Dan Carey (pictured), MVP of the 1978 State Amateur Baseball Tournament, was in a car accident on Saturday night February 27^th.  Carey blacked out, rolled his car and ended up in a ditch. He was uninjured as he was wearing his seatbelt at the time.

We made it to March and now the amateur baseball world starts to crank up.  Most leagues have met, finalized their schedules and are ready to get things going. The State Board meets on March 13^th and 14^th at the Holiday Inn in St. Cloud.  Both meetings are set to start at 1:00 P.M. 

When I started going to the State Tournament in the middle '70s we always had the worst umpiring that we saw all season.  The State Board did not evaluate umpires and set no real standards for the umpires.  Since the late '90s things have changed.  Now there is an umpire committee that evaluates umpire applications (you can't work the State Tournament unless you apply).  They select the 24 umpires that will work the B and C State Tournaments the first two weekends.  After the first two weekends, the committee members pick the best umpires to work the final weekend of games.

Several people have contacted me and commented that I must really love umpires since I have been writing about them so often.  "Haven't you had some bad calls in your years of playing and managing?" asked one manager.  My reply is that I like good umpires.  And I work to make umpires better by evaluating them.  I also work to eliminate poor umpires.

The Willmar-Bird Island-Spicer State Tournament booth was active over the weekend during TwinsFest. Pictured from left are Jon Rambow, Allison Roehl, Doug Ruter, Leah Ruter,Steve Rambow, Cindy Lahr, and State Board member Dennis Brennan.

When I started my teaching career (it lasted two years) back in 1974, one of the English teachers drew my attention to a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  The gist of it is this:  January 21^st,  Drinking wine this afternoon, I notice the days are getting longer. I have remembered those words ever since.  It signaled to me that Spring is coming and with it baseball season. 

The colleges start baseball on February 1 and Spring Training for Major League Baseball starts in about a month.  Those are good things to think about and it all starts with the days getting longer. 

I recently finished an excellent book by Bruce Weber.  It was about umpires.  The name of the book is As They See 'Em; A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires.  "Oh no, not umpires again," I can just hear you saying. Well, that is what Weber says too.  His book deals with all that goes into preparing and being a professional umpire.  It applies to amateur umpires as well.