Bee is for baseball

Last week, I was umpiring a minor league little league game in Stowe. The kids in this league are between 7 and 10 years old, and, according to the one coach, "this is the first time some of them have ever faced live pitching." If you can call the pitching "live:" as my friend Shawn, who hooked me up with this gig, said, "Get used to saying BALL FOUR! a lot. Lots of wild pitches and passed balls and bases-loaded walks."

I've been studying the rule book to get nuances of the game down for potentially sticky situations, but sometimes, as anyone who's ever followed baseball will tell you, there are situations that you could never have been prepared for. Like last week's game, at the Moscow VT little league field: the Stowe Mets vs. Hyde Park. With the bases loaded, the Hyde Park kid stepped into the batter's box and took a beautiful pitch right down the heart of the plate. If he'd swung, he would have walloped it a mile. Instead, he barely looked, and in fact was the proverbial Frozen Statue as the pitch ripped by him. I remembered the feeling well: standing up at the plate, facing a live pitcher... sometimes I couldn't even take the bat off my shoulder.

I empathized, but called a STRIKE... as the Stowe catcher lobbed the ball back to his pitcher, though, the Hyde Park batter STILL barely moved. Paralysis... and just as I was anticipating a three-pitch called strikeout, the batter slowwwwwwly turned his head only --no other motion at all; just slowly turned his head-- to face me and call time.

"I can't swing," he said nervously, quietly. "There's a bee on me."

I called time and swatted the bee away... the kid stepped in, took his next pitch... ball low, outside, which bounced a few feet away from the catcher... who reached for the ball and then, like the batter a pitch earlier, froze in place.

"Time," I called, and I swatted the bee off the catcher's arm. "I'm the ump, guys," I added. "If they're going to sting anyone, they'll sting me."

This seemed to make sense to them, and play resumed, bee-free.

No matter how long you study, some situations just aren't covered in the rule book. Nor is the most simple rule of all: with some age groups, and some kids in all age groups, you are more than an arbiter. You are a mentor.

More than that, you are a bee swatter.

Addendum: Yesterday (Sunday, May 18), in the ninth inning of the Phillies' loss against Toronto, Phils' radio play-by-play man Scott Franzke and color man Larry Andersen had the following exchange, one which illustrates perfectly why this duo is one of the sharpest, most fun announcing teams on major league radio:

Franzke: Coste asks for time again to wave at a bee in front of him.
Andersen: Or to swat it away.
LONG PAUSE, then Franzke started laughing.

Took me a second, too.