Kate Hart is a working mom and a golfer but during baseball season she can be found out on the field – umpiring for Tassajara Valley Little League.
Tassajara American and Tassajara National have 100 teens doing the job. Hart is one of its few female umpires, and perhaps the only adult female umpire.
“I love to teach and coach, so that’s why I do what I do,” Hart said. “Umpires usually start at age 13, and it is a tremendous learning experience that teaches organization, responsibility and leadership.”
Hart volunteered to be on the TVLL board three years ago when the organization needed someone to fill the Umpire in Chief position. She loves baseball and has been playing softball all her life. She also coached her son in Little League and figured if she was going to train umpires that she had better know everything about it. As a result, she went to the training session held by the District 57 umpires.
“Beginning umpires attend a three-hour ‘mechanics’ and a seven-hour rules training session,” she said. “Additionally, we have four to five hours of classroom training. Second-year umpires attend the rules and mechanics sessions again or take an advanced mechanics class or a rules test.”
More experienced umpires take advanced classes including mechanics for the larger baseball diamonds. A few umpires attend weeklong camps such as the Western Region Junior Umpire School. Before the season begins, Hart said, she attends or instructs 35 hours of training.
The Umpire in Chief position is volunteer. Some umpires in the league choose to be paid, Hart said, or they can elect to volunteer.
Umpiring can be very difficult, she noted.
“My worst experience was having to return an apparent winning run to third base because the runner left a base early on a hit in a championship game,” she said, explaining it is a Little League rule. “The fans went ballistic, mostly because they did not know the rule and anticipated the runner would be called out rather than returned to third base. Luckily, the next batter drove him in to win the game so the result was the same.”
This time of year the newly trained umpires start to get comfortable in their roles, Hart said.
“They begin the season nervous about the whole process, and go through their usual beginner mistakes for their first two to three games,” she said. “All of a sudden they start putting everything together. They begin to gain confidence and really enjoy their role and become hungry to learn more and take on more responsibility.”
Hart explained what makes a good umpire: “Focus, a calm demeanor, humility, desire to learn and improve, the discipline involved in learning and applying rules, the ability to anticipate what might happen, and the understanding that you’re to facilitate the game, not dominate it.”
The smile on Hart’s face seems to reflect the pure enjoyment of her important role as umpire. Being a working mom, umpiring every weekend and carrying a single digit handicap in golf proves that she has mastered another one of the skills of umpiring – organization.
