‘You’re outta here’: The life and times of a Minor League umpire

by Jason Wolverton

It’s less than an hour before the Loons take on the Burlington Bees, and Dan Hasty of Media Relations is leading us through the tunnels of Dow Diamond to the umpire’s locker room. We chat about the feature as we walk, and when he arrives at our destination he pounds on the thick metal door and hears no answer.

No one home.

He fishes for his keys, but before he can unlock the door it is opened from the inside by Brandon Misun. Hasty introduces himself and steps inside, leaving us alone in the tunnel.

The idea to do a feature on Minor League umpiring is half a season old now. We’d discussed it, agreed it could be interesting, and then waited for the right moment. When we caught wind that this crew would be in town for all six games of the homestand, and that one of them was a Michigan native, we figured there was no time like the present.

But before we can even begin, Hasty has to explain to them what all of this is about. They certainly aren’t expecting a couple of reporters to come strolling into their locker room, but I’m reasonably confident they won’t mind us asking them some questions. Still, I can’t help but feel somewhat nervous right up until Hasty opens the door and tells us to come on in.

Misun is sitting inside watching “SportsCenter” with Imlay City native Nathan Thompson. I introduce myself and give them a quick rundown of what we had in mind. We’re still talking shop when Misun interrupts mid-sentence and points to the television.

Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire is face-to-face with umpire Charlie Reliford and the two are jawing back and forth. The Twins are playing the Boston Red Sox and think they just turned a rare 8-4-5 triple play. But the men in blue confer and reverse the call – correctly, as replays show – drawing Gardenhire’s ire.

The argument is brief but heated. Reliford tosses Gardenhire and the Red Sox eventually prevail 18-5. The young umpires in the room with me seem more enamored by the ejection than any other highlight from the game.

“I love watching them jaw at the managers,” says the 26-year-old Misun, “or more often than not, the managers jawing at the umpires.”

At that instant I know both men would love nothing more than to one day stand face-to-face with Gardenhire – or any other big league manager – and defend a call of their own. Misun even points out the irony that one day a couple of kids like them could be sitting in this very locker room watching them stand their ground just like they watched Reliford.

That’s when I know I’ve got the story I’d been looking for.

In many ways this is your typical Minor League Baseball story. Young kid has a dream of making it to the bigs so he signs on the dotted line and starts to pay his dues. It’s years of long drives and months away from your friends and family. It’s honing your craft in small Iowa ball parks and 150 nights in hotel beds. It’s people and towns you’ve never heard of and teams you didn’t know existed.

It’s rags to riches – baseball style.

It’s the life of Brandon Misun and Nathan Thompson.

Nothing to lose

They say the best place to begin is at the beginning, and so that is where this story starts.

Both men took off from the same spot, just 600 miles apart. Growing up in Ashland, Wisconsin, Misun’s first real job was umpiring Little League Baseball when he was 11. Thompson’s father ran a youth league in Attica and so that was where he began, too. Both climbed their way up the umpiring ladder into high school and college ball as the years ticked by.

Misun wound up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated in 2004 with a degree in political science. The summer before graduation, he started to think seriously about his next step and decided he had nothing to lose. He’d try professional umpiring.

Thompson was at Eastern Michigan working on a degree in aviation management and arranged his schedule one semester so he could take all online classes. He did it so he could enroll in umpire school.

There are only two schools in the country whose curriculum has been approved by the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation (PBUC), and they’re separated by a mere 80 miles. Misun enrolled at the Harry Wendelstedt School for Umpires in Ormond Beach, Florida; Thompson headed for Jim Evans’ Academy of Professional Umpiring in Kissimmee.

Each school operates from January to February and acts as a sort of 30-day tryout. Each prospective umpire is evaluated against his peers and the top 25 or so from each school are selected to go to the PBUC placement camp. From there, each man is assigned a ranking. As openings become available, the top ranked umpires get in while everyone left gets bumped up and basically waits in line for their turn.

Misun had to wait a while.

He first went to the school in January 2005, but wasn’t invited to the PBUC placement camp. The school recommended he umpire independent league baseball and so he spent the summer driving back and forth between Texas, Louisiana, and Florida umpiring games. He returned to the school the following January, but just missed out on the camp again. Frustrated and ready to move on, he returned to Wisconsin to figure out his next step.

“I just missed going to the evaluation course again,” he says. “I had kind of given up on it. I wasn’t going to do it again.”

And that’s when he benefited from a literal lucky strike.

In the spring of 2006, disputes in umpires’ salaries led to a strike by the Association of Minor League Umpires that lasted into June. When the strike finally ended, some umpires didn’t return which left more job openings than usual. After all the umpires from the PBUC camp were placed, the union turned to those who just missed out to fill the rest of the openings. Misun’s name was near the top of that list. He was hired just after the Fourth of July in 2006 and immediately started umpiring in the short-season Gulf Coast League. Last year he umpired in the Pioneer League before moving up to the Midwest League this year.

