'Umping for the Dodgers'

By Ed Piper

I'll never forget when our dad came home and told us, "I'm going to be umpiring for the Dodgers."

I was about eight years old, and this caused quite a stir, because we lived in L.A. Dodger territory and we thought it meant Dad was going to go pro!

"Are you going to be umpiring for the real Dodgers in L.A.?", we asked.

"No," he and our mom explained, "it's going to be for your Dodger league at Patrick Henry."

My older brother Steve and I played for the Dodgers in rubber-coated-ball youth baseball in the Patrick Henry Cub League--"P.H.C.L." on our trophies.

"Oh." It took a while for us to settle down from the excitement, having thought Dad would be on the games on TV from Dodger Stadium--without so much as having ever played baseball as a boy, much less umpired it!

Shag Crawford and Harry Wendelstedt and all the other major league umpires at the time would have been mighty jealous to have seen a whippersnapper like Dad with no experience suddenly skyrocket into their selective ranks.

So Dad, having never learned the strike zone as a batter, now would be calling the strike zone for young players who practiced all the time. Somehow he did honorable service.

It was his way of serving as a parent in a youth organization that ran by having volunteers perform the various duties of the organization.

But our dad was like that. Part of the "Greatest Generation", we could say--applying that to both our dad and mom.

When he wasn't "umpiring for the Dodgers"--he never did any of our games, because that would have created an unnecessary conflict--he attended our games with Mom. And their great quality was that they stayed behind the scenes. They never raised a peep.

During games, they never made a single loud comment during all of Steve's and my years playing baseball. After games, they never complained to the coach or manager that their kids weren't playing enough.

That wasn't true for all parents. One baseball player, Wayne, in the new community that we moved to after the PHCL, had a nightmare of a dad who yelled and screamed and carried on during games, with his son wishing he could melt into the scenery from embarrassment.

Now, looking back, I really admire my dad for his selflessness in staying quiet and in the background in his sons' sports. Having not been allowed to play sports as a child because it was the Depression and he had to work three paper routes--the family story goes--Ed Sr., with our mom, made a point of ensuring that we three kids could participate in any after-school activities we wanted. And without interference.

Having not played sports as a kid, he didn't live through us kids as we played baseball and, later, high school basketball. Maybe his background made that easier. But I'm thankful he didn't play a vocal role and try to get us more playing time when we were sitting on the bench. Some parents, out of their love for their child, could still benefit from learning to stay out of the way and "let the kids play".