Little League Ga. District 2: Jim's BLOG from the World Series
Friday, August 4Jim Goes To Willamsport
Friday, August 4
Coming Soon!
Jim will begin posting his experiences as we get closer to the World Series. Check back in often to see how everything is going.
Monday, August 7
Testing Jeff's instructions...
Just testing Jeff's instructions for posting here to make sure they actually work. Got a chance to see Carlos (Chief), Jeff and Susan yesterday up in Cartersville sweating through a JL Regional game in their dark blue. Good luck to Carlos the rest of the way.
Wednesday, August 16
LLWS Day -2
We have arrived in Williamsport! The 800 mile, 11 and a half hour drive was uneventful, the weather cooperated, and the D2TM has performed flawlessly on the first leg of its final road trip. My Suburban, better known as the GA District 2 Transportation Module is going up for sale once I return from the Series. Anybody interested? It's 10 years old, has 200,000 miles and, other than having an impression of Ted's head in the headliner over the third row of seats, is in just about perfect condition! Really!
Our biggest challenge was getting everything packed into the old Suburban. As some of you know, I'm also taking my son back to college and moving my youngest daughter to college for the first time on this trip. So, in addition to all my umpire gear, I've got all their stuff (including a cello, 2 guitars, a viola, and a violin) in the car, too. Nothing smaller than a Suburban would do and it's a good thing there's only 3 of us. There was absolutely no room to spare. Why is it that a guy can live for a whole year with his cello and the contents of 2 suitcases while a girl needs 15 bags filled with who knows what just to make it 'til Christmas?
Anyway, we stopped at the stadium after dinner tonite and the field looks great. The view from the top of the hill behind center field is awesome! I'm really looking forward to getting started now. I have meetings tomorrow morning where I'll meet the rest of the umpires and get my assignments for the pool play portion of the tournament. More tomorrow.....
Thursday, August 17
LLWS Day -1
Today was a day for taking care of a lot of administrative stuff.
We met the rest of the umpires, all the managers and coaches, the tournament directors, and the folks who really run the tournament (at least when it comes to the timing of things), the TV people. The TV folks really seem to enjoy working this tournament and one guy has been doing it since 1971!
We also had lots of picures taken, including the classic shots from the hill behind Lamade Stadium.
Finally, this evening there was a parade. This is the second year there's been a parade through downtown Williamsport to celebrate the World Series. The community really comes out for it and everyone has a great time. All the teams ride on floats and there's fire engines, antique cars, marching bands, radio stations, and businesses from the area. Some throw out candy or chips or beads to the crowd. This year, the umpires were handing out baseball cards. Despite the delay in getting started and the long wait for us to join (we were near the end of the parade) everyone had a lot of fun. This particular group of umpires doesn't seem to have any trouble having a good time. I hope the atmosphere can remain the same after the games begin.
The 1st 16 games were scheduled, with each of us getting one game at each position. My plate game will be Sunday afternoon at 3 on ESPN with the Southwest playing the Northwest. But first, I'll start off tomorrow with a right field line in the first game at 4.
More tomorrow.... let the games begin.....
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Umpires on Parade!
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And Lamade Stadium before the excitement begins...
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| The umps take the field! |
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LLWS Day 1
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| Hair is overrated! |
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The afternoon started with opening ceremonies. All the teams were on the field together and everyone got their WS participation medals. It's starting to sink in that we're really here at the World Series. Next up is game #1 and we're all ready to get started.
I have the right field line for the second time ever in my life. I did a state championship game on the line about 10 years ago. I'm pretty nervous for what is typically a very easy assignment. On the way out to the field we all get to shake hands with Lou Brock, who serverd as the Grand Marshall for yesterday's parade. Even though I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan and really didn't care much for what the Cardinals did to them back in '67, it's still a thrill to meet the Hall of Famer. The best part is that when he gets to me he says, "Hey, you're too young to be hanging out with the rest of these guys". For his part, he looks like he could still steal a base or two.
In the game I had two home runs, a missed catch, and one foul ball. All in all, a pretty busy day for foul line duty.
On a sad note, one of our group of 16 has been in the hospital since this morning and is probably not going to be able to do any games. Please keep Rodney Picard and his family in your thoughts and prayers. I can't imagine what it would be like to get this far and not be able to make the games.
Tomorrow afternoon I've got 1st base for the Curacao vs. Mexico. This should be a noisy one as these fans are always pretty 'energetic'. Then tomorrow night it's back to a foul line for New England against the Midwest. Enjoy the pics.....
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| Looking down the line... |
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LLWS Day 2
In what was supposed to be our busiest day of the tournament (6 games) we had the worst possible combination of events - rain and extra inning ballgames. The Georgia-NY game went 7 innings with a 2 hour rain delay in the middle of it, and the Pacific-Latin America game is scoreless in the bottom of the 8th, where it will stay until Monday morning.
