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on a stool looking out at the students, and Dad was talking, pacing back and forth at the front of the room. There was something about my dad, something hard to name, that screamed
teacher
. It might have been the way he’d stop pacing and roll back on his heels. That always seemed like a teacher thing to me. I happened to know this was his secret way of stretching his hamstrings. Or something like that. But it really did make him look like someone in charge.
    When you looked at umpires at a major league game, so many of them seemed to be big, overweight guys. But they didn’t leave umpire school looking that way—most students were in their twenties, and BTP had had guys as young as eighteen. (And we once had a sixty-eight-year-old guy from Canada.)
    Seeing major league players in person was always surprising. They looked bigger than they did on TV, like supersized humans. Umpire-school students looked more like the way you’d expect a baseball player to look, without the supersizing.
    Dad was going over the necessity of wearing a cup at all times. I scanned the seats for June Sponato, and before I found her, Zeke poked me in the stomach with his elbow and pointed at her. As predicted, she was not a supermodel. I glanced at Zeke, but he didn’t look disappointed. In fact, he was beaming. He lived for this. We both did. (You probably got that already. And if not, hello? Is everything okay over there?)
    Dad was near the end of his lesson. “We’ve gone over some of the most basic rules and interpretations of the rules. We’ll be doing that through the whole five weeks. And just so everyone understands the process from day one, here’s how our Umpire Academy works. At the end of five weeks of intense education, training, and drills, we will select the top students based on your performance here in the classroom and, even more so, out on the field. Up to ten of you will have the opportunity to attend the Professional Baseball Umpire Corp. Evaluation Course for minor league umpires in Cocoa, Florida, next March. As you know, that’s pretty much where you audition to be selected as minor league umpires. From there, you can work your way up to the major leagues. But you can’t get there if you don’t do your work here.”
    I looked around the room for familiar faces. Sometimes students who didn’t make it to PBUC came back for another try. No one in this group looked familiar to me, though.
    â€œWe’re going to finish up in here, then head to the field for some stretches and drills,” he said. “When you’ve finished your drills, I want Groups A and B to report to field one for filming. Everybody turn around and wave to my son, Casey, and his friend Zeke back there in the last row.”
    There was a loud rustle as heads turned around to look at us. People nodded or smiled or put up a hand to say hi. Some had smirks on their faces, like,
Look! Little kids!
Probably the same way Zeke and I looked when Sly came into the gym yesterday.
    â€œThose boys are two of the hardest workers you’re ever going to want to meet.”
    I knew I was turning colors that were more natural in fruit and flowers than they were in human persons. I liked what he was saying—kind of loved it—but it hurt my face when this much blood went there.
    â€œThey are going to film your technique beginning this afternoon,” Dad said. “You will not be judged on your performance today, as we understand that some of you have more experience than others. Each of you will leave here with, in addition to your filmed batting cage work, a before-and-after video. I don’t mean to sound like an infomercial here, boys. Boys and June, that is. But I stand up here today to guarantee that even those of you coming here with years of experience will see a huge difference in the work you do, in your body language, your confidence, your authority, your stance, your posture, your