When I received my invitation to the Intermediate Regional in 2013, I started up a blog to basically journal the experience from letter to championship game. That blog can be found at http://tonytheump.blogspot.com . It's nice to go back and live some memories, as I tend to forget memories a lot.
I was born and raised in San Bernardino. My dad, brother, and I would spend days up at the Regional complex every August watching games, playing on the bike course (where Chavez Middle School is now), and running up and down the concrete bleachers. When I became an umpire, my dreams were to umpire on that field. I have done so a few times now, on weekend invitations for Alta Loma Little League, and it is a beautiful place to work. The kids love it and I, as an umpire, dreamed of doing this while kids played with a chance to go to the World Series.
Now it is happening. I have been invited to San Bernardino to do the Softball Regional from July 21 - July 28, 2017. This will be my journal of one of my umpiring dreams coming true. I am so honored to be able to be out on the field. If I have half as much of an experience as I did in Irvine in 2013, this is something I am going to want to remember.
I have already been helping at the softball tournament for a couple years now as an announcer and helping out on the trash crew. Come the baseball tournament, I'll be back on the trash crew helping out but for a week, I get to wear the jersey and do my baseball passion. I look forward to working in the heat (especially now that it's raining and 40 degrees outside on the second day of winter.) I look forward to sleeping in the umpire quarters. I look forward to having an umpire jersey with a number on the sleeve. I look forward to a new umpire pin. I look forward to new and renewed friendships. I look forward to hanging out with Uncle Alan.
Time to start going through the checklist. #1 on that checklist has to be lose weight or else the summer heat is going to beat me up. After that, we'll see what happens.
