1.1 FInal 2
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[00:00:00] The reality of the situation is best summed up by a Harry Wendelstedt quote. We can't all be Major League Umpires, but we can all be Major League People. Hey, hey, hey, I'm on vacation. Every single day, cause I love my occupation. Hey, hey, hey, vacation. If you don't like your life, then you should go and change it.
Hey, hey, hey, I'm on vacation. Hey everyone, welcome to the Umpire Classroom Podcast. This is Patrick Farber, trying something a little bit different here. A new way to connect with Umpires. Umpires. My hope here is that I can distribute content faster and answer a lot more of the questions that y'all have been sending me.
This is just a lot easier to do via recording like this versus actually having to record a film and edit and do all that fun stuff. And a lot of you ask me good questions every week, but I'm usually responding to those by email. And they're usually questions that other people have, or that might be good for other umpires to know.
So I'm hoping that here I'm able to [00:01:00] answer a lot of your questions. At this point, there's no set number of episodes I'm planning to do every week. We're just going to kind of feel it out. We're in the middle of spring break for a lot of our schools here in Georgia, so that certainly opens up quite a bit of time for me.
But I'm well aware that some of you are having your first games of the season today. So to that, congratulations. I'm watching the Braves play the White Sox. And it looks awful up there, so if you're up there still in the north, best of luck to you getting your season started today. I guess a good place to start for the podcast is just by introducing who I am to all of you.
Maybe a little bit more than I've done in the Umpire Classroom content before this. So my name is Patrick Farber, I'm 29 years old, born and raised in Metro Atlanta, currently live south of Atlanta in Peachtree City. But, mainly work with an umpire group north of Atlanta, which is Marietta Umpires. It's the largest group in the state, covering over 60 schools.
I serve on the board as the training director, and then I also serve for GHSA on [00:02:00] umpire development. I've been umpiring for 15 plus years now, started doing it in high school, continued doing it through college, went to professional school at Wendell Stent in 2016. Actually took time off of college to do that.
Out of Wendelstead, I made the reserve list for professional baseball and ended up going to the Northwoods League to work collegiate summer baseball. Worked on a fantastic crew, both guys, Tom O'Neill, Ray Patchen, that I worked with. They're currently in AA and AAA respectively. Awesome guys and had a hell of a lot of fun working with that crew.
After that, went back to school in 2017, ended up making it to Vero Beach. And from the advanced camp, I was assigned to the Coastal Plains League. Worked there for about 3 4 weeks before I got my call up to go to the Arizona League. So I spent the summer of 2017 working the Arizona League, staying at the Extended Stay Hotel in downtown Phoenix.
Can't think of a more miserable place to be in June, July, and August, but I was around professional baseball. [00:03:00] Got to meet a lot of really great umpires, really great guys on and off of the field. And got to see some excellent facilities for all those Cactus League teams. Then, after the 2017 season ended, came back for 2018.
Did one game in the Gulf Coast League, which, by the way, somehow found a way to be more miserably hot than the Cactus League. But, after that one game, got called up to the Pioneer League, out in Montana, Utah, Idaho, Colorado. I got about halfway through the season, saw some beautiful parts of the country, but ended up having a pretty bad concussion that ended up ending my season, and ultimately ended my career in professional baseball.
But after that, not the end of the world, I was out of professional baseball at 23 and I'm thankful that it ended young enough that it didn't impact my ability to have a career outside of baseball. And because I didn't lose that time, I was able to quickly get into another career that, frankly, has been more financially rewarding than minor league baseball.
And it's opened up my availability to get involved in [00:04:00] GHSA and high school umpiring and building content for all of you. And that's something I'm really passionate about is training new umpires. And I think it's safe to say that I'm certainly a better instructor than I am umpire, but that's okay. The world needs coaches, and I'm happy to be one, and I'm really passionate about seeing all of you umpires grow and get better in a profession that I love so much.
The reality of the situation is best summed up by a Harry Wendelstedt quote, and that's that we can't all be major league umpires, but we can all be major league people. And that's something I'm striving for every day. And I'm hoping to make all of you the best umpires you can be for whatever level of baseball you work.
It doesn't have to be professional baseball, but anything in youth baseball. We all have a responsibility to the game, to put our best efforts on the field and to always be improving in our performance game after game. Now let's talk a little bit about the format and idea behind this podcast. First of all, I don't have a name picked out yet.
We could go with the Umpire Classroom [00:05:00] Podcast or something like the Umpire Pre Game. Ultimately, my thinking there is that a lot of you are working in crews of one or, you know, crews of two, especially those of you that are newer umpires, you're usually working with other newer umpires. So I'm hoping to be able to speak to a lot of you and help you kind of go through a pre game before your games, give you some things to think about, maybe go over some rules and questions that would maybe show up in a more advanced pre game meeting.
But, knowing that a lot of you are not able to have those long and in depth meetings before your games, hopefully we're able to have some of those discussions here. Also, looking to answer any of your questions that I can help out with. If you have any rules questions, or plays you'd like to see broken down, or just anything around umpiring, feel free to reach out.
You know how to email me, Patrick, at umpireclassroom. com. Send your questions my way. I'll try to get to as many of them as I can throughout the course of a week. And finally, the only other thing I have on the schedule for this is doing interviews with [00:06:00] umpires that are focused on high school baseball, but have a lot of experience either at the professional or collegiate level, and it can really speak to you about working in a crew of two and working high school baseball.
That's a brief introduction to the Umpire Classroom Podcast. As I said, if you have any name ideas, feel free to send them my way. If you have any questions or plays you'd like to see reviewed, Send them my way as well. So thanks everyone for coming along the journey with Umpire Classroom. It's been a lot of fun, really a lot of work, a lot of late nights, putting in all this to present it to you.
But I like to think I'm getting better with every episode. I'm hoping to get better every year and be able to bring more value to you and help make umpiring more fun and bring more people into it and help them improve quickly. So again, thanks so much for all the support that you've given to Umpire Classroom.
Certainly wouldn't do this if it wasn't for all the positive feedback I get from all of you. As always, thanks so much for listening, and I look forward to seeing you on the [00:07:00] field.
