Perry Barber - Leads a path for girls & women to become umpires & baseball players

BaseballBiz On Deck - Perry Barber, Umpire
 Leading a path to the game of baseball for girls & women as umpires & players 

[00:00:00] Mark Corbett: Welcome to Baseball Biz on Deck. I am Mark Corbett, your host. And with me, I had the distinct honor of having Perry Barber here today, umpire extraordinary and advocate for everything when it comes to women's baseball.

[00:00:13] Mark Corbett: Welcome Perry. How are you 

[00:00:14] Mark Corbett: doing today?

[00:00:15] Perry Barber: I'm feeling much more energetic after that introduction, Mark. Thank you. I almost felt like I was back on Jeopardy. 

[00:00:23] Mark Corbett: That's right. You are a person of multi talents. I look across at what you went ahead and you were the lead band before Springsteen took the stage.

[00:00:33] Mark Corbett: You were a Jeopardy champion. You, as far as diversity and putting your toe in the water and trying different things and actually succeeding at them, excelling at them, that, that's very encouraging. And wow. Tell us a little bit about that. The Jeopardy thing for what? 

[00:00:53] Perry Barber: I've just basically spent my entire adult life doing everything I can to avoid getting a real job. 

[00:01:01] Perry Barber: Going on Jeopardy! was just one one episode. I've actually been on, I think, six or seven quiz shows, and I've been the champion on four. I believe. So the money that I've won on quiz shows during my adult life has helped me through some otherwise impecunious episodes, shall we say. And going on Jeopardy was.

[00:01:28] Perry Barber: Definitely a highlight because I actually was a champion when I was 19 years old in 1972 on the original version with Art Fleming and Don Pardo and I won one game. And lost my game that I went back to defend my championship. And then 16 years later, I was allowed to go back on the Alex Trebek version of jeopardy.

[00:01:54] Perry Barber: And I was pitted against a player who was going for his fifth win and they had totally revamped the buzzer system. So I attribute my. abject failure and going down in flames on that program to that, that the guy had the buzzer system down to a split second science. And so I started answering questions that I didn't say the answer in my mind.

[00:02:20] Perry Barber: And I did not do well on that third show, but. It has bestowed upon me the unique distinction of being one of the, I may be the only Jeopardy champion that's ever won once and lost twice, because usually it's the other way around. You have to win twice and lose once. 

[00:02:41] Mark Corbett: That, that does amaze me and your love of music, but one thing.

[00:02:48] Perry Barber: Oh, and by the way, on that one appearance on Jeopardy, I won a grand total of 660. I was 19 years old in 1972. That would have been the equivalent of winning 6, 600, because back then it was 10, not 100. That 660 bought me a sublet just off of Park Avenue in New York for the entire summer and kept me in beer and Skittles because along with the money, I got a year's supply of Rice A Roni and Bon Ami cleanser.

[00:03:27] Perry Barber: So I was set for food, place to live, stuff to clean with. And yeah, that one Jeopardy! appearance saw me through to my 20th birthday. 

[00:03:38] Mark Corbett: That is exciting. To be able to take that and make a whole summer more out of it. My gosh, that almost takes you back to fraternity and ramen noodles and beer. 

[00:03:52] Perry Barber: And believe it or not, back in 1972, you could eat pretty well in New York if you knew where to go.

[00:03:58] Perry Barber: And New York is an amazing town and I'm very fortunate to have grown up there and still live there part time. 

[00:04:06] Mark Corbett: So a native New Yorker. Wow. But man I want to go back to Jeopardy for a moment. Because it correct me if I'm wrong, but it was the starting point that brought you into baseball 

[00:04:22] Perry Barber: in a roundabout way.

[00:04:23] Perry Barber: Yes, absolutely. Because of my fascination with trivia and absorbing facts about things that are totally meaningless until you go on Jeopardy or you want to impress your friends. And so I became friends with, a guy named Barry Bell, who was at the time in the William Morris mailroom, which is the place where a lot of famous music agents and managers started out.

[00:04:54] Perry Barber: And at the time, he was the assistant road manager for Bruce Springsteen, who was represented by William Morris. And the road manager, I think, had a nervous breakdown. So Barry got bumped up. and became Bruce's road manager, and they've had a 40 year relationship. They're like this. And I became fast friends with Barry because I was Bruce's opening act three times at colleges around New Jersey during 1975.

[00:05:27] Perry Barber: And we just became fast friends. And then his sister wound up hiring me to work for Gladys Knight and the Pips just before I started umpiring. And that was one of the very few actual real jobs I've ever had in my life. And it was a great job. I loved it. I loved working in that office. We handled Gladys and the pips and the temptations and songwriter named Eugene McDaniels, who wrote a hundred pounds of clay and some other great songs of the 1950s, 60s.

[00:06:04] Perry Barber: And I learned a lot about music administration, about what happens to a song after it gets written, and how it makes money, and how licensing agreements work, and things like that. So I had a very great time. And when I started umpiring in 1981, my boss there would let me go early to umpire games in Central Park at 3.

[00:06:28] Perry Barber: 30. So I, I wouldn't, I, I had a job to go back to and they were very generous with And then when it got to the point where I would say my mother needs me in California because her husband had just died of cancer, and I was helping her keep her ex husband's business alive and not her ex husband, her deceased husband's business alive.

[00:06:50] Perry Barber: And. They would let me go for a month, two months at a time during which time was when I started to umpire out there at my mother's suggestion in the summer of 1981. And I think I've probably told you Mark, but if my mother had not suggested to me that I started umpiring to this day, I don't think there.

[00:07:13] Perry Barber: There is anything in my background or my frame of reference back then that would have led me to the ball field. I don't think I ever would have thought of umpiring as something that I would be able to do or enjoy if my mother hadn't suggested it to me. And how amazing is it that she did in 1981 for a mother to suggest to her granddaughter that she should become a baseball umpire.

[00:07:42] Perry Barber: It just. Boggles my mind when I think about it, even now, how amazing it was that she did that for me 

[00:07:51] Mark Corbett: We're also fortunate if we have parents that are in our lives and who can make a difference they can they can open up a path. Pardon me. They can open up a path that we might not necessarily see one quick story about me.

