach to back off. We had fun together. As time went on and I developed more and learned (with a lot of help from him) He was a partner I would be excited to see on my schedule. Milestone games. I'm sure it was purely random, but he was my partner for many of my milestone games and that's a really good feeling to have one of your go-to guys there with you. His presence gave me confidence. Some of my milestones he was with me for were my first high school post season assignment, a charity "all-star" game, my first collegiate post-season assignment which was also my first time in a 4 man game and we worked together in my first 6 man game in that same conference tournament. There was a HS game we had been assigned to separate games elsewhere, but because of a social media feud between players on the 2 teams that ended up making the local news, we were reassigned to the game together and the school district's athletic director attended the plate conference and spoke to the coaches there. (we had zero issues in the game). I'm sure there's much more, but he was one of my all-time favorite partners and he made quite a difference in my umpiring career. I hope all of you have someone like this in your career and can be that person for someone coming up the ranks.

Oops, where did I get Australia from? There's a lot of similarities though! Strange accent, it's very hot, they have lots of snakes... even have some nice beaches in both places!

As I'm getting ready to read a Mad Max response I just ran and got a snack.