Four Umpires

Games require fairness. Fairness requires… Umpires?

Bottom of the ninth, tie game, runners on first and third, the coach signals for a new pitcher.

The Away team choruses from the first-base dugout: “You got this, Julian!” “Go get ’em, Julian!” (No relation.)

The new pitcher takes the mound. He has the wispy, windswept hair of an early-2000s teenage heartthrob, and just enough muscle to suggest he started working out when puberty hit a couple years ago. 

Julian throws his first warmup pitch.

A player walks from the third-base dugout to behind home plate. Maybe 15 years old. He accuses a woman old enough to be his mother: “Are you taking videos?” 

“No,” she replies. “You guys were [doing something she found objectionable].”

Julian throws his second warmup pitch. The boy continues the accusation: “Were you taking videos?” 

“No, just pictures.” She continues her explanation. 

“I don’t care.” The boy stomps back to third base. 

A third warmup pitch. The umpire calls the game back in play.

Julian straddles the mound. His neck swivels, unable to see the opposing players on first and third at the same time. The previous cheers have gone silent. Julian twitches his knee. Something catches his eye near first. He looks over at it.

“Bawk!” yells someone from the third base dugout. 

“Bawk!” the umpire agrees like a chorus of chickens. “He lifted his knee and put it back. That’s a bawk.”

“What’s a bawk?” Partner asks me. I start laughing. 

“What’s a bawk?” she repeats. 

“It’s…” I begin.

Suddenly, everything is happening at once. The umpire clears the path between third base and home, like he’s making way for prince Ali. The player touches home. His friends cheer. A tall man says “Excuse me” to someone beside us; he removes a sun-shaded phone from the fence, where it was probably recording or livestreaming the game. The umpire walks over to the Away team to explain the rule violation. A younger looking boy has both palms against his cheeks and mouth agape like a real life Scream. Someone says, “At least we gave them a hard fight.”

I turn to Partner and explain. “Basically, the pitcher isn’t allowed to trick the base runners. So there are a lot of very precise rules about what he can and can’t do. I think I’ve heard my father say ‘breaking the plane of the knee’ at some point, meaning you have to pitch immediately when you do that. If you break the rule, as punishment for your shenanigans, the players are awarded a free base.”

“And that’s called a bawk?”

“Yep. Spelled B-A-L-K.”

“Ballk.”

“Yeah, but pronounced like what a chicken says. Rhymes with ‘walk’.”

“Bawk.”

Fifteen minutes earlier, Partner and I arrived to the baseball fields. Four fields, spread out in this grassy oasis one third of the way from the top of Central Park.

Over the next hour, we will watch four ball games. The most notable play in every game will be by the umpire.

More Like Guidelines

The first players are either middleschool or highschool kids. Brown jerseys for the pitching team. No one on base. 

The pitcher throws a warm-up pitch. The ball bounces three feet before home plate; the catcher tosses it back.

The batter approaches the plate. The pitcher throws. This ball bounces too. “Ball,” says the umpire.

Partner and I watch eleven subsequent pitches. Some fly high, into the chainlink fence behind the catcher. Most bounce, like the first two. None cross home plate between the batter’s knees and shoulders. 

Dutifully, on each pitch, the umpire says “Ball” and the corresponding number.

One at a time, players populate the bases. After all twelve pitches are thrown, the bases are full.

The pitcher begins his windup. The batter steps out of the box. The pitcher stops. 

“That’s a balk!” the umpire shouts at the pitcher. “You can’t [I stop paying attention].”

“Let’s go to that game,” I say, gesturing across the field.

“Walk around or through?” Partner asks.

The umpire is walking back his previous position, calling it a “No pitch.” 

“We can walk through. He’s not going to throw anything hittable.”

Partner and I walk behind the third-base fence, then skirt into the outfield in foul territory. As we pass the left fielder, I notice the players on each base slowly advancing one base.

When a child has thrown twelve balls in a row, are you really going to call him out for a balk? Sometimes the spirit of the game calls for bending the rules. If a child pitcher can’t throw a single strike, that sounds like a rule problem. I’m reminded of the problems I experienced playing pony baseball: Stealing is legalized before any catcher has the arm to throw out the runners. A runner on first is effectively a runner on third. 