Thompson’s path was a little smoother. After getting through to PBUC, he spent the summer of 2006 in the Arizona League. The 23 year old says he has experienced no sweeter moment than we he received the phone call telling him he made it.

“I think the proudest moment was when I got a call for my first contract,” he says. “They said I had to be on a plane the next morning at 7 a.m. to go to Arizona. I was like ‘Wow everything I’ve done has paid off.’”

Thompson umpired in the New York – Penn League in 2007 before getting the call to the Midwest League and getting paired with Misun. Even if both move up to Double A, it is likely this will be the last time they are paired together.

“Brandon and I are going to be friends for the rest of our lives, but we wouldn’t have known each other if it weren’t for this,” Thompson says. “The contacts that you make doing this are more beneficial than actually doing it.”

And with that we are back to the present. The two sit next to one another in the locker room at Dow Diamond, a few dozen freshly-rubbed baseballs in a bag beside them. That night, Misun works the plate while Thompson works the bases.

I head to the camera well adjacent to the Loons’ dugout to take some photos. In the bottom of the third inning, Misun calls Preston Mattingly and Kenley Jansen out on strikes in consecutive at-bats, prompting one of the Loons’ players to yell, “Is everything a strike with this guy?”

I shake my head and chuckle.

Road games

The next day we head to their hotel and make camp in an empty conference room. I set my tape recorder down and start asking about life as a Minor League umpire. An hour and eight minutes later, my batteries are dead and I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface.

“For six months out of the year, we live out of our suitcase,” Thompson says, pointing out that umpires don’t have home games. He says when he was in Arizona, not one person he knew ever came out to watch one of his games.

I think again to the typical Minor League Baseball story.

In those stories, we hear about the loneliness and the long bus rides. How players will play cards, listen to music, sleep – do anything to pass the time, really.

But no such luck for the men in blue. While Minor League players and coaches are sitting back and relaxing on their chartered bus, Misun and Thompson are on the road trying to figure out how to get themselves to the next map dot quickly and safely. One member of a two-man crew is assigned as a driver – in this case it’s Misun – which just basically means they supply the vehicle. Misun has put about 28,000 miles on his 2001 Saturn since last year, and says he’s logged most of them himself since it’s his car. He gets reimbursed for mileage, but that doesn’t really pay for the strain of calling a game behind the plate for three hours and then having to drive 400 miles just to do it all over again.

As for driving, sometimes it’s done in the dead of night, or perhaps in the pouring rain. When you’re an umpire, there is no dilly dallying. You’re calling a game in Midland tonight and then have to check out of your hotel, drive to Iowa, check into another one, and be to the ballpark by 5:30 the next night. Any delay – big or small – can chuck a monkey wrench or two into your schedule.

“You’re always afraid of engine trouble, flat tires, or hitting a deer, especially in this league,” Thompson says as he raps on table next to him. “We’ve been fortunate, knock on wood, that we haven’t had anything like that happen. But once you get into a city, then the battle is already won.”

But once that battle is won, a new battle takes shape. Though they average about five hours a night at the ballpark and spend a great deal of time traveling, there is still the occasional bout of boredom that sets in. This season, Misun says he weighed his choices carefully and elected to omit his Playstation from the Saturn’s packed trunk in favor of his golf clubs. The two hit the links fairly often, work out, and will occasionally go walk around at local malls to pass the time. They’ll also spend time reviewing rules and procedures, as well as critiquing one another or giving advice.

“The thing they talk about at umpiring school is that an average person can make a safe or out call and get it right ninety-five percent of the time,” Thompson says. “What we’re trained for is the five percent that doesn’t normally happen or isn’t routine.”

He mentions obstruction and interference calls, as well as how many bases are awarded for overthrows. A lifetime baseball player and rabid fan, I admit to myself I don’t have a clue as to what those calls would be in most instances.

Umpiring, they both say, is about much more than just making the calls, though. It’s about communicating with the other umpire, making sure you’re in the right position, and acting professional at all times. These are the types of things they’re evaluated on. Their games are reviewed several times a year with great scrutiny and their marks from these games help determine the ranking they are awarded. Sometimes a player may be able to afford to take a game off mentally, but these guys have to be 100 percent focused every single pitch. After all, they never know who may be watching.

“A player knows what he’s going to do when he gets the baseball,” Thompson says. “We don’t know what he’s going to do. We have to react to what the player does and that’s just instincts.”

“If we didn’t see it,” he later adds, “I can guarantee you someone else did, and they’re going to let you know about it.”

As far as which is harder – being in the field or at the plate – both agree that calling a game behind the dish is the most challenging. It’s hot, physically demanding, and you have to be prepared to make a call on almost every pitch.

“The next morning after working the plate you feel it,” Misun says. “I always have to get myself more mentally focused for a plate job. It’s not that I’m not focused on the bases, but behind the plate I know I’m going to have 350 calls to make.”

Both admit that not every call they make will be the right one. Just like players who make errors or strike out, an umpire will miss a call from time to time. They say that when they’re evaluated, they’re not punished for getting a call wrong, but evaluated on how they react after it happens.