[00:08:09] Mark Corbett: They gave me a tape recorder when I was a small child. And when all the friends and family would come over, I would hide underneath the dinner table and record conversations and then do interviews. Yeah. Oh, a little cheesy. Yeah. It was terrible, but it was, they had been up for me into radio years later, but yeah, 

[00:08:30] Perry Barber: investigative reporting.

[00:08:33] Mark Corbett: But the thing with you too like you said, your mom's opening this door for you and you're in your mind, but then you went ahead and ran with it. 

[00:08:42] Perry Barber: And she regretted it ever after I never dreamed you would be traveling the world instead of settling down and giving me grandchildren.

[00:08:55] Perry Barber: And I said my sister and my brother did that. And you never complain when I invite you down to spring training to watch me umpire some Mets games. 

[00:09:05] Mark Corbett: There you go, man. 

[00:09:08] Perry Barber: Because it turned out she was a huge baseball fan, which never registered with me when I was growing up because I had, I was completely ambivalent about it, had no interest in it.

[00:09:18] Perry Barber: And so when I fell in love with it on my own because my friend, Barry Bell kept challenging me to. baseball trivia, and I didn't know any baseball trivia, so I decided to educate myself. And the minute I started reading about it in books, I just felt totally head over heels in love with it, with the lore and the old time players and the stories about what happened back in the 1870s and the early 1900s.

[00:09:46] Perry Barber: And there's just so much about baseball history that Is so revelatory of human nature and of American history in general, and that I had not stumbled upon that until I was 27 years old. I started making up for lost time as soon as I picked up three books about baseball when I. said to myself, I want to learn something about baseball so I can beat my friend Barry Bell.

[00:10:15] Perry Barber: And I picked up three books and from that moment on, I never stopped reading about it. I must've read 500 books in the next year. And that was before I ever even went to see a baseball game. Really? I never, I didn't go see, no I finally, after a year. I had a boyfriend who was a baseball fan and I said look I know who was on third base when Fred Merkel didn't touch second in 1908, but I can't tell you why the fielder throws.

[00:10:47] Perry Barber: First base with two outs when there's a runner coming home from third trying to score. So I said, you have to take me to see a baseball game. And because it was New York, I had either the Yankees or the Mets. And he took me to see the Yankees and this is 1977. And the Yankees were amazing they had Greg Nettles, Reggie Jackson, all those great pitchers, Tommy John, but something about them just left me totally unmoved.

[00:11:16] Perry Barber: It was like the old joke about rooting for the Yankees. It's like rooting for us steel, but I went to see the Mets. And in 1977, the Mets were pretty inept as a team, but individually very talented. And there was just something so endearing about them. And I just immediately fell in love with them.

[00:11:39] Perry Barber: That was the era of Doug Flynn and Frank Tavares and Craig Swan and Pat Zachary and Jerry Grody and Tom Seaver came a few years later, but that was the beginning of the metamorphosis of the Mets from lovable losers of 1962, the early 1960s to the powerhouse dark horse that they became at in 1969 and after which people started expecting them to win.

[00:12:11] Perry Barber: And now every year we get our hearts broken, but yeah. Yeah 

[00:12:18] Mark Corbett: I won't go down a trip too long, but I know that looking at Steve Cohen when he came in, I felt like, okay, here's another rich gap, but he's a fan. I really felt like he's a fan. He's going to build this team. I don't care if you buy a championship, if you put enough talent out there on the field.

[00:12:36] Mark Corbett: Great. And it just happened. He bought, he had some really strong talent there. He had some good pitching and, but the Mets, I get it. Oh, it's, I don't know. We'll see what we see what happens this year. Cause are you 

[00:12:52] Perry Barber: know, they had a good year and getting into the post season is such a crap shoot.

[00:12:58] Perry Barber: Now. It's not like it used to be where the best teams faced each other. And usually the best team won. Now it's like the bottom seed. Can make it all the way to the World Series. It's just the vagaries of the way the game is administered these days. And yeah, you're right. That Steve Cohen actually seems to love baseball and be a fan and it makes such a difference, when you hear things, the commissioner says about how Oakland A's fans, they still have a team to root for when the A's go to Las Vegas they can just switch to the San Francisco Giants. And yeah no, that's not how. It works with people that really love baseball, love their team, and he just doesn't seem to grok that and it's mystifying how he can, but I guess he's insulated from that by all the money.

[00:14:01] Perry Barber: I 

[00:14:03] Mark Corbett: hope I cannot. I think most baseball fans scratch your head. Most times that Rob Bamford opens his mouth, and he I'm sure he's a wonderful individual and all that but good Lord. It's piece of metal saying that sort of thing. And I'd really believe that they should be a little earwick inside of all of these, the commissioners and owners, anytime they step in front of a mic and somebody should say, don't say that, or give them some guidance because it, they seem to lose something there.

[00:14:33] Mark Corbett: I got in the bandwagon and myself and a couple of others on the last show saying, Hey, I want Kim Ng in there is my new commissioner of baseball. I thought, here's a strong woman. She's been. Yeah, she's been with Major League Baseball. She was with the Yankees with Cashman and was instrumental in bringing Cole in.

[00:14:53] Mark Corbett: She was with the Marlins. And yeah, I would have left them. I don't think anybody would when they run. 

[00:15:02] Perry Barber: Oh, 

[00:15:03] Mark Corbett: I didn't realize that. No. 

[00:15:05] Perry Barber: She and her husband are vendors and they put out some very high quality wine. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, it's too bad that there aren't more women in the running for that particular office right now, as with umpire woman umpire on the major league umpiring staff.

[00:15:24] Perry Barber: It's long past time. Hey, I was even rooting for Condoleezza Rice to become the commissioner, and I didn't like Condoleezza Rice very much, but That would be a welcome change from the endless procession of old white dudes that have We'll fill that office. Yeah, I'm, 

[00:15:43] Mark Corbett: I'm, I belong that fraternity, but I can tell you, you need to ask this. 

[00:15:48] Mark Corbett: I look across a lot of spectrums and I'm saying like, geez, my knees, this is not the face of the people. This is the face of those walking into the cemetery and we need live. We need live young blood coming into this and we need good representation and certainly from women and gosh almighty.

