As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires » (Updated)

Bruce Weber, a reporter for the New York Times, began his career in publishing as a fiction editor at Esquire. His first piece for the Times was a profile of Raymond Carver for the Sunday magazine in 1983, and he has been on staff at the newspaper since 1986 as an editor, metro reporter, national cultural correspondent, theater columnist and theater critic, among other things. His writing about baseball includes three cover stories for the Times Magazine (for whom he has also profiled E. L. Doctorow, Martin Cruz Smith, the Harvard Admissions Department, the New York Public Library and Cher) and he has regularly contributed first-person essays and participatory features to the paper. These include accounts of several bicycle journeys (from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and from San Francisco to New York City, among them); of a walk the length of Broadway, from Yonkers to the Battery; of canoeing down the Hudson; of skating on all of New York City's skating rinks and of batting in all of New York City's batting cages. 

He has written for Sports Illustrated, Sport, Esquire, Manhattan Inc., Vogue, Mademoiselle, Redbook, Harpers' Bazaar, the Hartford Courant and the St. Petersburg Times. He is the author, with the dancer Savion Glover, of Savion! My Life in Tap (William Morrow, 2000), and the editor of Look Who's Talking: An Anthology of Voices in the Modern American Short Story (Washington Square Press, 1986).

MILLIONS OF AMERICAN BASEBALL FANS KNOW, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, that umpires are simply overpaid galoots who are doing an easy job badly. Millions of American baseball fans are wrong.

As They See Em is an insider s look at the largely unknown world of professional umpires, the small group of men (and the very occasional woman) who make sure America s favorite pastime is conducted in a manner that is clean, crisp, and true. Bruce Weber, a New York Times reporter, not only interviewed dozens of professional umpires but entered their world, trained to become an umpire, then spent a season working games from Little League to big league spring training. As They See Em is Weber s entertaining account of this experience as well as a lively exploration of what amounts to an eccentric secret society, with its own customs, its own rituals, its own colorful vocabulary. Writing with deep knowledge of and affection for baseball, he delves into such questions as: Why isn t every strike created equal? Is the ump part of the game or outside of it? Why doesn t a tie go to the runner? And what do umps and managers say to each other during an argument, really?

Packed with fascinating reportage that reveals the game as never before and answers the kinds of questions that fans, exasperated by the clichés of conventional sports commentary, pose to themselves around the television set, Bruce Weber s As They See Em is a towering grand slam.

The New York Times Book Review - Jim Bouton

For future aspirants, the first step should be reading Bruce Weber's As They See 'Em, a wonderfully detailed look at the craft of umpiring…I must say that reading this book has given me a new appreciation for the men in blue…I never realized what it takes to be an umpire: encyclopedic knowledge of constantly evolving rules, and the exact positioning for each type of call; the ability to make snap decisions under pressure; the endurance to stand for three to five hours in all kinds of weather; the personality required to deal with endless criticism; and the presence necessary to command a game. And I liked the personal stories.

Introduction: The Land of Umpires 1

Chapter 1 Men Behind a Mask 23

Chapter 2 “I'm Chasing the Dream” 49

Chapter 3 “Fix It!” 93

Chapter 4 Welcome to Professional Baseball 113

Chapter 5 Phil, Ben, and Ria 143

Chapter 6 Ballish Strikes and Strikelike Balls 167

Chapter 7 The 22 201

Chapter 8 Living the Dream, Such As It Is 231

Chapter 9 Strapping It On 257

Chapter 10 The Braille Watch 285

Afterword: December 2009 339

Acknowledgments 355