{"id":551,"date":"2024-03-28T01:59:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=551"},"modified":"2024-02-18T16:57:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:57:31","slug":"blood-run-st-joes-to-st-johns-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=551","title":{"rendered":"Blood Run St. Joes to St. Johns [1979]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who’s first at the Bus?<\/em><\/p>\n

After leaving Bob in Seattle (read “Florida Rescue Mission”) and Amtraking back to St. Paul to seek my fortune, first thing was finding a job.  My old college friend Giles provided me a temporary residence.  Next morning I went to Parks & Recreation to see if they needed umpires.  \u201cCan you do this afternoon\u2019s North St. Paul \u2013 Stillwater game,\u201d Hap Holmgren asked me, \u201cwe got a home plate ump, but we need a base ump?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d I said, not even having an umpire\u2019s blue shirt, nor an indicator, nor a vehicle to get to North St. Paul.  Took the bus.  The teams were on the field, but the home plate ump hadn\u2019t arrived by game time so I called the coaches to the mound, and said I would call the game from behind the pitcher\u2019s mound, asked if they had an indicator to spare,<\/p>\n

\"What<\/a>

What indicates a Home Run?<\/p><\/div>\n

and explained that I hadn\u2019t umped in years so the Rules might have changed, but I had good baseball judgment:  \u201cIf there\u2019s a ruling that doesn\u2019t fit with any new rules, just call time out and bring me the Rule Book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d they said.  In the top of the first a Stillwater batter clouts one way back and because I couldn\u2019t wait to show I knew the signal for a home run, I circled my right hand in the air.  Only the ball drops a foot short of the fence; the right fielder takes it off the wall on one hop and twirls making a perfect throw to second base; meanwhile the batter, who had broken into his home run trot seeing my signal, was loping into second when the throw arrived and easily tagged out.   \u201cTime!\u201d I said, and ruled it a ground rule double, a satisfactory solution.  But, like one of the coaches told me, \u201cSon, you\u2019ve always got time to give the home run signal, make sure it\u2019s over the fence first.\u201d  Fortunately the plate umpire showed up just after that.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow:  Two Dead Bodies<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

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Who’s first at the Bus? After leaving Bob in Seattle (read “Florida Rescue Mission”) and Amtraking back to St. Paul to seek my fortune, first thing was finding a job.  My old college friend Giles provided me a temporary residence.  … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1745,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}