[00:16:08] Mark Corbett: Thank you, Perry for making a big dent. In all of this. I would thank you 

[00:16:15] Perry Barber: for doing your part. Yeah, because now we're circling back to the fresh blood, the infusion of fresh ideas and fresh energy into enterprises that are becoming stale or stagnant not that The All American Girls Classic has become stagnant, but it's become too weighty for one person to shoulder the responsibility for mostly by herself.

[00:16:43] Perry Barber: And yeah, we need to get younger people interested in taking the reins and steering it into the 21st century so that it doesn't end because it's such a good tournament. It shouldn't, it should not die a natural death. Yeah. 

[00:17:03] Mark Corbett: I'm with you. To me, I looked at all those young ladies out there, like I said, anywhere from Tamar Holmes to, to Oz sailors to there's such a great mixture of young women out there 

[00:17:15] Perry Barber: who play the game.

[00:17:16] Perry Barber: Oh, a beautiful blend of the icons with the younger girls that are just now starting to feel their oats. And the beautiful thing about that is that Especially for people like me that has known all of the girls since they were six years old that are now of an age where they are auditioning for Team USA and playing on teams around the country and playing in tournaments around the world.

[00:17:45] Perry Barber: And I've seen them since they were young girls. Watching their progress and their level of skill and seeing the way their minds have developed is just been such a privilege and such a beautiful thing to see. I feel I, I don't have children of my own, but they're all my daughters.

[00:18:06] Perry Barber: That's really the way I feel about that, and I'm just so proud of all of them, every single one. And the beautiful thing about baseball is you don't have to wind up being a champion or the best. You can play and still have fun and still derive a lot of knowledge and pleasure just from being out there and being with your friends or your foes, your opponents.

[00:18:27] Perry Barber: I don't like to think of them as enemies your opponents. And playing with and against. People in a sporting environment teaches so many useful and necessary skills about how to get along in real life and how to survive adulthood without falling into madness and loneliness.

[00:18:52] Mark Corbett: Whoa. Yeah that's key in. You're talking about facing opponents, but yet having a camaraderie with everybody who's in, whether it's a league or in a tournament or whatever. And I had the great fortune to be there with you and allow those young ladies at a gathering one night when we were in Sarasota.

[00:19:12] Mark Corbett: And you could feel that you could feel a connection between all of these players, not just their teammates, but across all of them. And there was an energy and. I felt, again, very privileged to be there and experience that. And I'm hoping that energy does come through in beyond baseball and somewhat with like with administration and the development of the future of this tournament for the all American girls and others as well.

[00:19:42] Mark Corbett: I, let me ask you something else completely different. One thing I think that's a challenge, Is that there's sometimes so many different types of leagues out there that there's so many different kinds of tournaments and I don't think everything has to be under one umbrella, but is there something to brings it cohesively together?

[00:20:02] Mark Corbett: We're in women's baseball. 

[00:20:06] Perry Barber: There are, you're right about the disparity and the lack of centralization among leagues and groups and organizations. And it's funny, I, in the 30 years that I've been involved with women's baseball and women who play and coach and are forming leagues and teams, the ones that have worked, they're great.

[00:20:30] Perry Barber: focuses off to form leagues and have safe places for girls and women to play and play with and against each other. They have accumulated a little bit of authority and power and they run their little fiefdoms and it's not easy convincing them to give up any of that authority. to share with other women who have the same goal they, they all want to, they're all alpha women they have to be.

[00:21:01] Perry Barber: And so getting them together is not easy but we're working on it, but there are several organizations. The all American girls, which up until recently has basically been more of an administrative thing. But now they're now that the most of the players are they're very old now and they realize they have to do something so that.

[00:21:25] Perry Barber: The memory doesn't just fade away like it did after they stopped playing in the 1940s, 1950s. So they are getting on board and this tournament is one of those things. There's another organization called Baseball for All headed up by Justine Siegel. But that's basically for younger girls, very young girls, all the way up to age 18.

[00:21:50] Perry Barber: And that's been fantastic because like I said, The training and the teamwork that girls have learned playing in her organizations and teams and leagues under her umbrella of baseball for all. They're now teenagers and in their early twenties and playing the most mind bogglingly amazing baseball. I've been umpiring for 44 years and what I saw last.

[00:22:20] Perry Barber: November in Saratoga made my eyes pop out of my head. Literally they were making really difficult plays look routine. And they weren't even, it was just another play and throwing from deep in the hole at shortstop and all the way across the infield and all the things that people who Criticize women playing baseball or say, this is why women shouldn't play.

[00:22:48] Perry Barber: They can't make those throws. They can't do this. They can't do it right. Yes, they can play on a 90 foot diamond and yeah, they can't, they absolutely can't, and it is just so thrilling to see, and I know that you feel it too, because I can hear it in your voice when you talk about it. It's just the most thrilling.

[00:23:08] Perry Barber: It's a really nice thing to see, and I see it all the time now, and I just love it. Yeah, thanks for helping keeping this going, really appreciate it. 

[00:23:18] Mark Corbett: Thank you, and like I said, I do want to recognize that. I want to get back to you and your career, but I do want to say one more thing, and that is, you were a founder with the International Women's Baseball Center.

[00:23:31] Perry Barber: I was not a founder. I was one of the original board members. I was asked to come on board early on. And I'm very fortunate to have been invited to do so because it's the other organization that I was going to mention that serves as a sort of. Central Bureau for information about women's baseball, where the tournaments are, how to join a team, what events are happening all over the world.

[00:24:00] Perry Barber: What zooms women might be interested in joining to get involved with, to network cause it's all about networking and opening up pathways and opening up pipelines for girls and women that had previously been very narrow, if not completely closed off to them. So that's what international women's.

[00:24:21] Perry Barber: baseball center does and in 10 years, I can hardly believe what we've accomplished. We're, we haven't broken ground yet, but we've raised in 10 years, we've raised more than, oh gosh. Several million dollars for the construction of a girls and women's baseball museum with the only one of its kind in Rockford, Illinois, right across the street from Byers Stadium where the Rockford Beaches played, which is very poetic and validating all these decades later.

