CINCINNATI — The corridor was almost silent as Mark Carlson and three other major league umpires clapped the field last month. For a few moments they were out of earshot of almost everyone else in the Great American Ball Park.
A microphone embedded on Carlson’s chest protector threatened to change that after the first pitch: it could allow Carlson to address anyone watching the game in the stadium or on a screen, or listening to a broadcast.
Baseball umpire crew chiefs no longer refer to balls and shots simply, safe or out, fair or foul. This season, after hours of training and rehearsals in the shower and, in some cases, more elaborate efforts to limit stage fright, they’ve been asked to explain some of the sport’s trickiest rules interpretations to stadiums packed with angry crowds. And now that the playoffs are well under way through early November, they will be doing so for a large television audience of casual fans who are more likely to Tweet something toxic than consult, say, Rule 6.01(i)(1).
“You don’t have to rush through the announcement just to get through it,” said Carlson, who joined the major league staff in 1999 and couldn’t imagine one day resembling an NFL umpire announcing a call. “You take your time. If you need to take that breath before you start speaking, breathe in, get comfortable, mentally prepare what you’re going to say, and move on from there.
“Over time, your comfort makes it easier, I think,” he added in an interview in the softly lit referee’s suite in Cincinnati.
MLB umpires, the last officials in North America’s major men’s professional leagues to explain the calls to viewers, face their most salient test yet. With tens of millions of people set to watch baseball in the coming weeks, umpires will rely on the skills they’ve honed this season and the nuances they’ve learned: how stadium acoustics can vary so much like the game on the outfields, the lines of sight Least likely to get distractions in the middle of the announcement from the pace of speech.
“The hardest thing is working with the noise of the crowd. Do I stop talking over the noise of the crowd? Can I make it through?” said Dan Iassogna, who joins Carlson in leading a team in a divisional series this week.
Also, Iassogna said, “as soon as I say ‘overturned,’ they will start screaming.”
For umpires and baseball managers, the in-game explanations were a predictable, albeit untimely, outcome of the replay review system that has become an integral part of the game. Since the current system was introduced in 2014 – it was limited to home run decisions when it was introduced in 2008 – officials have re-examined more than 11,000 calls.
But with referees generally offering no more than hand gestures to the public up until this season, even seasoned broadcasters have sometimes been at a loss to report what officials were even investigating.
“We were just guessing,” said Brian Anderson, a spokesman for the Milwaukee Brewers and Turner Sports. “Before the announcements, I would say, ‘You could do an A, B, or C,’ and that doesn’t really educate the fan. I’m grasping at straws, and you would realize after the game, “We didn’t challenge that. We did this.” And then you feel like an idiot.”
Anderson would like umpires to announce more decisions, such as sackings, that come after someone complained too many times, too loudly, or too mundanely from a dugout.
Justin Klemm, MLB vice president of replays, said the notion of on-field announcements had long been considered but gained prominence after the 2019 season. The pandemic delayed her debut, in part due to the training referees received as they prepared for a role that would be more public than ever.
Umpires, regardless of seniority, participated in video conferences, and team bosses, newly outfitted with hardware, attended special sessions at MLB parks in Arizona and Florida during spring training. Perhaps more important were the prepared scripts that the judges recited, with the occasional tinkering rooted in a personality or moment.
For example, to check whether a runner scored before the third out, umpires use two of eight possible frameworks, their choice depending on whether a manager or the crew chief initiated the check. Reconsiderations conducted by umpires who conduct rotations in New York and communicate their decisions to umpires on the field may result in a call being confirmed, stood or overturned.
Even if they were familiar with public speaking, the umpires said, they still had to face the peculiar learning curve that comes with addressing abruptly to large audiences without notes — especially after generations of public silence. Some umpires sought advice from officials in the NBA, NFL, and NHL, much like baseball executives informally consult with contacts in those leagues about training and equipment.
Even among umpires like Carlson, who aren’t afraid of the limelight, a fundamental mission loomed alongside making the right decision: “You don’t want to embarrass yourself.”
“This is a whole new system for all of us,” he said, “and it’s something you want to be successful in.”
The tensions that accompany professional sports almost made the training produce only limited readiness. Iassogna recalled an opening-day announcement in Philadelphia as an “out-of-body experience.”
“I heard myself better,” he said. “It wasn’t a great announcement because I listened to how I sounded.”
The tweaks continued throughout the season as referees flew across the country, studying videos that arrived almost daily, and sometimes texting each other feedback and wisdom gleaned at one stadium or another. The press box in Pittsburgh? Difficult place to exercise your eyes as it is so high. The transmitters at Camden Yards in Baltimore? Too low. Don’t dare eye contact with a fan. Remember, strangely enough, what you hear may not be what everyone else is hearing.
“Sometimes I click into the stadium and say, ‘Cincinnati challenges the out call,’ and all you hear is the echo, like there’s a malfunction. You hear like a screeching noise,” Carlson said. But, he added, “what they hear on TV and what they hear in the booth isn’t.”
And the people who listen to TV or radio? You also have many thoughts.
“My market research is my father, and my father will criticize my announcements,” said Iassogna, whose father spent years playing high school football. “He likes the explanations. He is very critical of how I present the explanations.”
The announcements have changed relatively little for players and managers, who have often been able to elicit more details. That hasn’t always stopped them from scouting the referee corps’ newly observed Toastmaster-like talents.
“They all seem like they’d rather not do it,” said Aaron Loup, a Los Angeles Angels assistant who said he noticed small differences in the way umpires expressed themselves. “I have to agree with you: I’d rather not do it myself.”
The referees assume that the system will remain in place.
“It’s an accepted part of the routine, it’s an accepted part of the game, and as time goes on we announce better,” Carlson said. “It’s obviously here to stay.”
Then, just before he put on the microphone, which could project his voice far from the banks of the Ohio River, he chuckled nervously.
Scott Miller contributed coverage from Anaheim, California.