2025 umpires
Fred Dresser
The two words mentioned above are bellowed by the men and women in blue, aka umpires, to alert the players that the game is now ready to play. How the game is played at this point is a mystery.
What is an umpire? The word umpire was formed by meta analysis, or the changing of the division of words based upon how they sound together. The original word in English was noumpere, which was a borrowing of the French term nompere. The -pere of nompere was the French word for “equal,” a descendant of the Latin word par (“equal”) that is the root of words like peer, pair, and, of course, par. Noumpere became the form used in English for “one without equal” or “peerless,” but frequent references to a noumpere ended up becoming references to an oumpere, which became the modern word umpire. It’s ironic that the word for a person who literally calls balls and strikes is called by a name created by a linguistic foul.
The men and women in blue that officiate the PebbleCreek Senior Softball Association games played at the Robson Field of Dreams volunteer their time to umpire the games. In many cases the umpire is a player as well. Calls are made during a game where a call is questioned by one of the managers. Conversations take place between the manager and the umpires where the call is confirmed or changed.
Pictured are those individuals who make the calls that we agree or disagree with.
Smart managers will never question the umpire’s call. Their eyesight maybe but not the call.