[00:24:57] Perry Barber: And we've also sponsored tournaments and we started something called Women Baseball Week that's become a worldwide phenomenon. We hear from girls and women's baseball organizations in India and Pakistan and Mexico and all over the world. And it's just so exciting to see the community of women ballers grow and thrive and come up with new exciting ways to expand.

[00:25:29] Mark Corbett: I'm thinking about your career. I'm going to jump back to that for a moment because you were, he was back in 79 or the 80s. I remember that you actually first started umpiring. 

[00:25:40] Perry Barber: 1981. 1981. I started umpiring little league out in Indio, California near Palm Springs. So that was, it was not a happy introduction.

[00:25:54] Perry Barber: Oh coach, my second game, he threatened to pull his team off the field and forfeit the game just because he didn't like it. That a woman was out there on his ball field. And so I convinced him to let his players play. And it actually was a very valuable thing for me to do because I'd been raised to be charming and witty and not really to stand up for myself or to take a stand or be assertive.

[00:26:26] Perry Barber: But my first game umpire. That was my second game. I stood up not, and it wasn't so much for myself, but for the players, because I saw all the parents in the stands and they were not pleased that this coach was going to forfeit the game that they'd taken time out of their busy schedules to get their kids to.

[00:26:46] Perry Barber: So when he said let's go, we're going, if she's umpiring, we're not playing. And I was dumbfounded. But then I walked over to him and I said, in a loud enough voice for everybody to hear, I said, look, if you don't like what I do out here, fine complain to the league office after the game is over, but I don't think that you should deprive these kids of.

[00:27:09] Perry Barber: just because you don't like me, especially since all the parents took time out of their schedules to bring them here. And so of course, all the parents are like, yeah, they were on my side for the first three minutes. And then as soon as I called my first It's everything changed because I got to tell you, my intentions were noble, but my execution was very substandard because I didn't have any training, didn't have any experience.

[00:27:39] Perry Barber: And I'd gone out and gotten a rule book and tried to study the rules, but studying them in a book and seeing them come to life in front of you on a baseball field. under a high pressure situation where you have to make an instantaneous decision. It's not exactly the same thing as reading baseball is a game played between two teams of nine players, which is baseball rule number one, by the way.

[00:28:05] Mark Corbett: So 

[00:28:08] Perry Barber: if anybody asks me, what is the first rule of baseball? And that you'll look like a genius as well as baseball as a game played between two teams of nine players, each on an enclosed field under direction of a manager in accordance with these rules under jurisdiction of one or more umpires.

[00:28:27] Mark Corbett: Okay. Do you get an identic memory? Do you, can you do chapter? 

[00:28:32] Perry Barber: And I like that word. Yeah. One of my favorite words, semi identical, but I am a Jeopardy champion. So that should clue you in. 

[00:28:41] Mark Corbett: Oh, that's pretty cool. Oh my gosh. At what point you, you sought out, a school to, to formalize your training as an umpire.

[00:28:54] Mark Corbett: Yes, there 

[00:28:54] Perry Barber: are now two accredited umpire schools. Back then there, there was a third that ran out in California, but it was run by the same umpire who ran one of the schools in Florida. So I chose the one that was run by. a National League umpire, the Harry Wendelstedt School in Daytona Beach. And right away I sent off for a brochure and signed up to go because I, even with the bizarre a sort of shock of people not thinking I was wonderful and that they loved me all of a sudden being confronted with people who had their veins popping out of their necks and their eyes bulging out of their faces and spittle coming out of their mouths because they're so upset with something I've done.

[00:29:43] Perry Barber: I thought it was a, Bit of a shock to my system. So right away I told myself, these people are not mad about, they're not angry because I'm a girl they're angry because I'm not competent. And that was something that I knew I could change. I couldn't change being a girl, but I could change being incompetent.

[00:30:04] Perry Barber: So that's what I did. I went to umpire school the next January and I. Made my twin sister go with me, so I wouldn't be the only girl in the class of 150 men, and so my twin sister and I were at the Wendelstedt School in 1981 1982, excuse me, and then I went back 83, 84, 85. And every year I got a little better, improved quite a bit, as a matter of fact, but I never did wind up getting a job in pro ball.

[00:30:36] Perry Barber: So I just decided to concentrate on college and high school and other leagues, lots of other baseball beyond the the universe of professional baseball. And I also worked. Spring training down here in Florida. There were a lot of teams that hire local umpires for games that are not on the major league baseball calendar.

[00:30:58] Perry Barber: Games like interest squads and sometimes split squads. And sometimes if a player is rehabbing, they'll want to. schedule, a simulated game or something like that. So those are the games that I would get called to come umpire and they pay very well. And they were a lot of fun and working them and being able to hire other umpires to work with me gave me a lot of cache that I would not otherwise have had early on in my career.

[00:31:25] Perry Barber: Because I met with a lot of resistance and had to do a lot of convincing to sometimes, but I was also lucky. I had, Champions and people at the Mets were always very receptive. And Buddy Harrelson who I knew from Mets spring training hired me decades later to umpire in the Atlantic league when it first started up in 1998, and that was one of the most fun leagues I ever worked.

[00:31:56] Perry Barber: Because it was so new and of such high caliber and it was just a lot of fun. And the best thing about it for me was that a lot of the teams were within driving distance of where I lived in New York. So I didn't have to stay in hotels, which gets old pretty early on when you live a life the peripatetic life, a life on the road.

[00:32:21] Perry Barber: Yeah, that was a great time. And I loved my boss. His name was Joe Klein. He was the youngest general manager in baseball history at the time when he took over the reins of the Texas Rangers. And then he went on to general manage the Detroit Tigers as well. Wow. And then he threw all his eggs into this one basket in 1998.

[00:32:44] Perry Barber: Put together this league of second chances. And it's still going strong 26 years later and Joe died a couple of years ago, bless his heart, but he was just the most wonderful man and he his legacy is the Atlantic league and bless, bless him for doing that. And for hiring me, for taking a chance on me, and for sticking by me when there were other people in the league.

[00:33:11] Perry Barber: He and Buddy were my champions. And even Buddy would get upset with me sometimes. I remember one play at first base when I called one of his players out, and he came running out on the field. He was managing the Long Island Ducks the first couple of years. And he came running out and he said, Perry, you don't belong in this league.

