Hall of Fame player Ichiro Suzuki. All he did was set a record for most hits (262) in a season, and for the most consecutive 200-hit seasons (10).
In his Hall of Fame induction speech, Suzuki said, “If you consistently do the little things, there is no limit to what you can achieve.”
This is solid gold wisdom coming from a Hall of Fame player. Ignore it at your peril, if you’re an umpire hoping to achieve better things. Ichiro is not making this up. This is how he got to be a Hall of Famer – by taking care of the little things.
“I could not have achieved the numbers the writers recognized me for without paying attention to the many small details every single day, consistently for all 19 seasons,” he said. “I personally cared for my equipment each day because I never wanted to risk a feeling of error due to a loose string on my glove or slip on the base paths because I didn’t clean my spikes.”
Your job is to figure out how that translates to umpiring. And we’re here to help you with that.
Umpiring is largely made up of hundreds of little things. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands. The better you do those many, many little things, the better your overall umpiring result will be.
What sort of little things? Shine your shoes. Keep your uniform clean. Take your mask off with your left hand. Focus on timing. Make crisp, clear signals and use a confident voice when you say “Ball!” or “Strike!” or talk to anyone on the field, including your partner.
As PU, hustle down the 1B line every time you’re required to go there, even though nothing happens 99.9% of the time that will require your attention.
Like Ichiro, make sure your equipment is taken care of. And make sure it’s of good quality. If you’re out there flinching on every pitch because you don’t trust your gear, you’re probably not going to be the best umpire you can be.
There are hundreds more little things umpires need to do. We’re not going to list them all here, because we couldn’t get them all. But be aware they’re out there.
The big things – getting balls and strikes, safes and outs, fairs and fouls – correct, will happen much more regularly when you first take care of all the little things umpires need to do.
I guarantee, if Ichiro was an umpire, he would tell you the same thing.
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