I had first base for Mexico-Curacao and had a couple of close plays. Mexico pulled it out in the bottom of the sixth. It's quite a thrill to see up close some of the plays these kids can make. And, it's definitely a thrill to be doing a game in Lamade Stadium. There's an electricity in the place that you can feel. It'll be interesting to see what the feeling is like over in Volunteer Field where my first two games are tomorrow.
Our New England-Midwest game tonite got rained out and will be played tomorrow at noon. The weather looks much better for tomorrow and so far looks good for the rest of the week.
Although we didn't play tonite there was a re-dedication ceremony for Lamade Stadium. The Lamade family donated the money to install new seats, cover the rest of the stands, and move the fences back 20 feet. Howard's son and daughter were there for the ceremony and it brought chills to see the appreciation that everyone there had for everything the Lamade's have done for Little League.
Hoping to see the sun tomorrow and really looking forward to getting behnd the plate...
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LLWS Day 3
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We started with the makeup of last night's rainout of New England vs. Midwest at noon. I think the boys from New England were either up too late the night before or have been taking too many pointers from the slumping Boston Red Sox. At any rate, they were awful! They committed 7 errors and gave up 14 runs in the loss. They are really a much better team than that and I look for them to come back strong tomorrow. I had the left field line for this game and only had one fair/foul call.
Then, it was time for my plate game which had the team from Lake Charles, LA playing against Beaverton, OR. Strangely, I was less nervous for this game than for any of the previous games I had been in. I think the game went well, although I haven't seen it on TV yet.
In the final game of the day I had 3rd base for the Staten Island vs. Lemont, IL in Lamade Stadium. This game was exciting right from the start. There were over 15,000 in attendance and many of them were loud screaming New Yorkers. Lemont carried a no hitter and 1-0 lead into the bottom of the 6th. After one out and a walk, Lemont finally gave up a base hit to right center field. The runner from 1st tried going to 3rd and the center fielder threw him out. No sooner had I finished punching out the runner at 3rd (thanks for the compliments, Carlos!) then the batter wandered off 1st, thinking that the 3rd out had already been made. He was then tagged out for the 3rd out. A very strange ending to a very exciting and interesting day.
Tomorrow I have 2nd base for Mexico vs. Japan and then 1st base for Oregon vs. Missouri tomorrow night.
The 3 best things that happened today didn't have anything to do with the action on the field. We found out that Steve Keener and Little League Baseball are going to bring Rodney Picard (our umpire who got ill once he got here and has done no games) back to the World Series next year at their expense. We had an 8 year old boy visit us in the locker room and he was absolutely thrilled to meet some 'real' umpires and get pins from some of us. Lastly, a 4 or 5 year old boy won his race with Dugout between innings at tonite's game. He was so excited I think he was jumping out of his skin. Seeing the joy on these little kids faces is priceless.
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| We'll keep our day jobs... |
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LLWS Day 4
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| A beautiful day for baseball... |
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This afternoon in the Japan-Mexico game we got a dead ball award ruling wrong even though we all got together to discuss it. At least two of us knew it right after the meeting, but by then it was too late. Fortunately, the runner never scored, but we felt dumb anyway. I guess it's just one of those things that happens sometimes in the heat of the moment. The good news is that it's one more mistake that we'll never make again.
Also, in case you missed it on TV, Dugout and I did a little dancing and guitar playing to an Elvis tune. I'm pretty sure the world of rock and roll will survive anyway!
This evening in the the OR-MI game I redeemed myself with an obstruction call during a rundown between 1st and 2nd. Nothing like getting one right to get one's confidence back. We had another exciting game to end the day today and I had quite a bit of action at 1st base.
My dad came over from CT today and got to see both games. He'll watch tomorrow afternoons game before taking the kids back to CT.
I've got one game that means nothing and one that will decide who wins pool C tomorrow. Both are international games. It's fun to work with those kids, but the games tend to take longer because of the language issues and the disparity in ability level between the teams. I think all the US teams are pretty even ability-wise, whereas there's a huge difference between the team from Japan and the team from Russia.
Even though a couple of today's games were do or die I haven't really felt the pressure rise yet. I'm pretty sure that will change come Wednesday.
Tuesday, August 22
LLWS Day 5
Have I mentioned that the International games seem to take forever compared to the US games? Today was a long day because I had 2 International games, but they both turned out to be very exciting. I had the right field line for Saipan-Canada, which Canada pulled out in the bottom of the 6th.
Then, this evening I had 2nd base for Saudi Arabia-Venezuela which Venezuela won in the bottom of the 8th 1-0 after being no-hit for 5 1/3 innings. I only had a couple of calls in this game, but some great plays were made and it's pretty cool to be on field watching it happen. Some of these kids can really play!
It'll be interesting to see how the atmosphere changes tomorrow now that pool paly is over and the elimination games begin. I have the day off tomorrow, other than a pick-up game between Louisiana and Canada in the morning. I'm somewhat disappointed, but it'll be good to have a break. It also helps that I've got the plate for the Japan-Saudi semi-final on Thursday. It should be fun to see Japan's pitching up close.
