Umpire nation also has its own language, or at least a patois, and it anything but delicate. The usual four-letter imprecations are well represented in the daily umpire lexicon, but it has one especially distinguishing feature: the word "horseshit".For some reason, "horseshit" is specifically a baseball term, having been the most popular and utilitarian curse word in the game for generations, as familiar a locution at the ballpark as "strike three".
...At one game I attended, Alex Rodriquez, the Yankees celebrity third baseman, sauntered over to Bruce Fromming and gave him an unsolicited compliment, something about how much he appreciated all of Fromming's years of professionalism...when I asked Rodriquez about it the next day, he shrugged. He said Fromming, the longest serving umpire, deserved it. "After all, all we do is tell them they're horseshit," Rodriquez said.
Skip this book if you don't love baseball. Even if you do love baseball, this book will only satisfy avid fans who find umpiring interesting. As an avid fan, I liked parts of this book and learned quite a lot about umpiring. The book, however, is too long and would benefit from from serious editing. A few stories by old umpires are interesting, but the last half of this book seems to be nothing but story after story.
I have a greater appreciation for umpires, although I still find some calls by umpires, especially in my softball leagues, to be questionable or down right inexcusable. In general, I haven't found umpires to be the most likable people and that didn't change after reading this book. For example, we see the world of umpires to be a proudly sexist realm.
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