“Any umpire you talk to will tell you they miss calls,” Thompson says. “It’s how you handle that to prepare for the next call. The thing is, we’re going to go right back out there the next night. We can’t let it bother us.”

Misun says he’s learned to shrug off angry managers or heckling fans, even pointing out that he gets a kick out of listening to creative insults from the booing masses. He won’t repeat his recent favorite, but just says it’s a little too intense for print.

“I kind of get a rush out of it when they’re booing you,” he says. “You made a call, and that’s what you’re out there for. On a close play, half of the people are going to be happy with you and half are going to be mad.”

At that point, I can’t help but ask. Umpiring is one of those things where if you do your job well, no one really notices you. But when you do get noticed, it’s usually when there is a disagreement and the Ron Gardenhires of the world are out there screaming in your face. I want to know what it’s like to throw someone out of a game.

And so I ask about Sandberg.

That is, Ryne Sandberg, the Hall-of-Fame Chicago Cubs second baseman who manages the Peoria Chiefs. I ask them what they think it would be like to stand toe-to-toe with someone they watched growing up and possibly have to throw them out of a game.

“When we’re on the field I don’t think we take into account that he’s a Hall of Famer,” Thompson says. “When it comes to a play, we’re trained to do the same thing every time. When he crosses the line, we’re trained to do the same thing as with anyone.”

Little did I know, Sandberg had crossed the line with them already this season.

On May 8, the pair was working a game between the Chiefs and Clinton LumberKings, which Peoria trailed 6-0. One of Clinton’s players tried to lay down a bunt, a move that angered Sandberg. In baseball, bunting or stealing a base with a big lead is a major faux pas and the move irked Sandberg so much that he ended up confronting Clinton manager Mike Micucci. This set off a bench-clearing incident, and Misun gave Sandberg and Clinton DH Timothy Smith the heave ho. Sandberg later received a three-game suspension from the league for his role in the incident.

“It was interesting to say the least,” Thompson told the Beloit Daily News about the incident. “You never expect anything like that to happen…”

A cup of coffee

The one thing you can expect in the world of professional umpiring is a consistent lack of job security. Each umpire is on a year-to-year contract and constant evaluation means there is no such thing as a guarantee. Umpires beginning in short-season Class-A or rookie ball make about $1,800 per month, plus a small per diem for food. As a result, Thompson talks about refereeing basketball during the offseason and Misun substitute teaches in order to make ends meet. Neither has a family yet, but both admit that with degrees in other fields a job offer that blew away their current salaries would be tempting.

“We both went to college with the idea that we were not going to make it as Major League umpires,” Thompson says. “If something opens up in our field that we went to school for and the offer is huge, we can’t turn that down. We have an out, but we don’t want that out yet. That’s always in the back of our mind, that we have that to fall back on.”

More often than not, professional umpires do have to resort to Plan B. There are 30 Major League Baseball teams with 25 spots on their roster, meaning there are about 750 Major League Baseball players. In the big picture, that number is a pretty small pool to try to jump into for the thousands of Minor League ballplayers trying to make it to the bigs.

But it’s nothing compared to the struggles of making it as a big league umpire, since there are only 68 Major League contracts. And since most of the Major League umpires have worked their whole lives to get to that position, most aren’t anxious to leave. Throw in starting salaries near $120,000 a year and reaching as high as $300,000 and you see perhaps the biggest obstacle Misun and Thompson face: a lack of turnover.

Thompson says that in the three years he has been a professional, Major League Baseball hasn’t hired a single new umpire. So even if they climb the ranks and make it as high as Triple-A, they still have to wait for a spot to open up.

“A lot of players get a cup of coffee in the Major Leagues,” Misun says. “Not a lot of Minor League umpires do. You’re lucky if one opens up a year.”

“You feel bad for some of the guys that are at Triple-A and have families,” Thompson adds. “They’re right on the verge of having an opportunity, but they also have a family. You’ve been doing this for six or seven years, but now you have a family. You don’t want to have to make that decision, because it’s a decision that you’re going to have to live with the rest of your life.”

As far as if either has a timetable for making that decision themselves, both choose not to think about it. Instead they opt to go with the flow and take each opportunity as it comes.

“That’s so far away that you try not to think about it,” Misun says. “I just think about getting to the next level. I don’t think ahead, I just take it one season at a time.”

So far so good for both, as each was selected to ump this year’s Midwest League All-Star Game at Dow Diamond. Thompson says the experience was one he’ll never forget and is one of many he’s already been fortunate enough to have in his short time in professional baseball.

“The opportunity is in front of us to become a Major League umpire, to make it to the pinnacle of a job or career,” he says. “To honestly say I took a chance, whether I get that contract or not, it’s the fact that I know I’m taking a chance. And in ten years to look back and say I took the chance and did the best I could, I think that’s the best part. That’s important to me, that I actually tried to do something that I really wanted to do.”

For more photos of Misun and Thompson, click on “Photo slideshow” in the top right corner of this article.

Photos by Cory Butzin and Jason Wolverton.