Zach Groh’s working on a masterpiece: the Vermont Catamounts have just two hits and zero runs through five innings, and the Bearcats are up in the home half of the fifth. Two men down, two men on, the temperature’s about you-can’t-feel-your-hands degrees at Varsity Field (the other baseball team in town, the Binghamton Mets, had already canceled their game) and Vermont’s battery has gathered on the mound.
Jeff Wertepny waits to get his hacks in with ‘Pop, Lock and Drop it’ playing over the speakers and Warren Bumpus, the umpire behind the plate Friday and a man with a larger physical presence than any player on the field, dusts off the plate.
‘They let you sit next to the heater in the dugout?’ Bumpus asks Wertepny.
‘Oh yeah, sure,’ he jokes back.
The mound meeting over, Wertepny steps in and takes the first pitch: a curveball, strike one looking. The pleasantries for the 53-year-old and 25-year umpiring vet Bumpus, if it could be possible in such cold, are over ‘ back to business.
Bumpus moonlights as a seventh grade math teacher in Syracuse. He used to teach high school. A pitcher for Bucknell in his college days, he wanted to stay involved in the game after college, and his high school neighbor just happened to be in charge of Little League umpiring crews.
‘It’s my way to stay part of that great game,’ Bumpus said, referring to baseball.
Though Bumpus didn’t have to, he went to umpiring school in 1978 at what has now become part of the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring. He didn’t place highly enough to enter the ranks of professional baseball ‘ though he worked some minor league games last season ‘ but worked his way up from high school on through junior college and Division III to Division I. (He’s worked the Cape Cod league as well, seeing top talent such as Detroit Tigers’ 2006 first round draft choice, Andrew Miller.)
One of the first lessons Bumpus learned was to leave the family at home.
‘My wife hasn’t been out to see me in years,’ he said. ‘A long time ago [my family] went to a high school game and my kids were both little and I guess I must’ve angered the fans on one side a little bit, and when they were yelling at me, my one boy turns around and says ‘Don’t yell at him, that’s my father!’ Last game my wife took them to.’
Often, Bumpus is too far from home for the family to tag along. He travels across the Northeast, sometimes as much as four hours away, assigned as part of a three-man crew to work various conferences. Off the field, the travel is the most taxing part of the job. ‘On the field the worst part is two teams that don’t get along together. I’ve had my fair share of [fights],’ Bumpus said.
Dealing with the coaches isn’t that hard ‘ there aren’t many Lou Piniella’s, but in Bumpus’ opinion, they’re all ‘very individual, they’re all different.’
‘I’ve missed my share of calls, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes and, by in large, the coaches are good to me because they think that I work hard at what I do,’ Bumpus said.
Sometimes those arguments at third base aren’t as unpleasant as they may seem.
‘[Coaches] will come out, they’re not complaining about the call, but it looks like they are, so they’ll come out and they’ll say, ‘Hey, I really wasn’t watching this, what happened?’ ‘ In reality it’s not as bad as what the fans and even some of the players are thinking.’
Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki has no complaints.
‘Bumpus is very professional when he does the games. I think his judgment is good, the way he is consistent with the strike zone is good,’ Sinicki said. ‘He’s certainly not a guy [who], when I see him listed, I think to myself, ‘Oh, I got to put up with this guy this weekend.’
Wertepny hit a foul popup to third that at-bat, but Groh continued to deal, ending up with eight strikeouts and the win. Bumpus says to be in position for plays, it’s important to be in good physical shape. On Friday, all he worked out was his right arm, calling Groh’s strikes.
Against Brigham Young University on March 30, Groh allowed seven walks in three innings and said, ‘I felt like I had to throw into a Dixie cup.’ Of how it was with Bumpus behind the plate, he said, ‘I thought he missed about three pitches the entire game, usually it seems like they miss more.’
It matters who’s behind the plate. American League Umpire Nestor Chylak said, ‘They expect an umpire to be perfect on Opening Day and to improve as the season goes on.’ Warren Bumpus might not be perfect in the classic sense of the word, but he is in the America East’s. Maybe he’ll miss only two pitches next time.