Joe Hicks, "in my judgment"

I attended the Harry Wendelstedt Professional Baseball Umpiring School in 2008, on school sabbatical.  For those readers who were not obsessed with national league baseball in the 1980s, Harry Wendelstedt was one of the best-known and most-respected* major league umpires during his 33 year career.  He was a very old man that year when I met him at the school.

*Respected, yes; but Wendelstedt wasn't God.  Doug Harvey was.

Toward the end of the five-week program, I asked some folks back home in central Virginia how I might get into umpiring at the high school level, now that I had serious training.  They told me to call local umpire supervisor Joe Hicks, a name I recognized.  I called.  I told the man on the phone with the Virginia down-home drawl that I was currently at the Wendelstedt school, and that I was interested in doing some umpiring when I returned.

"Oh, Harry!" Joe said.  "How's old Harry doing?  Tell him I said hi.  Oh, and we'll put you on our schedule this spring."  Okay.  That conversation went more easily, and more interestingly, than I anticipated.

Joe Hicks died last week, age 91.  At his funeral, no shortage of folks discussed Joe's friendliness, his kindness, his willingness to assume good faith of others and to offer help to those in need.  And yes, they discussed his baseball prowess.  They told of Joe helping his grandsons with their hitting when they asked.  They told how when Joe, age 70, was handed a bat during a game of stickball on the beach, his one swing ended the game - he hit a beach house that had been out of range for all others.  Joe was a small-town guy who became famous, yet remained humble, who never used his status for self-aggrandizement.  

I first met Joe and his umpiring partner Alex Smith in the early 2000s when I was coaching JV baseball.  They called virtually every game on campus, JV or varsity.  After the game, they would invariably head to our boarding school's dining hall for dinner.  I found out later that Joe deliberately assigned himself to Woodberry games because we were the only school who offered a free meal to go along with the $50 game check.  

I'd occasionally sit with Joe and Alex.  We'd talk baseball, and baseball umpiring.  Even before my foray to umpire school, I had a reputation on campus as a baseball rules expert; but here were two folks who were truly expert, and who were excited to teach me things.  Joe never let on about his history in the major leagues.  Alex let a couple things slip, bragging about how Joe had played for Casey Stengel, or how Joe had hit a walk-off home run off of Don Larson in the Polo Grounds.  Joe just said, "well, I did, but we didn't call it a 'walk-off' in those days."  

Joe welcomed me into the local association for the 2008 season.  He made sure I had a well-seasoned and supportive partner for my first-ever game.  After that game, Joe called me up to ask me how it went.  "Well, I didn't do anything crazy-bad, but I'm not happy with calling balls and strikes.  I know I missed two curve balls that dropped in for strikes."

"You only missed two pitches in the whole game?  I mean, that's great work!  You got hundreds right, then," he said.  Well done, Joe - being kind, building up the first-time umpire's confidence.  

What sticks with me about my umpiring conversations with Joe is how he taught me, and all umpires in the association, to handle conflict.  Again and again, an umpire would describe a tough situation they* had encountered; and Joe would recommend starting the explanation with a folksy, "coach, in my judgment..." 

* No, not necessarily "he".  Joe's association, in 2008, was the most diverse group of umpires I'd seen.  At umpire school, of 120 trainee umpires from all over the western hemisphere, 119 were white-looking folks, including one woman.  In Charlottesville, there were men of multiple colors, and many racially diverse women.  That's more usual in 2023, but Joe had reached across racial and gender lines before that was common in the hidebound world of umpires.

Joe's thesis was, the umpire is there for the express purpose of making judgments.  If the umpire sticks to that purpose, a coach has little room for argument.  An emphatic "I'm telling you, your runner was out" as a statement of fact practically demands the angry coach to riposte, "no he wasn't!"  But a calm "coach, in my judgment, the catcher put the tag on before the runner touched the plate" has a disarming quality.  Sure, the coach can give his version of events... but rather than emotionally charged statements of conflicting facts, the discussion becomes one of conflicting judgment.  And the umpire is the one paid to use their judgment to keep the game moving.  

I've used Joe's phrase - even his intonation! - "in my judgment," hundreds of time since 2008.  And only occasionally on the baseball field.  Usually, I'm discussing a student's placement (or lack of placement) in an advanced science course.  Or a failing student's plan to improve.  Or my observations of an interpersonal conflict on dorm.  Or a disciplinary matter at boarding school.  Or a problem I've graded.  "In my judgment, this response does not state that acceleration, not velocity, is to the left, and so does not earn the point."  I'm employed by my school precisely for my experience in putting forth this sort of physics judgment.  The 14 year old responding "well, in *my* judgment, it does" sounds silly.    

I miss you, Joe.  Rest in peace.