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JonnyCat getting some love on ESPN!


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Watching the LL Regionals at San Bernardino and our @JonnyCat is working 1st base with my buddy Dean on the plate. Announcers actually gave both Jon and Dean some serious love mentioning how they like their mechanics.

Just thought I would throw out that our friend is kicking butt on ESPN. As I was typing this, they just tried to challenge a call Jon made at 1st which he called an out on and they challenged a pulled foot. 

Runner is out, call is confirmed.

Keep it up Jon! 

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7 minutes ago, Vegas_Ump said:

WR has the most standardized training and it shows!

[joke][robot voice] I completely agree, Michael [/robot voice][/joke]

 

- Rob, CA LL Districts 12 &44

 

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On 8/11/2022 at 1:30 PM, Velho said:

Awesome! That means he's working with one of my UICs, Mark Teagle, from up here in the Bay Area. Been great to see him on tv too.

Teagle was on the West championship game with me. Really fun time working and hanging out with him. Super nice guy.

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On 8/13/2022 at 12:04 PM, JonnyCat said:

@Mudisfun

Thanks for the shout out, Kevin! Just got back this morning. Great experience. 

In a little while, I'll write up a little synopsis of my experience there, and I'll be happy to answer any questions about the tournament.

JC

I was at the game with my daughter (you met her at Fountain Valley) and a few other cronies. You guys did a great job! Hawaii just beat the tar out of AZ... Was glad it didn't end up a 15 run mercy in the 3rd after 2 hours of traffic!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just wanted to follow up on the tournament and post a few pictures. Overall, a great experience, nothing I've ever experienced comes close to the pageantry of doing the West Region Tournament. Even though I have been at that tournament as a spectator and volunteer over the years, working the games is a whole different experience. Each game is filled with pressure. You know you're under the microscope from many angles. You can feel the intensity in every game, but none more that the West final.

For those of you that don't know the process, this has been almost a 3 year journey. We got the assignments at the end of 2019 after a lengthy selection process. You don't just throw your hat in the ring. For most districts, you need to be nominated and approved by your UIC and District Administrator. It can take years to get selected. Our district sends an umpire to WR about once every 8 years. Our last one was in 2012. The tournament was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid, and was modified in 2021. We were given the option in 2021 to defer one year. Most of us opted for the deferment. All but 2 from our original selected crew worked this tournament.

There are 14 umpires selected, but there are only 18 games. Only 4 umpires will work an extra plate. Originally, as in years past, we work 6 man crews. We did for the first 4 games on opening Saturday, but for some reason LL told us to run 4 man crews starting Sunday morning, for the duration. We were given about an hours notice before the first game on Sunday. Luckily, most of us were well versed in running 4 man. It worked out fine, but mind you, we had been preparing for 6 man for over 2 years. It just meant less base work for all of us.

We stay on site in a common dorm room for the entire tournament, yes all 14 of us in there, for about 10 days. They treat you well, we had a couple of Umpire Uncles that would BBQ for us after the end of each day, and take care of anything else we needed. Not as comfortable as a hotel room, but still not terrible. It's all part of the experience. We had some other event obligations that we had to attend. That was not ideal for me, I would have rather had some down time occasionally to chill and decompress away from everybody. At my Senior Regional in 2016, we had hotel rooms. That was a better situation, and as far as I know, WR is the only regional that has the umpires stay on site. Hanging out together definitely increases the camaraderie, but doesn't help with sleep and pre-game preparation.

Had a fun time, worked with a lot of good guys, made a bunch of memories. I was originally going to blog each day, as I did In pro school, but there just wasn't time. Let me know if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer.

This was my first plate game on Monday. This was the 11th game, so I had a lot of time to observe how the flow of the game went as a PU. There is a lot of pressure from ESPN. You're on their time. The "Red Hat" waves a flag that tells you when to send the teams on the field each inning, and when to call for the throw down. Pitchers might get 10 pitches, they might get 2. ESPN and LL also wants you to do a couple of things differently, such as your plate meeting, and some other game flow things. It's fine, but I saw some of the PU's ahead of me kind of struggle with the changes, and got rushed during the games, especially between innings. I told myself I wasn't going to get sucked into that, I ran my game as I normally do, didn't bother with some of the nit picky stuff, and tried to work the games like they were any other. No one cared that I put my sunglasses on my hat at the plate meeting and covered up the logo. (What a sin!) Also, no one cared that I tore off the lineup cards and handed them to the mangers at the plate meeting myself, instead of having the backup umpire do it as we were instructed. (Oh the horrors!) ESPN wants the games to run in 2 hour blocks or less. But I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, the games take as long as they need to. We couldn't do anything about the between innings time, but I wasn't going to rush the games to meet some sort of deadline.

