Download or read book They Called Me God written by Doug Harvey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible memoir from the man voted one of the “Best Umpires of All Time” by the Society of American Baseball Research—filled with more than three decades of fascinating baseball stories. Doug Harvey was a California farm boy, a high school athlete who nevertheless knew that what he really wanted was to become an unsung hero—a major league umpire. Working his way through the minor leagues, earning three hundred dollars a month, he survived just about everything, even riots in stadiums in Puerto Rico. And while players and other umps hit the bars at night, Harvey memorized the rule book. In 1962, he broke into the big leagues and was soon listening to rookie Pete Rose worrying that he would be cut by the Reds and laying down the law with managers such as Tommy Lasorda and Joe Torre. This colorful memoir takes you behind the plate for some of baseball’s most memorable moments, including Roberto Clemente’s three thousandth and final hit; the heroic three-and-two pinch-hit home run by Kirk Gibson in the ’88 World Series; and the nail-biting excitement of the ’68 World Series. But beyond the drama, Harvey turned umpiring into an art. He was a man so respected, whose calls were so feared and infallible, that the players called him “God.” And through it all, he lived by three rules: never take anything from a player, never back down from a call, and never carry a grudge. A book for anyone who loves baseball, They Called Me God is a funny and fascinating tale of on- and off-the-field action, peopled by unforgettable characters from Bob Gibson to Nolan Ryan, and a treatise on good umpiring techniques. In a memoir that transcends the sport, Doug Harvey tells a gripping story of responsibility, fairness, and honesty.

Download or read book Everything I Know about Being an Umpire written by How Itzer and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-07-25 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A humorous gift for baseball and softball players & enthusiasts, referees, coaches, trainers, sports reporters, sports journalists, sports doctors & therapists, diehard fans, baseball or softball aficionados, groundskeepers, and anyone else in the baseball field. What do you know about being an umpire? Well... nothing. The pages are empty. Perfect for fantasy baseball, game night, and baseball party prizes. *** This journal alternates between 8 LINED pages for writing and 2 BLANK pages for sketching/diagrams throughout - Size 5.2" x 0.2" x 8" with 110 pages total. *** It can be used as a record of stats and schedules, a place for notes on fantasy sports, a diary of thoughts and goals, a journal of ideas, a sketchbook, a record of special memories, or all of the above. Make the book even more special by tucking tickets to a game or a little cash in the folds. Related terms: Umpire, umpiring crew, home plate umpire, baseball officiating, softball officiating, MLB (Major League Baseball), MILB (Minor League Baseball), NCAA Baseball, Little League Baseball, baseball team, baseball coach, baseball manager, Pop Warner Baseball, NCBA (National Club Baseball Association), baseball league, basketball camp, baseball double header, baseball championship. On the BACK COVER: This handbook serves as a comprehensive record of everything you know about being an umpire, and here are a few helpful tips: - See what you call and call only what you see. There is a big difference between a call and an opinion. - Stay focused. Don't allow yourself to be distracted by anything. - Manage the game and anything that affects the game. - Address unsportsmanlike conduct and actions from the coach, bench, and stands right away. - You don't have to respond to ANY statement or criticism. - Answer the coach's legitimate questions. - If you make a mistake, talk to your crew and correct it. - Even if you are delivering bad news, walk up to the person and look them in the eye. - Keep the game moving. Make a dead ball live again.

Download or read book Planet of the Umps written by Ken Kaiser and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-04-19 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this hysterical autobiography, Major League Baseball umpire Ken Kaiser brings to life his twenty-five years on the baseball diamond.

Download or read book The Umpire Is Out written by Dale Scott and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dale Scott's career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players, from future Hall of Famers to one-game wonders. Scott has enough stories about his career on the field to fill a dozen books, and there are plenty of those stories here. He's not interested in settling scores, but throughout the book he's honest about managers and players, some of whom weren't always perfect gentlemen. But what makes Scott's book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career. Granted, that was after decades of remaining in the closet, and Scott writes vividly and movingly about having to "play the game": maintaining a facade of straightness while privately becoming his true self and building a lasting relationship with his future husband. He navigated this obstacle course at a time when his MLB career was just taking off--and when North America was consumed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Scott's story isn't only about his leading a sort of double life, then opening himself up to the world and discovering a new generosity of spirit. It's also a baseball story, filled with insights and memorable anecdotes that come so naturally from someone who spent decades among the world's greatest baseball players, managers, and games. Scott's story is fascinating both for his umpiring career and for his being a pioneer for LGBTQ people within baseball and across sports.