That's all for today.... no pictures as my personal photographer and pin trader (my son, Geoff) has left for CT.
Wednesday, August 23
LLWS Day 6
Today was an off day for me, but I still managed to do a game and have another great day at the World Series.
Once teams are eliminated from the tournament they sometimes like to play other teams for fun that they didn't get to play officially. We had one of these 'cross-over' games scheduled for this morning and we were going to do it with a 4-man crew and just take it easy. When we showed up this morning it turned out that there were going to be 2 games, so I ended up doing the plate for Russia vs. Missouri as part of a 2-man crew. We nearly had an international incident in the 1st or 2nd inning. The catcher for Russia came in to score with no play being made on him and he tried to take out the opposing catcher! As I know very little russian I found it hard to admonish the kid. His coach had no such trouble! For the next 3 innings that kid was doing deep knee bends in the back of the dugout. Who knows what'll happen to him when he gets back home! The same punishment (for an inning) was doled out to a kid who didn't run out a ground ball to 1st. Tough guy!
The game went well and Missouri ended up with a 4-3 win in an hour and 15 minutes. It's amazing what you can do without all those TV timeouts.
DJ, his wife, Jeff Colwell & Co., and Lamar Pelfrey all showed up today. If I had had the right memory card in my camera you'd even be looking at a picture of them right now. I'll try again tomorrow night. We managed to watch a boring Mexico win over Venezuela (11-0 in 4 innings) and a very exciting Oregon win over Illinois.
The excitement level keeps building as we get closer to the end and more people are at the park. On one hand, I can't wait for the weekend. On the other, I don't ever want it to end. I see why people keep coming back to this year after year. I don't know when I've ever had more fun.
More tomorrow and maybe a picture or 2.
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| The pregame photo-op with the catcher... |
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LLWS Day 7
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| Dugout keeps it fun! |
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In case you missed it, I had the plate for the Japan - Trans-Atlantic international semi-final this afternoon. Calling games with good pitching is always a pleasure. Calling the game with these two pitchers has amazing. The Japanese pitcher was really working the corners and hitting the catcher's mitt almost every time. Still, the Saudi team hung in there and made it a much closer game than a lot of people thought it would be.
The Japanese kids are great ballplayers and great kids. They have a lot of respect for the game and seem to be always having fun playing. And, they mangae to do it while still being extremely competitive, focused, and intense.
Georgia is not cooperating with my hopes to have a chance to be in the final game, but they've got one more to win to get there, so there's still a chance. We'll get our schedules for Saturday at 9 on Saturday morning and probably won't get our schedules for Sunday until Sunday. So, just tune in and watch the games. All three remaining games should be great games and fun to watch.
Tomorrow, finally, is a day off and there will be no baseball at the stadium. We'll have a day to stay away from the ballpark and keep our minds off of the games and the tournament. The umpires and their families will get together for dinner tomorrow night. Other than that, it'll be anything but baseball for the day. In that spirit, my blog will take the day off as well. I'll be back on Saturday with my thoughts on the day's games....
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| Georgia's victory lap |
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LLWS Day 9
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| No, I don't speak Japanese |
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The day started with a 9AM meeting where the assignments were given for today's games. I knew that I wouldn't be in the US Championship since Georgia was playing, but was pleasantly surprised that I got the plate for the International game. I had already had 2 plates in the tournament and had Japan in their semi-final. According to Jeff Colwell my new nickname is now Jimmy 3-plate!
Georgia hung on to win their game and I actually felt I could root for them a little bit since I figured having the plate tonite would pretty much disqualify me from the game tomorrow. I felt bad for the other Southern Region umpire, Brian Murphy though, because I think he was definitely good enough to be in the infield for that game. The Southern Region still consistently produces the best umpires in Little League.
In tonite's game, just as I was wondering if anyone was ever going to get a hit, Japan broke out with 2 home runs sandwiched by a single for a 3-0 lead. They were cruising with a no-hitter until the 6th when Mexico strung together 3 singles to load the bases with no outs. The Japanese manager looked shell-shocked when he came out to change pitchers. I've never seen anything quite like it. Fortunately for them, he had a great pitcher to go to and they hung on to win. The noise and excitement was unbelievable! For me it really helped to sharpen my focus. The great pitching didn't hurt either.
Another amazing day at the Little League World Series!
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| Kung Fun Dugout! |
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Sunday, August 27
LLWS Day 10
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| Original Field - the birthplace of Little League Baseball | |
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The bad weather gave us a chance to visit Original Field, the birthplace of Little League baseball in Williamsport. They still operate a league at this site and also have a small museum in the room overlooking the field. Memorabilia is displayed from the early years. One of the more interesting items is the scorebook from a game played on the day Japan surrendered in WWII. The announcement was made in the 2nd inning and was notated in the scorebook. The game was never resumed.
If you're ever in town and have the chance to umpire a game here, you should. You'll be welcomed with open arms and will get a nice certificate verifying that you've umpired where it all began.
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| Jim plays tourist in Williamsport... |
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