For the Love of the Game

[Kali]

There are times you just want to get lost in a baseball game and forget the world.

On Easter morning in 2010, four young people got into a car.  The driver was drunk and he plowed into a signpost, killing himself and two other boys.  The two passengers killed were both friends of my son from early childhood, both good kids whose only mistake was getting into a car with a drunk.  One of those boys was also a pretty good catcher in Little League and High School ball and I had umpired behind him many times.

A few days later we held a memorial service for the catcher.  His parents had both been active in our local Little League, both great people.  We all told stories about the boy and what a wonderful young man he had become.  It was one of the saddest things I have ever been to.

I went home and was obviously pretty depressed.  It wasn't even noon yet.  I decided to go online and see if my local Little League district had any open spots looking for umpires.  It turns out that there was a jamboree for the Minors starting in an hour.  I signed up and suited up and went out to the park.

I showed up at the park on a gorgeous spring day with about 50, 10 year-olds bouncing around two fields excited to play their first game of the season.  When I showed up in uniform, the excitement went up another notch.  It appears, they'd never had an umpire in uniform for a game before.  A very relieved mom was so happy to see me show up.  They had just started to strap the umpire gear on her and now she was off the hook.

As I walked toward the field, a young player came racing up to me about as excited as he could be.  "Mr. Umpire, Mr. Umpire sir, can I ask you a question?"

I said, "Sure, what's on your mind?"

He says, "In this league, can we charge the mound?"

I don't really remember what I said.  I think I said, "I don't really think you can do that in any league." or something lame like that.  I just remember thinking, "this is why I do this..."