Download or read book Never Blame the Umpire written by Gene Fehler and published by Zonderkidz. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you trust God when tragedy strikes?Kate is having the best summer a sports-loving eleven-year-old could possibly have. Baseball. Tennis. And to top it off, Kate has just started a three-week class where she's discovering a new love: poetry.Then comes the news that tears Kate's world apart. In her close-knit family, Kate has always felt God's love and protection. But how can she trust God now? Do sports or poetry matter when tragedy strikes?In Kate's darkest hour, her mother's faith shines its brightest, helping Kate to see that life is still beautiful and God is still good. Always, no matter what.

Download or read book Unmasked written by Zach Rebackoff and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: UNMASKING THE "BROTHERHOOD" Whenever somebody learns that Zach Rebackoff (The Flying Birdman) was a professional baseball umpire, their reaction is a bare-all-teeth smile and a most frequently asked double-barreled question: "Really? Did you ever throw anyone out?" Ha! Ask the players and managers? They know he did! Bronx-born into an emigre Russian Jewish family in April 1951, Zach would be first a baseball Maverick, and then a Pirate. For example, there was the evening in the Dominican Republic when he called a forfeit against the home team, putting himself under the siege of 18,000 garbage-hurling fanáticos. Or the day in 1980 when future HOF''er Wade Boggs hung blame on him for losing the league batting title--by one percentage point. UNMASKED is for baseball enthusiasts and their insatiable desire to understand our national pastime''s law enforcement squads; the highs, the lows, the trials and tribulations, politics, backstabbing, and most especially, what goes on inside those quirky minds behind the mask, in particular, Zach''s mask; the one he wore on the field, and the one he wore, and still wears, off the field. In Zach''s opinion, many baseball fans visualize what it''s like being a professional umpire, embedded in the game''s speed, living up to the challenge, in real-time, with all of its attendant notoriety and cheers. They suspect umpiring is challenging but they don''t surely know. Of those who joined the pro umpiring ranks, Zach may be the most uncontainable and improbable character ever, which accounts for the unpredictable nature of the stories inside UNMASKED. In a myriad of voices, he captures baseball''s culture from, shall we dare say, a sagacious angle. Truly knowing umpires (those you know by name) is to know there are MLB umpires that have purposely unleashed indefensible acts of colleagues'' defamation, betrayal, and deceit--Zach tells you the who, what, and where. Baseball umpires, by the way, are a trendy subject. With the implementation of the replay and ultra-slow-mo, the TV''s cameras dissect each revolution of every pitch and numerous blogs focus solely on umpires'' statistics, ejections, tendencies, quotes, habits--the public''s peeking into one of the most intricate jobs on the planet have never been greater! Besides being a professional baseball umpire, Zach tripped, tap-danced, bull-rode, and sailed his way through a career that has encompassed published authorship (TOUGH CALLS C. Avon Books), TV talk show hosting, newspaper and magazine journalistic endeavors, and entrepreneurship. When the umpire supervisor who could make or break his career came through town to evaluate the crew, instead of bellying up to the bar for the ritualistic late-night back-slapping and that personal man-to-man connection, the Maverick would adjourn to his lady''s pad or retire to his hotel and a rendezvous with a fat joint. No brownie points scored. But then, unfortunately, he never did love the "brotherhood." Still, Zach eventually found himself surrounded by, and usually in an animated debate with baseball legends such as Don Mattingly, Cal Ripken, Wade Boggs, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Ron Darling, Felipe Alou, Tony Peña, Mookie Wilson... and so on. For those who accepted the Maverick, he offers praise. For those who attempted to sabotage his career, Zach''s words come down with the weight of a sledgehammer. In UNMASKED, Zach recounts a 1950''s Bronx childhood that gave way to a devastating life-altering football injury, which ended his aspirations for a baseball-playing career, leading to a relentless, against-huge-odds rise to the professional baseball diamond. How''d he do that? Or manifest any of these other improbable occurrences? Ah, patience, patience. In the memorable words of Andrea, who endured 25 years as Zach''s wife: "Where there''s a will, there''s a Zach."