We walked to the baseball field where Julian would soon bawk, then continued toward the softball games.

The Competent Umpire of Slow-Pitch Softball

The softball game on our left looks competitive. The game on our right, less so. We go left.

The cocky third baseman nabs a line-drive one-handed. “Out.”

Partner and I walk behind home plate, where the umpire is chatting with an off-duty ump.

This umpire wears no mask nor padding. No padding for the catcher. Nor helmet for the batter. I learn something new about slow-pitch softball.

The next batter hits a ground ball toward third base. The third baseman fields the ball mid-stride and throws off-balance, clearly showing off.

The umpire calls “out,” then turns three-quarters of the way toward the fence behind him.

“I coulda played at Arizona,” the umpire continues. “A-S-U. Got a full ride. Said no. What did I know? I didn’t want to go to Arizona.”

He turns back to the game: “Ball.” 

He turns back to his friend: “I played everywhere. Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic…” Returning to the game: “Strike.” Returning to his friend: “Hawaii.”

I’m impressed by how he can both continue the conversation and accurately referee the game.

A batter waits just outside the batting box.

“Can we go?” asks the pitcher.

“I’m waiting for you,” the ump responds.

“I’m waiting for you,” says the batter.

“No you ain’t,” the ump responds.

As an unbiased observer at this game, I can confidently say: they were not, in fact, waiting for the umpire.

That Ain’t the Rules

Partner and I approach our final softball game of the day.

Ten kids in ragtag outfits and red pinnies, aged between 22 and 25, versus ten older guys, between 30 and 40, in matching jerseys.

The pinnies are having a blast — yelling and hollering, cheering among themselves.

The pitcher throws. Ball. Strike. The inning ends.

The pinnies take the field. I count ten players and seven gloves. 

“Don’t you have gloves?” the umpire says.

Someone shouts back, “No.”

Someone else says, “But it’s okay. We don’t need ’em.”

“You need gloves,” says the umpire.

I turn to Partner. “You definitely don’t need gloves. Gloves were only an early 1900s thing. I’m pretty sure they’re not required.”

Partner: “Might be a beer league thing.” (According to Partner, beer league is a type of casual softball where players drink beer in their dugouts between fielding.)

The older team lends three gloves to the pinnies.

Partner and I watch an inning or two. It’s riotous, raucous fun — all hijinks, everybody trying their best, but no pressure on winning.

One pitcher throws a ball that arcs around 13 feet high. The ump calls “strike three.” The batter taps the top of his head.

“That’s too high,” I say to Partner. “If it’s above 12 feet, it’s a ball.”

The ump says, “It bounced before the line. That’s a strike.”

The batter is out.

The game rapidly evolves into “Who can throw the highest pitch that still lands short of the line?” Some are clearly over 15 feet, landing at the front of the plate, and still being called as strikes.

I pull out my phone. In under ten seconds, I read aloud to Partner: “Four-to-ten-foot arc. Any pitch too high or too flat is a ball, unless the batter swings.”

The players are now chopping at pitches coming down above their heads. The game looks less like softball and more like swatting flies.

Yet, somehow, no one seems to mind.

Partner is getting cold. We’ll watch this final inning.

The pinnies are batting. Runners on every base.

The umpire yells something to one of the baserunners. Another pitch. “Ball.” Then the umpire yells, “He’s out! Three outs!”

I walk over to the third-base dugout. I ask one of the kids in pinnies: “How did that inning end?”

He tells me: “The ump said no leading off.” He gestures toward second base. “He wasn’t on the base, so he called him out.”

“And what about the pitches. Don’t they have to be under ten feet?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I don’t know the rules,” he tells me.

“How did you guys get to be here?”

“We went to college together. Seemed like a fun thing to do.”

I wonder what it would be like to play a game without knowing such fundamental information as What counts as a strike? and I should bring a glove.

Walking home, I give Partner my shirt to stay warm, and I’m struck by how much more fun the pinnie team was having than any other team we watched that day.

They don’t know that the ump ruined their game. So maybe… he didn’t.