There’s some 35 ball fields in the county with something always happening, and it’s a sure bet one of these guys will be there.
The Peninsula Umpires Association (PUA) is one of the county’s premier umpire hotbeds with 57 active members, as they umped 1,800 games this year and made up 300 weather-cancelled games.
They officiate games from South Kitsap to North Mason and all around the Kitsap Peninsula for youngsters up to the junior college level.
They must remember and recognize the 77 ways a ball becomes out of play, 48 of which happen around home plate.
They don’t blink, or at least that’s what they say. And their decision is always final. There’s no right or wrong, there’s only final.
They’re the sports world’s most hated players, but beneath the officiates uniform they’re giant softies with hearts larger than the diamonds they dictate.
The four PUA royalty are good ’ol boys from around the county who “ignore” the hecklers — and there are many — not because they enjoy honing their tuning-out-the-harasser skills, but because, well honestly, it’s for the kids and they no longer possess the skills necessary to coach the sport they love at an elite level.
“We regard it as a community service. It’s something that’s needed for youth sports to operate. I’m glad to do it on that ground,” said UPA secretary Chuck Sacrison, who became an umpire 16 years ago (eight with PUA).
It truly is a community service. They purchase their own equipment and uniforms, which can cost a beginning umpire upwards of $500, and they’re paid $30 per game for the youngsters and $60-70 per game at the collegiate level. PUA president Derrille Thayer, 64, said he nets approximately $1,200 a year and in real life wages makes about $5 to $6 per hour.
While the striped quartet — Thayer of East Bremerton, Sacrison of Port Orchard, training officer Bill Ezpeleta of Bainbridge Island and assignor Tom Marcucci of Allyn — don’t have favorites or agendas while on the field, they do have a plethora of quirks and stories to share.
Take the word “strike,” for instance. The question “How many syllables does the word strike truly have?” proved impossible to answer.
Ezpeleta, 60, said there’s no syllables because it’s a guttural sound without vowels or consonants. His version sounds similar to the noise Jean-Claude Van Damme makes when he kicks someone in the head. He came up with the grunt because “guttural sounds work well,” for him.
Marcucci, 54, yelps out a “striiiiiiiiike,” (it’s all one syllable) because it’s hard to make an “S” or a “K” sound sharp and when people hear the “I” they automatically know it’s a strike.
Sacrison, 57, used to make a long strike with a high pitch on the end, but recently got rid of the “S” and cut it short to make it resemble a dog’s bark. He said players don’t want to hear his voice, they just want to hear the call. So he granted that wish.
Thayer, on the other hand, is an anomaly in the baseball/softball world and he says strike because he just always has.
While these four gentleman take their duties very seriously the occasional bad call does happen, and it upsets them just like anybody else.
“I’ll think about it for several days if it’s a really big one,” said Marcucci, who’s been an umpire for 13 years. “I’ll be sitting somewhere and say, ‘Yeah I screwed that up,’ and if I’m really unlucky I’ll work with the same teams the next day.”
Naturally when a bad call is made the umps get heckled. That’s to be expected and they don’t sweat it, they said. Ezpeleta, who umped 88 games this year, hears the comments and he chuckles because they’re funny, he said, as he’s being evaluated by someone who knows less about the rules than he. He considers the source and “rocks on.”
Several of the PUA umpires are retired, but being ballfield foremen is a year-round undertaking. They go through training and rule refresher courses in January and February. They must take a test to officiate at the high school level. And when diamond season rolls around again they’ll officiate from about 3-9 p.m. during the week and their weekends are quite full. The number of softball and baseball teams in the county have grown over the years, and now the umpires are in more demand than ever. PUA is in desperate need of new members.
If interested in joining this group of light-hearted rule memorizers, visit www.peninsulaumpires.org and click on the “become an umpire” tab.
