Umpires Get Chance to Meet America’s First Fan
By Alan Schwarz, NYTimes
So 40 players and staff on each All-Star team got 15-minute clubhouse drop-ins from the president? Big deal. The six umpires got 10 minutes all to themselves.
“For the leader of the free world to take the time to talk to us lowly umpires was just incredible,” the left-field ump Tim Timmons said. “I barely remember it, I was just in awe.”
Umpires rarely allow interlopers in their cramped quarters before or after games, but they broke the rule Tuesday night about a half-hour before festivities began. President Obama, his aide Reggie Love, a few Secret Service personnel and five Major League Baseball officials — including Commissioner Bud Selig — squeezed into the umpires’ room after Obama had visited the players.
“He asked most of the questions, like how much time we umpires spend on the road,” Timmons said. “He asked for Dana DeMuth. He said, ‘Where’s Dana? Where’s the chief?’ ”
The umpires took the opportunity to have the president autograph home plates and baseballs to be auctioned next February to benefit their charity, Umps Care, which focuses on hospitalized children. (The home plates bore the signatures of all six umpires around Obama’s.) He also signed one baseball for each ump, no doubt because they’re known as the men in blue.
Shockingly, the umpires did not offer advice on President Obama’s primary umpiring concern: getting Judge Sonia Sotomayor confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I’ve never met a sitting president, so this was definitely a lifetime highlight,” Timmons said. “He just strikes you as a cool guy who just wants to sit around and talk baseball.”
