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They're a part of every baseball game, but most of the time you don't notice them until something goes wrong.
"The perception is, you're going to make the fans about 50 percent happy," umpire Ron Cooper said.
They're the umpires, and usually they have a bad reputation, but in reality they keep an order to the game and right now the Abilene Baseball Umps need some help.
"If you have any interest in baseball, we need you to come out," Cooper said. "You can make some money doing it, and you help out the community."
So, since there is a need for umpires, I decided to come out here to Wylie High School for a scrimmage to be an ump to see how hard it really is.
There were definitely a couple times where I was lost, but after a few batters I felt like I was getting the hang of it.
"He probably is thinking 'There's probably something wrong with that but he didn't see it.' We just got a double play," umpire Brent Casey said.
"That was a good job, you got both of those. You missed the balk," Casey said.
"Was there a balk?" I said.
Casey said, "You need to put that on the air. (laughing) Was there a balk?"
Alright, so I might have missed a couple of calls here or there, but overall it was a fun experience, and it was pretty easy to pick up.
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"The perception is, you're going to make the fans about 50 percent happy," umpire Ron Cooper said.
They're the umpires, and usually they have a bad reputation, but in reality they keep an order to the game and right now the Abilene Baseball Umps need some help.
"If you have any interest in baseball, we need you to come out," Cooper said. "You can make some money doing it, and you help out the community."
So, since there is a need for umpires, I decided to come out here to Wylie High School for a scrimmage to be an ump to see how hard it really is.
There were definitely a couple times where I was lost, but after a few batters I felt like I was getting the hang of it.
"He probably is thinking 'There's probably something wrong with that but he didn't see it.' We just got a double play," umpire Brent Casey said.
"That was a good job, you got both of those. You missed the balk," Casey said.
"Was there a balk?" I said.
Casey said, "You need to put that on the air. (laughing) Was there a balk?"
Alright, so I might have missed a couple of calls here or there, but overall it was a fun experience, and it was pretty easy to pick up.
More...