[00:33:29] Perry Barber: What do you think you're doing? I said, but buddy, you hired me. What did he say? 

[00:33:37] Mark Corbett: Oh my, I love it. And what now? So we got an idea to, of those first days of getting you and your sister going to the school together, Empire school together. Now, did she continue on with umpire as well? 

[00:33:58] Perry Barber: She did for a few years then something really weird happened.

[00:34:04] Perry Barber: She decided to become a nurse and have children. I know. I just I could not understand it, but that's what she did. But yeah, she umpired for about four or five years back in Los Angeles. And I would go out there occasionally and umpire some games with her. And yeah, that was, I loved doing that.

[00:34:27] Perry Barber: And one of the great privileges of my life was back in 2014 was to umpire with her. Her younger son, Warren, after he graduated from umpire school and he went to the other umpire school in Vero Beach, which is now called the Academy. After he graduated in 2014, he was. casting around for what am I going to do with this new skill?

[00:34:55] Perry Barber: And so I said you can stay in Florida for a few weeks and work games with me. I assigned some games and I know other signers. So I tricked him. I told him we were going to work a junior college game at anyway, it's the school that's right next to where the Mets play here in Port St.

[00:35:16] Perry Barber: Lucie and Hillsborough. No, not Hillsborough. Another one you're talking about. It's a beautiful campus. 

[00:35:23] Perry Barber: Yeah. And very nice ball field too. But so anyway, I said we'll work a game at this junior college. So we're going there and there's the sign for the junior college. And then a hundred yards down the road, there's the sign for Cloverfield, the Mets camp, which back at the time had a different name.

[00:35:42] Perry Barber: So I drove in there and the look on my nephew's face what is going on? So I got to work a Mets game with my nephew, my twin sister's son, and I'll never forget it. Terry Collins was so great before the game started. He came over and he shook my hand and said, very nice to see you back because I'd been up hiring spring training games when he was a manager for a year or two at that point.

[00:36:07] Perry Barber: And I said, Terry. My nephew is umpiring with me today and I really like to introduce you and he goes, Oh, please take me over. And he walked right over to my nephew and shook his hand, introduced himself and chatted and took a, let us take a picture. And he was just so very nice. I'll never forget that about him, but I'm still mad that he let Matt Harvey pitch that last inning in the 19, 20, 15 world.

[00:36:35] Perry Barber: So like, why did you let him bully you into pitching? 

[00:36:40] Mark Corbett: Oh no. Yeah being a Tampa Bay fan, I think of Blake Snell and I think of Kevin Cash and there's times I think people are looking at analytics more than they are what they, what, when you've got a great player playing pitching or the mound 

[00:36:56] Perry Barber: Yeah.

[00:36:57] Perry Barber: I don't want to say analytics has ruined the game. It does add a dimension so does umpiring and you don't make every baseball decision based on what you know about umpiring and you shouldn't do it with analytics either. You should let them be a guide, but not instructions, not an instructional manual.

[00:37:19] Perry Barber: And. Rose up here. Hang on 15 years at the major league level that I'm definitely not on board with. And that's one of them. And this partnership with gambling concerns is just rubs me the wrong way so much. There's so it's so fraught the whole thing. And for the people, the powers that be who arranged all this not to Yeah realize the unintended or maybe intentional consequences.

[00:37:53] Perry Barber: Yeah, it's very worrisome and I don't like it. So I'm glad I umpire mostly amateur baseball. We're and a lot of kids we're very impressionable. And I always feel like I have a chance to make them better people. Even if I. Don't meet them on an individual level that just by being out there and they're seeing me and the way I conduct myself, that it will make them stop and think maybe open their eyes or expand their horizons a little bit or make them a little less tolerant, make them a little less intolerant of something or somebody that's different from them.

[00:38:35] Perry Barber: Things like that. You never know what You do as an individual will have an effect how it will affect somebody else because I've had people come up to me and say I something that you did or said to me 20 years ago, really did me a lot of good and after you said that I went and did this and Yeah.

[00:39:01] Perry Barber: Oh at least you didn't become a serial killer. I'm glad about that. 

[00:39:07] Mark Corbett: So no, it is nice when you find out you touch somebody's life and they made a positive, some positive choices from it. And I'm looking here now and I want to ask you some, there's so much more I want to ask you about women in baseball, but I have, I got to know a little bit more about you too. 

[00:39:29] Mark Corbett: Tell me about your most interesting game that you've ever played. 

[00:39:35] Perry Barber: My most interesting game. Yeah. Wow. There have been a few, but I would say probably that second game where the coach threatened to forfeit because it really I feel like it was just such a watershed event in my life. And I had to go from it, make an instantaneous change from being this Reconciler somebody who is pleasant and tried to make everybody have a good time.

[00:40:10] Perry Barber: And instead of saying, you're gonna have a fucking good time. You don't like it too bad. But and I don't even mean that there's a way of being authoritative without being officious or coming off as being arrogant which ticks people off. And it's not a good way to develop a relationship on the ball field.

[00:40:38] Perry Barber: You want to work in concert with people and make them feel like they're the ones. that have the upper hand, when in fact, I'm the one that does, because they're doing what I want them to do. They just don't really realize it because that's the way things work out there. And that's the way I've developed my techniques in listening, giving them the chance to vent or to explain themselves or to tell me what it is they're looking for, what they want me to do.

[00:41:08] Perry Barber: And sometimes I'll say that I'll say, okay, I understand you're upset. But what do you want me to do? And when that question breaks through, they often have no idea what they want me to do. They just say, Oh I guess I just wanted to let you know that you blew the call and then they run out of steam and that's the end of it.

[00:41:30] Perry Barber: And you don't have to throw anybody out. And that's the result that I'm going for. I don't mind what some people would regard as losing a little face. It's what I regard as. Seeking a productive resolution. And if he walks away thinking I won that argument. Fine. I'm all for that. He won the argument, but I know that I'm the one that actually won it because I didn't have to write a report afterwards.

[00:42:00] Mark Corbett: Yeah. I see that could be a challenge. I think of that how many times. It's so easy to criticize you and all the other umpires sitting there in the stands. Oh, what the heck are they doing? Get that bum out of here. And it's so easy to do that. But to sit where you're sitting, you always think of you in the catcher.

