I'm lucky that my father introduced me to baseball at a young age.  He taught me the basics and started me on my Little League career in Chelmsford, MA.  At age 10 I was traded to the Saratoga, CA Little League for a bag of used bats and a broken catcher's mask.  My dad will tell you HP had relocated him to California, but I know better.

My passion was catching (the gear was cool), and being a "larger" kid there wasn't as much running involved as, say, being an outfielder.  I played on one allstar team in Saratoga as the starting catcher and had one career homerun, no less a grand slam on Mother's day, which family lore has me dedicating to Mom ("That was for you, Mom!") as I crossed the plate.  

I played softball in college and various work & friend rec teams up until the time my son Cameron started to play Little League baseball himself.  I helped coach his T-Ball and coach pitch teams and managed through his minor years.  Like my father, my daughter Nicole, and me, Cameron had the genetic defect that draws one towards catching. And like his father, the baseball Gods also arranged for him to have one career Little League homerun, though not in quite the same dramatic style. You just can't teach timing.

It was during Cameron's major years I was voluntold into umpiring for the Almaden Little League in San Jose, CA.  Then UIC Raymy Brown cornered me after one of my early games with a critique of "Well, you didn't suck" and, based on that glowing assessment,  my umpiring career took off.

I am very fortunate to be located in CA District 12, home of the most dedicated and trained umpires and staff in all of Little League.  Yearly umpire clinics run by the leagues, the Section 5 outreach clinic staffed by the Western Region week long umpire school from San Bernardino, and daily post game reviews make for a high concentration of highly skilled umpiring talent unmatched anywhere in the world.  

I've been umpiring since 2009, and have been fortunate to be selected to officiate some District 12, 14, 44, 45, and 57 TOC & allstar games and a few Section 5 and Division 2 games at all levels.  I attended the Section 5 Outreach in 2011, the one week Western Region Umpire School in 2013, and have helped teach the next generation of umpires at several local clinics the past three years.

Whether it was hard work or dumb luck, I received this letter from Western Region in January informing me of my selection to the 2016 Western Region Intermediate Region tournament after 2 years on the nomination list.  I had to read it twice.  Thank you, Jenice Condie, for your hard work and dedication to your D12 umpire staff.  I know you had to work hard to push this through.

So here we are.  There are 9 teams, 8 umpires, and 26 games to play over the course of the tournament.  

I think I'm ready.  Let's find out.  Play ball!

PS: Dan, I promise my plate meeting won't ramble on like this.