As They See 'Em; A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires

New York: Scribner, 2009. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. vii. [3], 341, [1] pages. Occasional footnotes. DJ has minor wear. Minor edge soiling. "As They See 'Em" is an insider's look at the largely unknown world of professional umpires, the small group of men who make sure America's favorite pastime is conducted in a manner that is clean, crisp, and true. Bruce Weber, a "New York Times" reporter, not only interviewed dozens of professional umpires but entered their world, trained to become an umpire, and 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. He explains the arcane set of rules by which umps work and details the exasperating, tortuous path that allows only a select few to graduate from the minor leagues to the majors. He describes what it's like to work in a ballpark where not only the fans but the players, the managers and coaches, the announcers, the team owners, and even the league presidents, resent them -- and vice versa. And he asks, quite sensibly, why anyone would do a job that offers the chance to earn only blame and never credit. Weber reveals how umps are tutored to work behind the plate, what they learn to watch for on the bases, and how proper positioning for every imaginable situation on the field is drilled into them. He describes how they're counseled to respond -- or not -- to managers who are screaming at them from inches away with purposeful inanity, and tells us exactly which "magic" words result in an automatic ejection.