Blue

In a dusty, remote corner of one of the "painted lady" warehouses adjacent to the Oakland Ballers cozy West Oakland ballfield, Raimondi Park, the umpires officiating the just finished Ballers' win over the visiting Yolo High Wheelers, sat quietly in their make-shift locker room half-undressed, sipping cold beers from a cooler brought from home by crew chief, Ron Adams.

Though the game ended in a crisp 2:55 thanks to the Pioneer Baseball League's pitch clock-aided pace of play rules, Adams, veteran plate umpire Dean Poteet and 3rd base ump Mike Carr, sat in quiet reflection, reimagining their several close calls, searching for closure to a fairly mundane game that was distracted only once over a complicated balk call by Carr that took some time to get sorted out and, eventually, undone.

"I got that one wrong, I guess," said the diminutive, pleasant-faced Carr. "That was the third disengagement and I shoulda' let it play out instead of calling a balk."

​"Don't matter, Mike," chimed in the congenial Adams. "We finally got it right. That's all that matters."

"You all good, Mike", said Poteet from across the room, still sweaty from a warm night behind the plate while painstakingly packing his armor into a rolling gear bag. His flowing white hair, tamped down from a night behind a mask and under a helmet, contrasted against his reddened skin tone and piercing blue eyes. He licked a beer drop from his bushy white Fu Manchu.

Down to his cup and underwear, a blue and red pastiche of ink drawings adorning his chest and arms, Poteet threw Carr an "I been there before" grin.

Poteet has been around this block before. At 68 years old he's one of the deans (pardon the pun) of Bay Area umpiring, having been in the racket for some 42 years. A native of Louisiana (he pronounces it "Loosanna") and a graduate of LSU, Poteet is soft-spoken, still with a hint of a gumbo-thickened Cajun drawl. Once a working man in the construction trades, Poteet is comfortably retired, but even as a much younger man he was driven by an abiding passion to be connected to baseball, the game he didn't play well, but grew up passionately loving.

After graduating from the prestigious Wendelstadt Umpiring School in Florida at the age of 26, Poteet then embarked on a second career umping D2 and junior college games, banging around remote ballyards all over California, once even getting a stint working the California Junior College Championship.

Finally in street clothes, Poteet savored his beer, seemingly content with his night behind the dish.

​"I can't help going over all those close calls in my head. I work hard to get it right and it bothers me to no end if I miss one. I got about an hour and half drive home up to Santa Rosa; I'll call my wife, Annette, like I always do after a game. She's so even keeled; she's always my biggest supporter. She knows how much this means to me."

Poteet rocked back on his creaky, unsteady chair. Looking over at Mike Carr, engaged in an animated rules debate with Adams, he broke a small, uneven smile.

"Those guys, they're like my brothers. We're a team, we got each other's backs."

Poteet then solemnly lowered his head.

"You know, we don't get paid much, but that's OK. It's tough when we get barked at by players, managers and, yeah, the fans…you know, we're just doing a job. We're doing our best."

After a long swig from his beer can, Poteet absently fiddled with his palm-sized ball/strike indicator. 

"We're human. Sure, we make some mistakes but most of us really care about getting it right, about not getting in the way of the game. I wish people understood that. We want to make sure the game is played right, that's all."

Underscoring his 68 years and the hundreds of foul balls that thudded against all parts of his body, Poteet strode gimpy over to a card table with three Subway sandwiches and a few small bags of chips. He tossed one over each to Adams and Carr while unwrapping his own, peeking gamely between the half rolls to determine what tonight's post-game "spread" held in store.

"They say we're 50% wrong before we even show up at the ballpark," muttered Poteet as he cautiously reentered his seat. "That's why I got no problem with all the replays and computer appeals and such."

In fact, Poteet was the plate umpire in 2015 when the San Rafael Pacifics of the now defunct Pacific Association were the first team in history to experiment with a computerized strike zone. Poteet, ever the gentleman, took it in stride without taking offense.

"Silicon Valley is right around the corner. Our technology is good here so we might as well try it," he said presciently to the media at the time.

Adams' gear bag was now packed, and he offered around a last beer before closing his portable cooler. Standing at a desilvering mirror while running a comb through his silvery mane, Poteet declined, waving goodbye to Adams and Carr with a warm "see ya tomorrow night" before indulging a reflective pause.

"I wouldn't say this in front of them younger guys, but I gotta say I'm worried about my next chapter. I'm 68 and I don't know how much longer they'll let me do this. I still call a good game; my eyes are still good too. Maybe I'm movin' around a little slower but I'm not struggling or anything. I don't want to be done yet, but…"

The key tools of his trade, his eyes, welled up.

"Look, I may be just some D2 ump and, yeah, I can still handle these indie ball games just fine, but it don't matter to me what level I'm at. I'm an umpire. I'm proud of that. I've been working hard on improving my craft for over 40 years. And it's just that, I tell ya, a craft, and I hope with all my heart that I still got some time left to keep on doin' it. It's all I got, it's what I love to do."