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Pledges. I'm 5'-11", but apparently on this game I was working with Amazons. Far left is Adam Carlson from the Seattle area. Next to him is Eric Quinney from Wyoming. His 15yo son had a heart transplant 2 years ago. Great kid and is doing well. Next to me is Walter Madden from Northern California. He got the plate for the Mountain Region championship.

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2nd plate, West Championship. From right to left. Myself. Dean Butler from Huntington Beach, CA. Worked a few games the past 2 years with him. Good guy, had a second plate on the last semi-final game on Thursday. He had a great game at first. Just absolutely killed it.

Mark Teagle from San Jose area. We called him Padre. He's a minister in his spare time.

Rob McCarthy from the San Francisco area. I'll forever be mad at him. LOL! He worked 3rd base and missed a rotation. He got to bang the kid out at 3rd instead of me!

Terrence Han was the backup. He's from the Bend Oregon area. Good guy, was nicked named Tomahawk. Couldn't tell you why!

 

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Waiting in the "Well" down below. Going to meet with the scorekeeper and "Red Hat". The guy behind me with the camera is longtime LL guy Art Valdez. Was one of the umpire evaluators and supervisors for this tournament. Worked the LL softball regional just before this one. He was one of my instructors when I went to the WR week-long school in 2008. He's been a long time instructor and evaluator. Super good guy!

A funny story about Art. After my first plate game, like we do after every game, we go to the umpires lounge and de-brief. The evaluators give us feedback and we talk about the games. We all sit down,and before we get started, Art wants to tell us a story. Art is retired law enforcement. He tells us a story about when he was on a gang task force, they were investigating some murders that they suspected the Mexican mafia was involved, particularly one individual. The suspect, I can't remember his name, was believed to be behind these murders. He was a known gang member and assassin with numerous hits under his belt, both in and out of prison. He went by the name, "La Hatcha", Spanish for "The Hatchet". Art and a couple of guys went to pay him a visit to put pressure on him. They didn't have anything concrete on him, but just wanted to lean on him. Went to his landscape job to chat with him. Art said was the nicest most polite guy you could ever meet. Just as we were all wondering what this had to do with umpiring, or our game, Art says, "so what does this have to do with the game?" Art said "La Hatcha" was the coolest, calmest person. Never let anything rattle him, never showed anything, just cool and calm as could be.

Art looks at me and says, "That's you working your game. Cool, calm, in charge, nothing rattles you, you're "La Hatcha!" I don't know if that's good or bad, but the nickname stuck the rest of the tournament.

On my second plate, a pitched ball goes untouched, hits me right in the chest protector, and rolls to the backstop. Didn't hurt, but sounded wicked. No one was on base, so I just walk out and throw another ball to the pitcher. As I'm walking back to point of plate, all I can hear is Art screaming from the well, "La Hatcha!"

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Plate meeting before West Championship. Hawaii was a really good team from top to bottom. Very respectful and played the game right. The Arizona team was great, too. Good coaches and good players. I think the teams Hawaii faced in the West regional were the best they faced, including in the WS. Nor Cal and So Cal were very strong, too. Hawaii was just better, well coached and well disciplined. It was an honor to work their games. 

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Another rotation to 3rd.

You can see me smiling in the second picture. The manager Troy Silva says to me as I'm returning home, something to the effect of, "you done this before?" I just laughed and said, "a couple of times." He was a good guy and very respectful, with a good attitude and sense of humor. His coaching staff and team was the same. You didn't see it on camera, but he led both teams in an on field prayer just before this game. This was the first year this team played LL. They normally played travel-ball. They joined LL, the kids played on different teams during the regular season, and made a great run. I think he knew they were in for an uphill battle, but the coaches just kept the kids in the game, and just let them have fun. Their kids had great attitudes. I didn't see any tears or bad attitudes after the loss. They played a great game, and were happy for Hawaii.

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It's just cool to have been a part of this. Say what you want about LL, but there is really nothing out there quite like this in any other youth baseball organization. I do a lot of HS ball, too, but this is pretty special. Sometimes I'd rather do LL games for free, than some HS games. HS varsity games are much better competition, but man, they can be such A$$holes sometimes. Didn't have a lick of trouble in any game. Even the ones leading up to this tournament.

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