Honor Among Honours

Yes folks, what you've read on the CNN news wire is true -- after months of speculation, I have in fact been awarded the inaugural DCcityBall Player of the Week honors! I have many people and shovels to thank. First off...I couldn't have done this without the help of Jesus, the rest of DCcityBall, and a pretty healthy stout addiction.

Umpiring is not my job or hobby, nay! it is my calling. I would like to regale you all with a brief anecdote, regarding my origins in the officiating vocation. Let me take you back to the year nineteen hundred and ninety-nine( or MCMXCIX for you Romans and film copyrighters out there): I was a troubled unemployed youth looking for answers, Y2K was wreaking havoc on the world, a young two-testicled phenom named Lance was dazzling cyclists for the first time in France, and Brian Littrell was steadily killing rock music with hypnotic dance-pop beats and killer white-boy dance moves.

On one of my frequent stallion rides out into the country ( I was trying to clear my mind, and get "Quit playin' games with my Heart" out of my head) I came across a lowly beggar-man, wrapped in burlap clothes. As I passed him on my galloping steed, he reached his hand out for alms, but I ignored his request and rode on. Miles down the path, my stallion, Mr. Black-Patches, got spooked by a water-moccasin and bucked me into the thorny brush. Hours later, I came to, badly injured and thirsty as the large vague outline of a man interrupted the sunlight's warmth on my face -- that day, my friends, I saw a vision . It was he, the beggar-man I had passed by on my horse, and as he pushed back his burlap hood, I saw that it was HIM. Eric Gregg, National League Umpire! Creator of the 24 inch plate! Eater of chicken wings!

He touched my hand and I was instantly healed, my thirst quenched. He said to me "Go now." But I hesitated. I told him that he saved my life after I had passed him by and refused him alms. He explained that this was the Umpire Code -- "Always help those in need, and THEN demand payment."
"What can I do to repay you, Mr. Gregg," I asked.
He said, "Take this," and handed me a trinket which looked to be made of the most glorious gold this side of the Aztecs(but upon further inspection was indeed plastic). This, he explained, was a very special artifact. It was his umpires clicker. This clicker, Gregg told me, would not only keep track of balls and strikes, but innings, and outs, for that matter. It glowed like the gilded pages of the Holy Bible, and its fluorescent green discs clacked like the tap shoes of Christ Himself.

"You are one of us now, young lad, until you repay your debt -- 10 years, or 100 dollars." It being 1999, and me being completely unemployed, I shook his hand and committed 10 years service to the sports officiating profession.
That day I became an umpire and a man -- I've been both ever since.

Flash forward 9 years into the future, and here I am, proud member of the DcCityball family, still holding that magical clicker, still keeping track of every inning, and still thinking of that wondrous day in which the cosmos reached out to me, and I high-fived the crap out of it.

I'll leave you with the words that Eric Gregg left me on that fateful afternoon --
"In life, you gotta either swing, or get rung up, Bitch. Swing or get rung up...."

Thanks folks,
Play ball!