[00:42:21] Mark Corbett: Sitting there and you're looking at a ball coming. Sometimes some umpires are looking at them coming up to almost a hundred miles per hour and the safety that you have to do, plus the focus that you have to have on what's going on. Your eyes on that ball and you have to make a judgment call, keyword judgment, and.

[00:42:41] Mark Corbett: Judgment means you have to have conviction and confidence about what you say. So umpires shouldn't have because that's the thing, but you're you're wise enough to say, okay, I'm not going to be demure. About how I am, but I'm going to go ahead and I 

[00:43:02] Perry Barber: can be very demure. I'm a very, I'm a delicate flower.

[00:43:09] Mark Corbett: No, but to be able to, to soothe put the bomb on the anger, and it anchored coach, I think it's a great way of doing it. So I'm glad to see this stuff that you've done. 

[00:43:21] Perry Barber: Yeah, you want to ratchet down the level of vitriol and there's so much free flowing testosterone in men's baseball.

[00:43:30] Perry Barber: You learn techniques to corral it so that it doesn't run wild and turn everything into chaos because it does very quickly. Things can turn on a dime there. I saw what was a baseball game yesterday where. Players were shaking hands or was that a basketball game? And all that five seconds later, everybody was on the court punching and throwing.

[00:43:56] Perry Barber: It was ridiculous so that's what we try to avoid. 

[00:44:01] Mark Corbett: I've probably said this before on the show. I was at a game a couple of years ago, Rachel Valkovic Managing over there with the Tampa Tarpons, the Yankees. And she was managing, it was the Clearwater Threshers who are the Phillies team and sadness, the stands were not exactly packed that day.

[00:44:21] Mark Corbett: These two teams have been playing. I think this is probably like third or fourth game in a series, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So somebody got hit bad pitch. And the next thing it is. Both teams piling out onto the ground and at this level, you've only got two umpires and they're trying making notes.

[00:44:43] Mark Corbett: Okay, who do I throw out? Who, that's 

[00:44:45] Perry Barber: the first thing they teach you at umpire school. Don't get involved in an on field altercation, step back and start writing down names. We don't get paid enough to get hurt in a brawl on the 

[00:44:58] Mark Corbett: ball field. I'm glad to hear that. Cause I always wondered about the, sometimes about the safety of that bar.

[00:45:03] Mark Corbett: One, simply being behind with this fast balls coming at him all the time. But two, when people get so upset if they kick dirt, fine, let them kick dirt, but as long as they're not getting physical. That's great. All right. Another thing I wanted to ask you because, and this goes to your semi identic memory, I believe, and you umpire for several different leagues.

[00:45:29] Mark Corbett: There's probably different rules in each of those leagues and you have to be check, I don't know, change mindset, but certainly frame of thought when you go from one league to the next. 

[00:45:42] Perry Barber: Yes, very true. Different leagues have different rules, modifications, and that's why umpires always get together and confer before a game so that everybody's on the same page.

[00:45:56] Perry Barber: And when I work at tournaments, Such as the all American girls classic I don't know if you remember, but we had a, there was a coaches meeting and the umpires attend the coaches meeting so that everything that is transmitted to them, the umpires also get again. So that's so that everybody is on the same page.

[00:46:17] Perry Barber: Everybody knows what to expect and what is expected of them. And that's a very important tool for maintaining a smooth progression from the first day of the tournament to the last. Because the more times the team sees the same team, the more heated their interactions often become. That's the inverse rule of testosterone in baseball. 

[00:46:44] Perry Barber: So yeah. Somebody probably at that home plate meeting at the game you saw should have right off the bat said, okay, look, we're going to make sure that nothing happens, nobody throws at anybody. If I see anything that sets my spidey senses off, somebody's going to go. So let's forestall that happening right off the bat and just everybody have a good time, play the game and keep in mind that we're playing for the fans.

[00:47:13] Perry Barber: Not for your own egos for your alpha male whatever. 

[00:47:21] Mark Corbett: Oh, I do want to come back to something. I think that's real important. When we talked about the international women's baseball center. And hitting the 10th decade. Wow. And trying to find ways to introduce young women, young girls into the game.

[00:47:42] Mark Corbett: If they have an interest, what are, what is your what are your dreams for these young women? How, what do you see as far as the future and trying to support them? Oh, 

[00:47:53] Perry Barber: thank you for asking because a lot of people that love baseball and are knowledgeable about baseball have the impression that the women that are involved in it now that are promoting places for girls and women to play and hosting tournaments and encouraging girls and women to play or coach or become involved they all seem to think that the end goal is to get a woman into the major leagues.

[00:48:22] Perry Barber: Or a couple of women when in fact, that's one prong of what will be good if it if and when it happens, because our thinking is, if and when it happens, it will not be a stunt or a publicity Ploy. It will be a woman who is good enough to fill that role for that team, for whichever team that, that signs her.

[00:48:49] Perry Barber: And I'm leaning towards probably like a pitcher a relief pitcher. Knuckleball pitcher like Chelsea Baker used to be or Eri Yoshida, the knuckleball princess. Those are specialized roles and there's no reason why a woman couldn't fulfill it as, as well as a man. But anyway the goal is really to open up pathways for girls and women to play so that they know where to go.

[00:49:20] Perry Barber: If a little six year old girl sees her brother going off to play little league and she says, mommy, I want to go to, and they say, Oh girls don't play baseball here. We'll take you to go play softball. That should not be happening. Little girls who want to play baseball should have a place and parents and organizations and support to help them fulfill that goal, not to change it because the carrot of a college scholarship is being dangled in front of you, which very seldom happens.

[00:49:53] Perry Barber: But it's not. It's not right that girls are forced or coerced or convinced to switch from soft, from baseball to softball on the off chance that they might get a half scholarship to school. They'd be better off concentrating on getting an academic scholarship and playing baseball because in the last.

[00:50:15] Perry Barber: 10 years, girls have gone to college. Some girls have gotten scholarships. I don't know that Ozzie sailors got a scholarship, but I know that she was one of the first players at Presque Isle up in Maine. And there were several other women that made their way into club baseball, varsity base junior varsity baseball, but now Justine Siegel, who is baseball for all's founder and works with a lot of.

