Three teams take to the field for each baseball game. In addition to the visiting team and the home team, a group of four umpires – or six during the postseason – also comes out willing to do a good job on the diamond. They have their own numbered uniforms and impact every game. But unlike the players, they don’t want to be the center of attention.
Here are seven things you didn’t know about umpires.
Although there are more than 700 active players on the Major League Baseball rosters, there are only 76 active full-time umpires. Before every regular season since 1952, umpires have been divided into groups of four, each assigned by the director designated by the baseball commissioner.
Each group of umpires is identified by a letter from “A” to “S” and is made up of a mix of veterans and those with less experience, who have a combination of 50-70 years of experience in the majors.
Each batter has his own way of standing at the plate before each pitch, and the same applies to umpires, who crouch behind the catcher before each pitch. Since 2008, the count has been kept of how many times an umpire ducks during a season.
The squat leader for a season is Tim McClelland, who received 11,417 pitches in 2009.
The path begins – and ends – for many in Vero Beach, Florida at the MiLB Umpire Training Academy. Each January, a group of prospective umpires come to the academy for a month-long camp where current umpires serve as instructors.
At the end of the month – and after many hours of training – a small percentage of students receive an offer to be umpires in the minors, starting at the rookie level. Those umpires work for six to seven years before getting a shot at Triple-A, where they are screened for the possible leap to the Big Top.
MLB umpires have a number of pregame duties, but none are more important than balls. In every game there is a chief umpire who is the “absolute judge of the state of the balls,” according to the league’s official rule book.
Have you ever wondered why an umpire uses his right hand to signal strikes and his left hand for balls? For the pitcher, players on the field and television audience, this looks the other way around if you look from left to right. Nobody talks about a “two strikes and three balls” count, but the reason has to do with the right hand, which is considered the action hand in baseball.
It is taught that the forehand is for strikes. In the early 20th century, Cy Rigler was the first umpire to use his hands to call strikes, and he did so with his right hand. Usually the right hand is used, as when the umpire points at the pitcher and yells “Play-Ball” to officially start a game.
Surely very few have asked an MLB umpire what he uses. But anyone can look like an official umpire. Everything you need, from chest protectors, leg protectors and masks, made by Wilson and Majestic can be purchased online. Anyone can even buy the Franklin home brush.
Every MLB team has its collection of retired numbers. Like umpires. Bill Klem’s number 1, Al Barlick’s number 3 are two of the immortals. However, it is more of a token of appreciation for his contributions to baseball, because the numbers as such are still used by umpires today.
The only one who is really retired is, of course, 42.
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