Baseball is Just Around the Corner

With baseball being six to eight weeks away from Spring training launching another season I thought I'd begin the 2012 season with a poem and some quotes about those attitudes-in-need of adjustment, the umpires.

The Umpire

The umpire is a lonely man
whose calls are known to every fan
Yet no one will call him Dick or Dan
In all the season's games.

They'll never call him Al or Ed
or Bill or Phil or Frank or Fred
or Jim or Tim or Tom or Ted
They'll simply call him names.
              by Milton Bracker (published in the New York Times in 1962)


"I've never questioned the integrity of an umpire.  Their eyesight, yes."  - Leo Durocher

"Baseball fits America well because it expresses our longing for the rule of law while licensing our resentment of law givers."  - A. Bartlett Giamatti

"Why is it they boo me when I call a foul ball correctly and they applaud the starting pitcher when he gets taken out of the ballgame?"      - American League ump, Jerry Neudecker



The Giants' first game:  March 3, 2012 is a split-squad exhibition game versus last year's Western Division champion Arizona Diamondbacks at Scottsdale, AZ.

Kevin Marquez