The regular season is now done.
With All-Stars on the horizon I thought it would be good to give an update before I am way too busy to even think about this blog for a few weeks.
1. I got my pins last Friday. I am so happy with them. I haven't taken a good picture of them because my phone doesn't have a lens cover so everything comes out blurry. Here is the original artwork though and it does a good job of conveying what the actual pin looks like:
Here is a picture of it.
Here is a picture of it next to my 2013 Intermediate Regional pin. Yes, they are about the same size. Yes, they are both Doctor Who references. I figured that when I do baseball regionals or world series, I will do a Doctor Who bad guy. When I do a softball regional or series, I will do Doctor related things. I already have an idea of the next pin - a sonic indicator.
2. When you have friends all over the place and you are doing a Regional tournament, you get invites to do a lot of games. It was funny. Friday I was minding my own business at work when I got an email from a friend who is a DA in a local district. He was inviting me to help do some softball in his district. Cool. Not 5 minutes later, I get an email from another friend looking for help with his TOC he is hosting. Then a text 10 minutes later from my old district about the umpire meeting for All Stars happening on Saturday. Then an email from my new home district about my availability. Then a phone call from my league UIC's former district out in West LA to help with their softball TOC. This was all within an hour. I also got an invite to drive all the way up to Chico to help with the Northern California state championship tournament (which I cannot do. I can't miss that much work!) I was like, Trina, I love you but you're a widow for the months of June and July. (Not really. I had to turn down some of the invites.)
I will be doing a lot of softball in the coming weeks, as well as tagging in some baseball here and there. I'm looking forward to next weekend and Monday-Thursday when I will be helping with District 21's entire softball tournaments (8/9/10, Major & Juniors.) The following week, I should be helping with District 71's softball tournaments, working with one of the smoothest and finest softball umpires I've ever watched. I think I can learn a lot from him so I am excited.
3. This past week I did 4 games, one Tuesday at Alta Loma, one Wednesday in Winchester, and 2 on Saturday in Alta Loma. All baseball. All four games were exciting.
Tuesday's game was a loser's bracket game between the A's and the Dodgers. The A's were the last place team during the regular season, going something like 3-15. They lost the first game of the tournament and had to take the long road if they were going to go anywhere. This was probably the finest game I have umpired in a couple of years, right near the Hawaii/Arizona game I did behind the plate at the Intermediate Regional. The final score was 1-0. The pitching was fantastic. Both catchers were amazing. There were 2 plays at the plate for the Dodgers where they got thrown out sliding, one on a passed ball where the catcher dove back to get the runner and one on a hit back to the pitcher where the ball barely beat the runner's foot for a great tag. So the A's won.
Wednesday was a minor division game, AAA, for District 28. Both teams battled so hard. After 6 innings, it was tied up 13-13. I was on third base on a four man crew. In the 7th, a runner was going home but got in a pickle and was tagged out for the third out. In the bottom of the 8th, the home team had bases loaded with no outs. One play at the plate for a force. Second out was a strike out. Third out was a 3-2 ball in the dirt swinging strike. Go to the ninth. Home team ran out of pitchers switching out pitchers early in the game after 20 pitches. Visitors score 6 in the 9th. Home team comes up to a new pitcher and score 3, have bases loaded, and ground out to the first baseman to end the game. Final score: 19-16 in 9 innings.
Saturday was the Moffitt Cup Championship game in Alta Loma. The winner's bracket team was the Cubs, undefeated during the regular season. The loser's bracket was the A's. The same A's from above who had won 3 games all season. They took the hard road to the finals and won more games to get there than they won all season. They had to win 2 to be the Moffitt Cup champions.
Game 1 I am behind the plate. Between Tuesday and Saturday, it was the best I felt behind the plate all season. These were games that make me think I will do OK in San Bernardino with my strike zone.
So anyways, game 1 and the A's are up 4-3 in the bottom of the 6th. By this point, the Cubs are imploding, yelling at each other, throwing equipment, not listening to their manager but to a very vocal dad in the stands who once got kicked out of managing a few years ago. Somehow he has some really strange magnetism that everyone loves him unless you are in charge of anything.
So I had to eject a kid for throwing his bat in anger in the bottom of the 6th. I was really trying to keep everyone in but sometimes kids eject themselves. So lead-off batter is up with 2 outs and he grounds out the first. End of game one, A's win 4-3.
Game 2, we grab one of the umpires from the minor championship which just finished and we do a three man rotation. I'm at third again. I love being at the different bases because it means I'm not always behind the plate. That happens a lot at the local level. Top of 6, the Cubs, being the home team again on coin flip (The A's won and chose to be visitors again) are now up 5-3. The A's have their #11, 12, and #1 hitters coming up (continuous batting order.) #11 strikes out. #12 hits a double. #1 changes places with #11 with another double. #2 hits. #3 hits. By the middle of the 6th, the A's are now winning 6-5 and the wheels are coming off in the Cubs dugout. Cubs have #10, #11, and #1 coming up (one player not being in the line up as he was ejected last game.) #10 strikes out. #11 grounds out. #1 ends the game with a liner to the first baseman who catches it in the air and the A's go wild.
Trophy presentation and my partners and I are not watching but apparently some of the kids from the team which did not win took their trophies and threw them on the ground and were general poor sports about the whole thing. Not enough losing during the regular season so they didn't know how to handle it. Of course, these kids just having been named to the All Star team in between games are setting an extremely poor example of what the league is all about -- it's not about that I can tell you. I'm not sure what is going to happen but something is if I know the leadership there, a place where I was on the board for 3 years. Critical life lessons are on the way.
4. In all this, my daughter is heading to Panama at the end of this week for a mission trip. I am not umpiring this week at all so we can spend some time together before she takes off. It's an organization I worked with when I was a teenager so I am ok with it. Trina is too but she does have some motherly insecurities (don't tell her I do too. I just hide them better.) [Message redacted].
5. Wait... that redaction was supposed to be in the parenthesis, not after! Stupid redactor.
6. 37 days to San Bernardino. But who's counting.
