Title Significance

The title of my memoir is As they see ‘em. In a literal sense, this means that during a game, the umpires call plays based on how they see the play. If the plate umpire, for example, sees that the ball was a strike, he will call it a strike. The players and the managers might have seen the pitch differently, and they may come out and argue with the umpire. However, no matter how much the players and managers argue, the umpire will still stand by his decision. The umpire is required to stick by his decision, even if he realizes that he called the wrong thing, because if he changes the call based on what players and managers say they saw, he is undermining his position as the authority on the field. If the umpire undermines his position as the authority, he loses respect from players and managers.

This also ties in to the figurative meaning of the title, which is that umpires are the main authority on the field, and thus are required to be treated with respect. Sadly, as the author points out several times throughout the memoir, most umpires do not receive such respect on the field. If players and managers do not agree with a call that the umpire has made, they will fight with the umpire rather than accept his decisions. Umpires do not receive much respect off the field either. For example, on page 230, the author was interviewing an umpire who had called a perfect game in 1999. (A perfect game is when there are no walks, hits, or errors for one team). The umpire said that people had been calling all around about the game, but nobody had congratulated him for calling the game. “For a few days afterwards, I was thinking, ‘A perfect game. And nobody cares’” (230). Without this umpire, the perfect game might not have occurred. A different umpire might have called things differently and the game could have ended up being 10-0 for the other team.  This quote shows that many fans take the umpire for granted, and that most people don’t appreciate the work that the umpires put in and how essential they are to the game. The title As they see ‘em shows that the umpire is definitely worthy of respect and that he deserves respect for the hard work he does on the baseball field.