[00:50:46] Perry Barber: Mostly young girls. Now she has taken those girls that play through high school and there are thousands of them. And her contention was always, where did those thousands of girls go? They didn't have any place to take their skills after high school. So she got in touch with Hundreds of college coaches across the country and sent them letters and said, if we had a woman that wanted to start club baseball, would you be on board with it?

[00:51:16] Perry Barber: Or if we had a woman that wanted to play and that was competent and skillful enough, and she got a list of the coaches that were receptive and at those schools, she started programs club baseball programs for women to play and she now hosts a tournament out in Los Angeles every year. For college age women to come and play with and against each other and everything she does. 

[00:51:40] Perry Barber: She nurtures and she grows it and expands it and until it starts to flourish on her own. And then she lets it go, she lets it go and thrive. And she's like a mother in that sense. She gives birth and pushes her chicks out of the nest and then watches them grow up to be productive.

[00:52:00] Perry Barber: Species, 

[00:52:02] Mark Corbett: I love that. Because we talked earlier about how some people with an organization, sometimes they want to just hold and keep it to them closely they know how to nurture, but they're also uncertain about how to let go. And from what you're saying, she's doing that she's given them an opportunity, not holding them in, but letting them thrive.

[00:52:24] Mark Corbett: And then Hey. Here's what you do. Go your way. 

[00:52:28] Perry Barber: She's gone about it in a very intelligent way. She's, she uses what she calls captains. She picks certain girls at all these age levels that she hosts tournaments for, and she trains them about how to become leaders and how to start their own leagues and how to set up programs in their own communities.

[00:52:49] Perry Barber: So she has little satellite programs, little satellite. people all over the country, all over the world that are radiating her ideas and creating the same kinds of spaces with her imprint all over them. And the rate of growth of women's baseball in this country in the last 10, 20 years has been astonishing to me because it was so stagnant for so long and just.

[00:53:20] Perry Barber: Did not change, did not grow, and the same applied to umpiring, to women umpires. We were at a very stagnant kind of place up until about 10 years ago, and then all of a sudden, Things changed when Jen Paul and Emma Charlesworth Seiler went to umpire school and since they two went to school and both got jobs and Paul is now the one that has a shot at being the first woman major league umpire because she's starting the season in AAA and this is going to be her seventh season and that's about standard for a minor league umpire.

[00:54:01] Perry Barber: Six to eight years of seasoning. But the tradition has women for women to be seasoned beyond recognition until they're too leathery to taste very good. But the outlook now by the men in charge of promoting and nurturing and umpires career through the minor leagues, they, they now see things very differently.

[00:54:27] Perry Barber: Then they did up until recently, and that's a tectonic shift in attitude that has been very important for women's progress and making our way, making inroads. Whereas before we were shunned and scorned and ridiculed and turned away and strung along and the women who came before.

[00:54:51] Perry Barber: Bernice Guerra Christine Wren, Pam Postema Theresa Fairlady, Shana Kook, they were all they all were great umpires and they could have made it if they just had the support that Jen and Emma up until she retired a summer before last are getting now. And it's about time and I'm just glad I'm alive to see it because when I started 44 years ago, I wondered if I would ever live long enough to see a woman walk out onto a major league baseball field during the regular season and take the lineup card.

[00:55:33] Perry Barber: And now I think I'm, I've got a pretty good shot. If I hang on for another year or two, anyway, it could happen this year. It very well. Cause in AAA, the umpires are under contract to major league baseball and the ones that are at the top level of being a prospect are serve as vacation umpires during the summer.

[00:55:56] Perry Barber: They will go up and down between AAA and the major leagues to learn. How to be a major because there's a lot about being a major umpire that's different than at any other level the technology and just the mindset. So anyway, she's solid as they come. She's really good and deserves every accolade she gets.

[00:56:21] Perry Barber: And I have every confidence and conviction that she will. If not this summer, then definitely next summer, we'll see her on a major league baseball field. And for those of you who are interested, I think her first spring training game is Between the Astros and the Nationals at Palm Beach on February 24th, if I'm not mistaken, and I checked the other day, the game is not sold out, so there are plenty of tickets still available.

[00:56:52] Mark Corbett: Now I have to make a trip down there then, because yeah, that's just 

[00:56:55] Perry Barber: down the road. Yeah, I was thinking about it too. 

[00:56:58] Mark Corbett: Wow. No, I said about Jen Powell and that's. Think about all that's taken to get there. And it's finally getting to the point where MLB and others are receptive.

[00:57:11] Mark Corbett: And that comes from people like yourself, certainly Perry, 44 years of grinding it to making. The road. It is. Thank you for being polite about 44 years of making a stink. I'm a stinker. And I, in some ways I'm fortunate that I have not been under the in the thrall of major or minor league baseball, because it's given me.

[00:57:43] Perry Barber: The leeway to be outspoken and to speak honestly and forthrightly about what I see they could do to improve. And so thank you for acknowledging that I, if I've done even a little bit of smoothing away, then I'm very grateful for the recognition, but really it's the women that are there that are doing it.

[00:58:06] Perry Barber: And I certainly didn't do any of this alone. So I'm, I've had a lot of. good friends and supporters and other women that I umpire with and we're constantly supporting each other and giving each other pep talks and plenty of times we've all said, why am I doing this? What do I do this for? It's so dispiriting sometimes, but learning to form your own of support and even learning how to do it internally as an umpire.

[00:58:40] Perry Barber: That was one of the first things that I figured out I have to learn how to get through these days when. When people are just yelling at me and telling me that I'm horrible and that I don't belong out there. And because that's the paradox of umpiring is that no matter how much you love doing it, you're not going to be great when you first start.

[00:59:05] Perry Barber: And that's always the time when new umpires get so much criticism that it makes a lot of them want to quit. They don't want to keep on doing what they're being yelled at for, but if any of them did think of how many great umpires just gave up way too early. I think of that. And it just makes me really sad.