Download or read book The Umpire Strikes Back written by Ron Luciano and published by Permuted Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is Ron Luciano, the funniest ump ever to call balls and strikes. A huge and awesome legend who leaps and spins and shoots players with an index finger while screaming OUTOUTOUT!!! Now baseball's flamboyant fan-on-the-field comes out from behind the mask to call the game as he really sees it. There’s the day the automatic umpire debuted at home plate—and struck out. The time Rod Carew stole home twice in one inning, and Earl Weaver stole second base—and took it back to the dugout. The pitch Tommy John dropped on the mound, which Luciano called a strike. And there’s the fantastic phantom double play, the impossible frozen ice-ball theory, and, another first, Luciano picking Harmon Killebrew off second base. From brawls to catcalls, from dugout jokes to on-the-field pratfalls to one-of-a-kind conversations with baseball’s greats, Ron Luciano, the only umpire who confessed to missing calls, takes a few grand slam swings of his own. It is baseball at its best.

Download or read book Screaming at the Ump written by Audrey Vernick and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve-year-old Casey Snowden knows everything about being an umpire. His dad and grandfather run a New Jersey umpire school, Behind the Plate, and Casey lives and breathes baseball. Casey’s dream, however, is to be a reporter—objective, impartial, and fair, just like an ump. But when he stumbles upon a sensational story involving a former major league player in exile, he finds that the ethics of publishing it are cloudy at best. This emotionally charged coming-of-age novel about baseball, divorce, friendship, love, and compassion challenges its readers to consider all the angles before calling that strike.

Download or read book Nobody s Perfect written by Armando Galarraga and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Detroit Tigers, an umpire, a pitcher, and a mistake—one of the “classic, human, baseball stories” (Ken Burns, creator of the PBS mini-series Baseball). The perfect game is one of the rarest accomplishments in sports. In nearly four hundred thousand contests in over 130 years, it has happened only twenty times. On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga threw baseball’s twenty-first. Except that’s not how it entered the record books. That’s because Jim Joyce, voted the best umpire in the game in 2010 and 2011, missed the call on the final out. But rather than throwing a tantrum, Galarraga simply turned and smiled, went back to the mound, and finished the game. “Nobody’s perfect,” he said later in the locker room. “You might think everything that could have been said, replayed, and revealed about that night has already been uttered, logged, and exposed. You would, however, be as wrong as the unfortunate Mr. Joyce” (The Detroit News). In Nobody’s Perfect, Galarraga and Joyce come together to tell the personal story of a remarkable game that will live forever in baseball lore, and to trace their fascinating lives in sports. The result is “a masterpiece”, an absorbing insider’s look at two careers in baseball, a tremendous achievement, and an enduring moment of pure grace and sportsmanship (The Huffington Post).

