Umpires Tuneup Tournament underway

CLOVIS — The softball season never really ends in Clovis. Even in the snowfall, there's no problem finding people to get together a scrimmage, or at least a batting practice.

"If you don't know somebody in this town who plays softball," softball player, coach and parent Jesus Ramirez said, "there's something wrong with you."

There is, however, an official start in late March of every season. This year, 68 teams are on hand in the Clovis Softball Association Umpires Tuneup Tournament at Guy Leeder Softball Complex.

The tournament, in its 16th season, has two purposes. The first is to help veteran umpires get back into the flow and teach new umpires what the process is like before league play starts this week. Second, proceeds from the tournament help pay for meals and travel when Clovis umps are needed in other tournaments.

"The ultimate goal," said Jeff Greene, one of many tournament directors for the CSA, "is wherever the umpire is from, you can't tell because the mechanics are the same way."

Greene has also been an umpire in the past, and when the situation demands it now, and he said it's a tough job where you have to let things roll off your back. Every call that matters, Greene said, is going to make 50 percent of the people on the field furious.

"That was all chalk," Ramirez yells with a smile, after umpire Tyler Roberts rules a screamer down the third-base line was foul.

Ramirez, waiting to play for Mestizo, was helping out with Hatermade, a team that includes his son and many of the same teammates for seven years.

In just a few of those innings were a few examples of bang-bang plays. Hatermade needed one more batter to end an inning when the first baseman trapped the throw on a double-play ball, and lost a chance at a go-ahead run when a base runner got caught off second.

The team still found a way to pull a 23-22 win over Hostility. Robert Jimenez, who umpired the game with Roberts, said it was a great game to watch. You felt great for Hatermade grinding out a win, but feel sick for Hostility because it had multiple chances to end the game via mercy rule after a 16-0 first inning.

Jimenez laughed as he recalled numerous times where players will try to talk the umpire into saying he saw something that didn't match the call he made, but he said players understand they're judgment calls.

"As long as you keep a calm, cool head and remember you are the professional out here, you'll be fine," said Jimenez. "This is a good wake-up call to see if this is something (the new umpires) would like."

Meanwhile, Tournament Director Roger Jackson is having his own argument with an official. There's a loose dog in the city-owned softball park, and he's asking animal control to come get it. The dog hasn't been aggressive, but Jackson's concerned the dog will become aggressive as a defense mechanism because it's around hundreds of strangers.

Jackson said in the tournament's early days, it was more training camp than anything else.

"It's gotten to where it's a full-blown tournament," Jackson said. "They'll still train the new guys, but it's not to where they'll stop the game (to explain calls)."

As much as they kid with umpires, the players admit they have some of the area's better umpires. Ramirez said he went to a tournament last year in Mansfield, Texas. In their three guaranteed games, two of them were worked by Clovis umpires.

When asked what their favorite heckle of an ump is, Alfonso Orajeda said, "Just one?" to a chorus of laughs.

"If you argue it, it's not going to make the call any better," Orajeda says with a smile. "It's like that commercial where it looks like they're getting together to talk about the call, but they're really saying, 'You point your fingers this way, and I'll point my hand that way.'"