K, first let me tell you something that may be obvious to you. I didn’t umpire enough. Because of my duties as a RAT for my boy’s team, my time as an umpire was severely limited. As you will see, that clearly affected my umpiring.

The season was already a month old when I finally got to work a game, as the combination of terrible weather and coaching kept me away from the "Good Side" until June. My editor said that when you consider the Canadian summer is about two hours long....

My first game was on the plate in a Senior [adult baseball] game. I have worked that league for almost 20 years now, and I have umpired hundreds of games. Routine, right? Not on that night.