[00:59:28] Perry Barber: And that's why I keep reminding people they may not be the best umpires, but they're out there doing it. And they need support and we should support them. And it's easy, like you said, to yell and criticize and pretend that you know the rules better than somebody else. But in fact, umpires are the lifeblood of baseball in this country.

[00:59:50] Perry Barber: If we don't have amateur baseball umpires, umpiring little leagues. And high school and youth leagues and YMCA baseball and Catholic youth league baseball. And all those leagues and now girls baseball. And we would not have players that are major league caliber anymore. We just wouldn't.

[01:00:13] Perry Barber: So we are a very necessary component of the overall baseball picture. And bless the people that recognize that and do offer encouragement and support and training. I just wish more people did. It's easy to be cruel, especially nowadays with social media, but it's also very rewarding to be kind and 

[01:00:36] Mark Corbett: supportive.

[01:00:38] Mark Corbett: Oh my gosh, I can't think of a better way to end to say that to that your last phrase there is to be supportive and kind, and that is something every fan everybody in the game needs to remember it is pivotal for the enjoyment and just for the camaraderie and treating people right. Perry. I could talk to you on and on.

[01:01:03] Mark Corbett: So we'll probably talk again sometime soon. I have, again, so respectful of what you've achieved and a lot of these other young women and what they're doing now and people that are coming up, we just hope that they too. Realize that enthusiasm for it to continue that we're going to probably need them to get into the infrastructure above and beyond the field to make this grow.

[01:01:26] Mark Corbett: But thank you so much, Perry, for being here today on baseball biz on deck. 

[01:01:30] Perry Barber: Thank you for inviting me, Mark. I appreciate it very much, especially when you have other things on your mind. And I thank you for taking the time to chat with me and let me speak my piece and get it all out there. Really appreciate that.

[01:01:47] Mark Corbett: Thank you, man. I appreciate you. You're fantastic. Any anything else, any events we should remind folks about? I like the one February 24th at Palm Beach where the Astros and Nationals will be playing with. Jen's going to be officiating that game. Yes, 

[01:02:02] Perry Barber: I do not know where she will be on the field, but I have it on pretty good authority that she will be on that crew.

[01:02:11] Perry Barber: All right. Very excited about that. Check it out, folks. Go ahead. We also have upcoming on February 22nd, we have the 10 year anniversary Zoom for the International Women's Baseball Center. And you can find us on Twitter at IWBC for me or on Facebook at IWBC and lots of events scheduled during the summer.

[01:02:35] Perry Barber: And upcoming this summer is the I think the eighth or ninth annual nationals baseball for all nationals where last year, more than 400 girls gathered together to play with and against each other. Baseball, all baseball in Kentucky at the Cal Ripken complex in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. And we also have the second iteration of the women's world cup.

[01:03:00] Perry Barber: Part two, which started last summer is now working its way through the final stages to determine the winner that will be playing in some big event later on this year, but the Women's World Cup is going to be taking place up in. Toronto Ontario later this summer. So that's going to be a big event for women's baseball too.

[01:03:25] Perry Barber: So lots of exciting things on the horizon. And thank you for giving me a chance to talk about all of them. 

[01:03:31] Mark Corbett: Thank you for being here. Like I said, it's been a blast. And, oh, I'm starting to fill up my calendar just in what you've been saying in the last little bit. So I'm going to make sure I'm able to attend some of that.

[01:03:40] Mark Corbett: And I would, I encourage all you boys and girls who are listening here today to do the same Perry. Once again, thanks. And I look forward to talking to you again, real soon. 

[01:03:49] Perry Barber: Likewise, definitely. And thank you for letting me go a little off track every now and then bringing me back. Good conversation.

[01:04:00] Perry Barber: Good conversationalist. All 

[01:04:04] Mark Corbett: Thank you everybody for coming and joining us here today on baseball biz on deck. Perry Barber. And she's talking about everything baseball and certainly about the strength of what's going on with women in baseball and the growth of that movement. Look forward to talking to all the rest of you real soon.

[01:04:19] Mark Corbett: Remember you can find us on any of your podcast directories. You can find us on baseball biz on deck. com. You can find us everywhere. Hope you love us. Like us, go ahead and mark that up. And. Thank you very much. Special thanks 

[01:04:34] Perry Barber: to

[01:04:39] Mark Corbett: XtakeRUX for the music. Rocking forward. 

Notes:

In June 1952 the Harrisburg Senators of the Class-B Inter-State League announced that they were going to sign 24-year-old shortstop Eleanor Engle. Before she could take the field, the league president stepped in and banned the signing of women. On the 21st Commissioner Ford Frick went one step further and formally banned the signing of women on all teams in organized baseball.
https://www.baseball-fever.com/forum/general-baseball/aagpbl-women-s-baseball/10059-late-20th-century-women-in-baseball 

Ban would not be lifted until 1992

Upcoming events for women’s Baseball

International Womens Baseball Center – celebrating 10 years
 https://www.iwbc.org/ 

Zoom call:  - Feb 22nd 6 pm
 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwufumspzMiGtwXT0QFeEnjPQx_71pcNInM#/registration 

Baseball for All
 https://baseballforall.com/
 Twitter @baseballfor_all
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justine-siegal/
https://www.instagram.com/baseballforall/

Baseball For All Nationals back to The Ripken Experience® Elizabethtown in Kentucky from July 7-12, 2024. The 9th annual tournament is the largest girls’ baseball tournament in the United States and will be the 2nd consecutive year in Elizabethtown. Ripken Baseball added The Ripken Experience® Elizabethtown in 2023 through a partnership with Elizabethtown Sports Park. 
@justinebaseball
Justine Siegal

https://ripkenbaseball.com/news/baseball-for-all-ripken-experience-elizabethtown/ 

https://baseballforall.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresa-fairlady-79407417/

https://www.umpireschool.com/

International Women’s Baseball Center Twitter X.com  @IWBC4Me

Tags: Perry Barber, Jen Pawol, Bernice Guerra Christine Wren, Pam Postema Theresa Fairlady, Shana Kook, Perry Barber, IWBC, AAGPBL, Mets, Spring Training, Kim Ng, Justine Siegal,Atlantic League, Joe Klein, Jeopardy, Wendelstedt Umpire School, Bruce Springsteen,Baseball for All