jrewell1978

This is almost four years old, but this is the wife, kids, and me in front of Doubleday Field when we went to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1. Work more on my base mechanics. I'm so used to working alone, that on the rare cases I do work with a partner and do bases, I feel awkward and know sometimes my positioning is off. 2. Better my rules knowledge. I always work on this one and try to read a chapter of my Fed rules every week. That, and since I now have an authoritative position with my summer organization, I just know I'll get a ton of questions asked. 3. Drop some pounds. I'm about 250 and I'd like to see 200 by this time next year. 4. Attend some clinics. I live by the always seek improvement creed. 5. Enjoy myself. This is one of the greatest gigs on Earth!

Be 13 years old, don't have a game one day, have your dad be your hometown's parks & rec UIC and have someone no show. Worked for me!

Well, after doing this for six years as a teenager and nine years as an adult, this past summer I was promoted to my summer organization's vice president, assigner, and trainer. We are a small organization that does a couple of the traveling teams around here and ASA co-rec softball at a couple of parks on Sundays. I'll be taking a hit in the ol' pocketbook this summer, but, man I am looking forward to training some young umpires this coming season!

A local middle school field that was one the high school's JV field and used for summer rec ball was sort of bizarre. It was at the bottom of a hill, it had a small backstop about 7-8 feet behind home plate with no protection to the benches (lot of foul balls landed in the yard at the top of the hill never to be seen again), about 320' to right field (home runs never recovered because no way to retrieve them due to field being fenced in, besides, the other side of the fence was swampland), flagpole about 375' to CF (balls hit off of it were in play), and a hill about 275' in LF (balls hit over the hill were still in play, by the time left fielder found it, batter usually had a HR by then. Pic was taken about 3 years ago, drove past it this past summer and it's still abandoned.

Well, at the risk of facing the wrath of everyone here, when I started in middle school we had our rec league organization umpire t-shirts. Keep in mind, this was the early 90s. And sometimes we wore shorts with our shinguards too. Hey, I was a teenager at the time. My hometown looks much more professional nowadays.

Swapped my Diamond pads out for TW this past season. Last HS game I did I took a fastball right to the face. Got my bell rung and had a headache at work later that night for a hour or so, but am thankful I spent the $45 to replace them. And to think, my wife thought I was nuts to buy them!

U10 game, tie score, bottom of 7th, 0 outs, runners on 2nd & 3rd, ground ball to F5, F5 throws out R1 at home, F2 throws out R2 at 3rd. Defense starts to run off field thinking there's three outs, coaches tell them there's only two. Meanwhile, BR (who had touched and rounded 1B) gets caught up with the defense into believing the third out had been made starts coming off the field and is on the third base side of second base until his coach starts telling him there's only two. BR and and F5 (who still has the ball) dart towards 2B and BR beats F5 to bag. D wants me to call BR out for being out of baseline, but out of sheer confusion, I call nothing and the next batter singles to LF, runner scores to win game and I make a beeline to the parking lot. After I got home, I consult my UIC and my rulebook and discover that I SHOULD have called the BR out due to his obvious giving up on the play, HOWEVER couldn't the defensive team been guilty of some sort of infraction (i.e., obstruction)? This was two weeks ago and on one hand I realize I royally blew it, on the other hand I'm still trying to rationalize my keeping mum on the field about it.

I dip, just not on the field I find it unprofessional.

Hi there!

Smart move, kid!

Once you graduate high school it's time to ditch the balloon. A few years ago I worked a tournament with an older guy who still carried one, which was his decision, but the balloon/hockey helmet combination left me perplexed.

Saw operator at a large steel forging plant.

My dad was my hometown's UIC and he threw me to the wolves when I was 13. 23 years later and I still don't know if I should forgive him or not. :)

Assistant coaches are to be seen and not heard.

Haven't had the chance to work at the G-Plex yet, would love to eventually.

Just did my second year of football myself. Not sure about picking up a winter sport, the extra money would be nice but my kids are still pretty young and I like being with them.

Hi! I'm Josh and this will technically be my 15th year umpiring, but I started in 1992 (that army hitch after high school and the subsequent several years sitting around doing nothing in the summer got in the way). I'm looking forward to joining in discussions and learning new things along the way. Good luck in 2015!