Baseball 101

Since I was just a three year old you could always find a baseball in my hand. My dad said my favorite toy as a baby was a stuffed baseball that I would toss around. I started playing playing baseball at the age of four and played throughout high school forever falling in love with the game of baseball. I have spent endless hours playing on private baseball teams, working with my father, and even by myself just working on technique. After high school I had offers at numerous division two schools and one division school, but sadly threw out my arm senior year of high school actually requiring surgery. After, being done with playing baseball I began umpiring to stay in tune with baseball and stay with something I consider a passion. So in honor of one my first jobs that I started at the age of 14, I will be explaining the basics of how to be a baseball umpire. I have spent years of my life dedicating it to baseball and have seen it not only from an umpires shoes and players I have basically seen it all. 

The first thing you need to do is secure the proper equipment to umpire. You need shin guards, chest protector, umpires helmet, and steel toed shoes to stop the ability. Baseball for umpires is no game, equipment is necessary when you have ninety mile per hour fastballs whizzing by your head. If you do not have the proper equipment you can take a foul ball and really get hurt. Throughout my time I have taken balls of the arms, off the helmet, and even in the ankle. You can not protect everything so you need to line up properly behind the catcher in order to avoid majority of balls. You need to get a official umpire shirt, grey pants, a belt, and also a ball pouch that goes on your belt for the balls. After you have the equipment set up, you need to begin to grasp the strike zone. The strike zone is typically knees to the letters and from both the inside and outside of the plates. It really is not that easy of a job, you really need to focus and learn not to flinch when a pitch comes directly at your head. Fortunately I played catcher for years so I have that ability way before hand and did not have to learn that. 

Most people know the basics of how out and safe works. Some basic rules that some might not know are three strikes your out, four balls is a walk, three outs per inning, and foul balls count as a strike (you can not strike out on a foul). Some more intricate things that you will learn over time is positioning, balks, and specific rules that leagues will carry. Each league has different sets of rules and different levels of baseball are almost completely different. For example, you need to wait for the pitch to cross the plate in order to steal, but in higher level baseball you can steal whenever you please. Baseball umpiring might sound tough, but it is extremely profitable. I have the ability to make upwards of 25 to 40 dollars an hour cash depending on the level of baseball I am umpiring, if you can get over it being a extremely high pressure job it is totally worth it. When I am not interning I still umpire whenever I can.