Download or read book Teenage Baseball Umpire written by Rich Dossan and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised for 2018! Why settle for flipping burgers for minimum wage when you can put your knowledge and love of baseball to work? Make more money than most of your teenager friends and work half the hours starting as young as age 15! Rich Dossan is a 19-year-old paying his own way through college from money he's received over the past four years of umpiring youth baseball games. In this guide, he provides everything you'll need to find, apply for, get started and succeed as a teenage youth baseball umpire. DID YOU KNOW THERE IS A NATIONAL SHORTAGE OF BASEBALL UMPIRES? It's true! And, that means almost any teenager can get a youth baseball umpiring job in any part of the U.S. if you know the right steps. Now Any Teenager Can Get Started as a Baseball Umpire and Never Have to Work a Minimum-Wage Job! SPECIFICALLY, WITH THIS GUIDE YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO: Find, apply for, and get hired to umpire games in your area. Understand all aspects of umpiring that your employer may not take the time to teach you. Pick your game schedule and days off whenever you want them. Manage your first game and overcome nervousness. Deal with coaches and parents so they don't take advantage of you. Get more game opportunities than other umpires. Make even more money umpiring baseball tournaments. Get hired even if you rode the bench as a little league player. Buy only the equipment you'll need to get started (for cheap!) Understand confusing game rules. Start a game, including what to say to coaches at the beginning. Get used to hearing your own voice so you are confident when making calls. Be patient with yourself, coaches, parents, and players. Look like you've umpired before even in your first game. Handle hostile coaches without going overboard. Avoid common mistakes made by beginning umpires. Work with other umpires you're assigned to without letting them take advantage of you. Stay in control of the game when things get out of hand. Gain a good reputation as a quality and reliable umpire and have higher paying umpire jobs come to you! Advance to competitive and tournament baseball umpiring for bigger paychecks! If you love baseball & the outdoors, are a teenager who has never umpired before, or have recently started umpiring but have received little or no training from your employer, make sure to read Teenage Baseball Umpire: How to Make Great Part-Time Money and Have Fun at Your Job Too before accepting that part-time job washing dishes or bagging groceries. Umpiring youth baseball may be the perfect summer job, weekend or even year-round money source for you!

Download or read book Ball Four written by Jim Bouton and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 716 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 50th Anniversary edition of “the book that changed baseball” (NPR), chosen by Time magazine as one of the “100 Greatest Non-Fiction” books. When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold, and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four. Fans liked discovering that athletes were real people—often wildly funny people. David Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Vietnam, wrote a piece in Harper’s that said of Bouton: “He has written . . . a book deep in the American vein, so deep in fact that it is by no means a sports book.” Today Ball Four has taken on another role—as a time capsule of life in the sixties. “It is not just a diary of Bouton’s 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros,” says sportswriter Jim Caple. “It’s a vibrant, funny, telling history of an era that seems even further away than four decades. To call it simply a ‘tell all book’ is like describing The Grapes of Wrath as a book about harvesting peaches in California.” Includes a new foreword by Jim Bouton's wife, Paula Kurman “An irreverent, best-selling book that angered baseball’s hierarchy and changed the way journalists and fans viewed the sports world.” —The Washington Post

Download or read book Slow Death written by Rudi Koertzen and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2011-03-28 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 30 years, batsmen around the world have feared the slow and deliberate way Rudi Koertzen raises his left arm to give them out - so much so that it has given rise to his nickname, Slow Death. Despite the sinister sobriquet, Rudi Koertzen remains one of the most loved and respected umpires in world cricket, and certainly one of the most experienced: to date, he is the only umpire to have stood in 200 One Day Internationals, and he has 100 Test matches under his belt. Now Rudi takes the reader back to some of the highlights of his career in Test, ODI and T20 matches, including several World Cups and Ashes series. From his unique perspective, he rates the cricketers he has umpired over the years - the best batsmen, bowlers and fielders - and gives reasons why they stand out from other players. He shares players’ hilarious on-field antics and, on occasion, histrionics. And he doesn’t shy away from discussing the controversial side of international cricket, from match fixing to terrorist attacks, while giving his frank and possibly controversial views on the use of technology in the game. Humorous, informative and nostalgic, this is the book every cricket fan will want to own.

Download or read book The Men in Blue written by Larry R. Gerlach and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosopher Jacques Barzun thought that "whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." And whoever wants to know baseball had better learn about umpires. As Larry Gerlach points out in The Men in Blue, these arbiters transform competitive chaos into organized sport. They make it possible to "play ball," but nobody loves them. Considering the abuse meted out by fans and players, why would any sane person want to be an umpire? Many reasons emerge in conversations with a dozen former major league arbiters. While nobody loves them, they love the game. Gerlach has elicited entertaining stories from these figures under fire--about their lonely travels, their dealings with umpire baiters, battles for unionization, breaking through the color line, and much more. From Beans Reardon, who came up to the National League in 1926, to Ed Sudol, who retired in 1977, here is a witty and telling portrait of baseball from the boisterous Golden Age to the Jet Age of Instant Replay.

