By Ben Brown

The Lafayette’s Ben Brown ’14 shares his experiences behind the plate as an umpire for Little League Baseball.

The pitcher hums a pitch toward the plate in the low-outside corner of the strike zone. “Strike three!” I bellow. The batter slams his helmet to the ground and starts shouting at me. Spectators groan. “Did I miss the call?” I wonder. My face turns hot and my stomach sinks. It looked like a strike. For the rest of the game, I replayed that single pitch in my head, wondering if it was right.

I started umpiring baseball at age 13 in my hometown of Maplewood, N.J. Initially, I umpired youngsters ages 8 to 9 and have since graduated to men’s leagues in Montgomery County, Pa. Baseball is fascinating: the cat-and-mouse game between the pitcher and batter, the intricacies of a pitching motion and the nuances of the rulebook. I am not good enough to play baseball anymore, but umpiring keeps me connected to the game.

I’ve been in my fair share of sticky situations. Once, a kid dropped a beautiful bunt down the third base line. It was a close play at first, but I called him out. His coaches were livid.

“He took that one away from you, champ!” “No, no blue! He was safe!” One coach was brave enough to say to me, “Before that call you were the perfect umpire. From now on you’ll just be 99 percent right.”

Another coach was even bolder; “With all due respect, you have got to listen for the foot hitting the bag and the ball hitting the glove.”

On a separate occasion, a kid was rounding third base and his third base coach gave him a little push toward home. I called him out after a close play at the plate. The coaches were upset, but I told them that the rulebook says a coach cannot touch a player while the ball is live. They grudgingly understood and returned to their dugout.

One coach was never afraid to get under my skin: Coach V. He belly-ached for an entire game, at one point telling his other coaches in a voice loud enough for parents and players to hear, “Umpiring is easy. I’ve tried it before. It’s not that hard. Believe me.”

Players, coaches and fans will get in your face, whether you screw up or not. But you can’t let it faze you. Perhaps the most important thing in umpiring is confidence – or at least the appearance of confidence. A call should be made without a trace of hesitation or doubt. It’s “Steee-riiike!!” Not “Uhh … strike?”

But the truth is I truly love baseball and embrace the responsibility. A discouraging game behind the plate makes it that much harder to walk away.