So, I was at this softball game not too long ago (I’m not going to tell you which one), and I’m standing beyond the fence in center field, in a spot where I had stood at least four times before at this very field. All of a sudden, somebody from the host school walks up and says the umpire wants me to move. I had (and still have) no idea where the umpire wanted me to go, or why. But I moved. You can’t argue with the ump. As Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain once observed, there’s nothing quite so much like God on earth as an umpire on a ballfield. Or something like that. After all, they can throw people out of the game. Shoot, they could probably have you arrested if you don’t do what they say. So, I moved. No big deal. This same umpire held up the game to make a TV camera person leave the first-base line and take a spot down the third-base line. I thought that was funny until he made me move, too.

Balls and strikes? Bad calls on the bases? You can’t judge an umpire on any of that because they all make mistakes. But I can’t stand people who won’t let me do my job.

Umpires are people, aren’t they?

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