With UMPS CARE, officials connect to fans

When fans direct their emotions at umpires, it's generally not an outpouring of joy and adoration. But on the fourth Sunday in June, just before he officiated the fourth game in a five-game set between the visiting Memphis Redbirds and the Oklahoma City Dodgers, Nestor Ceja was feeling the love.
That afternoon, