Working games is easy part of lives spent on the road
BLUE COLLAR
Minor-league umpires endure daily grind to chase their dream
One foul ball struck Justin Sassaman, forming a purplish circle the size of a softball on his thigh. Another smashed the windshield of his red 2001 Ford F-150 parked in the players’ lot outside 3,000- seat Alliant Energy Field in Clinton, Iowa.
Yet for Sassaman, a 21-year-old umpire in the Class A Midwest League, what hurts most on this recent summer night is the solitude.
Sassaman’s been on the road for four months, living out of a couple of travel bags thrown in his truck bed as he and his umpiring partner ferry from one small town to the next. Last week, it was Appleton, Wis. Next week, it’s Peoria, Ill. Today, it’s Clinton, where Sassaman will think about his high school buddies barbecuing back home in Flower Mound, Texas, and lay down some of his $2,000 monthly salary at a local bar, part of a nightly routine to avoid the confinement of another Best Western.
“There are days,” Sassaman said, “where you just want to say, ‘I’m hanging it up. What am I doing out here? Really?’ ”
Sassaman is one of 235 minor league umpires from rookie ball to Triple-A putting their lives on hold in pursuit of a dream, and his story is shared by every man in blue whom fans see at Dunn Tire Park.
The uniting goal is the major leagues and its six-figure annual salary. Yet for Sassaman and his brethren from across the nation — no Western New Yorker has been in the pipeline since Buffalo’s Don Goller in 2003 — that glory can seem impossibly in the distance.
There are 68 full-time umpiring jobs in the big leagues and only a couple of spots open each year. Triple-A is often the ceiling; an average of 35 minor league umpires are let go or quit following each season to accommodate the new wave of replacements pumped annually into lower-level jobs.
Seven umpires from the International League alone did not return from 2007.
“Everybody realizes the long shot that it is,” said Justin Klemm, a former IL umpire who oversees all minor league umpires as the executive director of the Professional Baseball Umpire Corp. “It’s similar to being a top-notch shortstop playing in the Yankees’ organization the last 12 years. Every [ump] is playing behind Derek Jeter. But just like the players, you’re going to put things off to chase that dream.”
A dream dawns
For every umpire, the dream starts at either the Jim Evans Academy in Kissimmee, Fla., or the Harry Wendlestedt School in Ormond Beach, Fla. About 150 students at each school pay a couple of thousand dollars to go through a five-week course that begins in January.
Finish among the top 25 in your class, and you head to a two-week evaluation course in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Those who grade the highest are offered professional jobs.
Umpires are assigned to rookie or short-season Class A ball, such as the New York-Penn League, where the thrill of accomplishment offsets the tedium of another drive from Batavia to Oneonta.
Goller, who was released from the International League following the 2003 season, said he was “awestruck” the first time he called a professional game in 1994. And even years into the job, umpires speak fondly of life on the minor league frontier and the exhilaration of being charged to defend the integrity of a professional game.
“It’s a great experience,” said Nick Bailey, a 23-year-old umpire in the Class A South Atlantic League. “I’ll travel more going to one series than most people do in a year. I get paid to see places I never would think of and I’m umpiring professional baseball. Whether I make it to the big leagues or not, I know I still accomplished something.”
Staying sane
The early enthusiasm, however, fast becomes tempered by a grinding routine: work for three hours, kill 21. “The boredom,” said Sassaman’s 34- year-old partner, Jason Alper, “it can hurt.”
“You just try to stay sane,” said Scott Barry, who shuttles between the International League and the majors. “There’s three hours on the field. That’s the easy part. But when I go to Pulaski, Va. . . . ”
Before games, Barry typically works out or catches a matinee at the local theater. Alper plays video games in his motel room on his Playstation
2. Sassaman sleeps past noon and surfs the Internet. Bailey reads the Bible and plays golf a couple of times each week.
Most umps also don’t go a day without calling home, having left girlfriends or wives behind. That is, if their ladies will talk to them.
“I had a girl when I left,” Bailey said, laughing. “I don’t know if I’ll have one when I get back.”
Sassaman is glad he’s single. And Bailey sometimes wishes he was, too.
“The biggest reason for not wanting a girlfriend is that you’re always having problems,” Bailey said. “Every single night, we’re expected to be perfect and get better. You can’t be out there focused on what you’re going to
do if you’re thinking about whether she still likes me.”
Making the grade
The evaluation that counts is the one given by the umpiring corporation. There are six full-time PUBC supervisors who travel the country to grade umpires on everything from their stance behind the plate to their decisiveness following a close play at second to their response to a manager charging at a partner across the field.
The umpires are evaluated three times behind the plate and three times on the bases during a season. The grades go a long way in determining their future.
“It’s almost like they’re looking for reasons to release us because the decisions are so hard on them,” Sassaman said. “Everybody here is good.”
For the 5-foot-11, 205-pound Alper, his mobility is the biggest issue. The end-of-season evaluation commends just about everything he does. But while Alper’s dropped 30 pounds since he began umpiring professionally in 2005, the reports continue to tell him he’s too slow.
“I don’t know how to fix that one,” he said with a laugh. “I get everywhere I’m supposed to, but apparently I’m a step behind everyone else.”
Alper figures this will be his final season, with two critical factors working against him. He is 34 and in his third year in the Midwestern League. Umpires must advance within three seasons to remain in the system.
“The writing’s on the wall,” Alper said.
So he is ready to begin anew, turning to the backup plan every ump knows well. Alper plans to settle with his girlfriend back home in San Francisco and put his degree in hotel restaurant management to work. Even his 21-year-old partner is looking ahead. This winter, Sassaman will take advantage of the tuition reimbursement program offered to minor league umpires and take classes in law enforcement.
For some, bitterness
Still, while Klemm’s staff encourages umpires to prepare for a future outside the lines, the end of a dream can hit hard.
By 2003, Goller was one of the top umpires in the International League. He was evaluated highly, and from spending three seasons in the New York-Penn League to reaching the top level of the minors, his love for the game never ceased.
“At that point, you could almost taste the [majors],” he said. Goller’s big league shot never came. And when the end became official following the 2003 season, he spent six numbing hours secluded in his room.
“You put 12 years of your life into doing something, and a 20-second phone call ends it,” said Goller, 38, who still umpires locally and works as a customer service representative in Cheektowaga. “It’s like somebody shot your dog. You’re thinking, ‘Holy cow, I’m not going back to spring training next year.’ It’s really almost like your whole life ends and you restart.”
It’s a reality of which every umpire is aware, and still they push forward.
For Sassaman, he will keep piling into his red Ford, fighting with Alper to keep the radio playing country — Alper is a California rock man — and driving through towns where Sassaman can’t help but think, “Oh my God, why does this place exist?” He will keep missing his friends, family and Texas home cooking. He will keep questioning whether it’s all worth it. And, yes, he will keep dreaming.
“I still love being out there,” Sassaman said. “If I knew this wouldn’t work out, I wouldn’t be doing this anymore. But there’s that pot of gold out there that keeps us all going.”