Download or read book Now You Know Absolutely Everything written by Doug Lennox and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2013-12-06 with total page 3090 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bundle presents Doug Lennox’s popular trivia book series in its entirety. These books will provide years and years of fun, with countless questions to be asked and tons of knowledge to be learned. The books cover general trivia but also such topics as sports (baseball, hockey, football, golf, soccer, among others), Christmas and the Bible, disasters and harsh weather, royal figures, crime and criminology, important people in Canada’s history, and so much more! Along the way we find out the answers to such questions as: Why do the British drive on the left and North Americans on the right? What football team was named after a Burt Reynolds character? Who started the first forensics laboratory? Which member of the British royal family competed at the Olympics? Lennox’s exhaustive series is fun for all ages. Includes Now You Know Now You Know More Now You Know Almost Everything Now You Know, Volume 4 Now You Know Big Book of Answers Now You Know Christmas Now You Know Big Book of Answers 2 Now You Know Golf Now You Know Hockey Now You Know Soccer Now You Know Football Now You Know Big Book of Sports Now You Know Baseball Now You Know Crime Scenes Now You Know Extreme Weather Now You Know Disasters Now You Know Pirates Now You Know Royalty Now You Know Canada’s Heroes Now You Know The Bible

Download or read book The Universal Baseball Association Inc J Henry Waugh Prop written by Robert Coover and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1992-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book As They See Em written by Bruce Weber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named One of the Best Baseball Books Ever Written by Esquire An insider’s look at the largely unknown world of professional umpires, the small group of men (and the very occasional woman) who make sure America’s favorite pastime is conducted in a manner that is clean, crisp, and true.​ Millions of American baseball fans know, with absolute certainty, that umpires are simply overpaid galoots who are doing an easy job badly. Millions of American baseball fans are wrong. Bruce Weber, a New York Times reporter, not only interviewed dozens of professional umpires but entered their world, trained to become an umpire, then spent a season working games from Little League to big league spring training. As They See ’Em is Weber’s entertaining account of this experience as well as a lively exploration of what amounts to an eccentric secret society, with its own customs, its own rituals, its own colorful vocabulary. Writing with deep knowledge of and affection for baseball, he delves into such questions as: Why isn’t every strike created equal? Is the ump part of the game or outside of it? Why doesn’t a tie go to the runner? And what do umps and managers say to each other during an argument, really? Packed with fascinating reportage that reveals the game as never before and answers the kinds of questions that fans, exasperated by the clichés of conventional sports commentary, pose to themselves around the television set, Bruce Weber’s As They See ’Em is a towering grand slam.

Download or read book Throwback written by Jason Kendall and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throwback offers an informative and irreverent look at the inner mechanics, strategies, secret signals, and customs of major league baseball. Ever Wonder What's Being Said at Home Plate? How a Team Silently Communicates? What Goes on in the Clubhouse Behind Closed Doors? America's pastime has always left fans and amateur players alike yearning for the answers to questions about how pros play the game. Jason Kendall is a former All-Star catcher who has seen just about everything during his years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, and Kansas City Royals. A player's player, a guy with true grit--a throwback to another time with a unique view on the game that so many love. Jason Kendall and sportswriter Lee Judge team up to bring you the fan, player, coach, or curious statistician an insider's view of the game from a player's perspective. This is a book about pre-game rituals, what to look for when a pitcher warms up between innings, the signs a catcher uses to communicate with the pitcher, and so much more. Some of baseball wisdom you will find inside: * What to look for during batting practice. * The right way to hit a batter. * Who's a tough guy and who's just posing. * How to spot a dirty slide. * Why you don't look at the umpire while you're arguing. Based on Kendall's 15 years of professional MLB experience, Throwback is an informative, hilarious, and illuminating look into the world of professional baseball-and in a way that no one has ever seen before.