Day 2 at the Regional tournament did not have any games, well, except for everyone at the tournament went down to San Manuel Stadium to go see a 66er's game. But that's later in the evening. Let's start at the beginning.
The day started out early, which is my normal time to wake up anyways for work. Got up, got dressed, got ready, got out to eat breakfast. After breakfast we all dressed in our umpire uniforms, my nice, new uniforms with the number 71 on them despite what you see on facebook, and go out and listen to the presentations of the ground rules and we do equipment checks for all the team's equipment. 9 teams and I think we found 5 pieces of equipment we had to remove. One was a bat that was near shattering if you could count on the spider webbing to be accurate. Don't want to be anywhere near a bat when it shatters.
After this, we get our umpire pictures done by the professional photographers. Don't know how they turned out but I know I had the widest smile on my face for all the pictures because I'm living the dream.
After that is lunch, then waiting for the manager's meeting. The the manager's meeting, then back to the barracks for some downtime while we wait for 5 pm to go to the 66er's game. While we are waiting, a few of us start going over our rotations via a magnetic board and 7 of the 9 of us end up surrounding this board, going over rotations, talking about irregular plays that may alter the standard rotation, and having a good discussion. It was very helpful.
Go to the game and it's hamburgers and hot dogs at the field, which we showed up to 2 hours before game time. Meal was decent. Then the admins start talking and introduce the former softball coach for UCLA, who led the team to 11 national championships. As she is talking, I don't even question how she led all those teams to titles. She is a dynamic speaker, engaging, motivating, and the girls are riveted. Heck, I'm riveted. I'm ready to go run into a burning building to save a bucket of softballs after hearing her speak.
The game was meh. I usually like going to games to watch the umpires, especially single A because the guys are so crisp and they hustle like no one's business. I guess these umps were at the end of either a long drive to get there or the August sputtering is starting a little early. Yeah, they were good umpires, better than me on my best day, but it wasn't their best day. Oh well, fatigue happens in long seasons. No worries.
After the second day, I will say that this is a really good group of guys. A really, really good group. I'm glad I'm here. I feel like I belong here, ready to work hard and be part of this team as we walk onto the field tomorrow for the 9:00 am game. I start at 2nd Base tomorrow morning and then move to 1B for tomorrow's evening game at 7:30 pm. Saturday afternoon, the day when people can get off and watch the game, I have the Northern California and Utah plate at 5:00 pm. It's just another game of balls and strikes, safe and out, 60 feet and turn left (that's from the UCLA coach this afternoon.)
I don't know how I am going to contain my smile tomorrow while walking onto the field, making my way to second base, punching some runners out, calling some fly balls out, and umpiring a Little League Western Region Tournament game in San Bernardino. It really is living the dream. I'll be in front of the home town crowd knowing that I was a kid sitting in the same place 30 years ago who was thinking... man, that is one fat umpire at second base. :)
I'm going to enjoy this next week and a half. That's who I am.
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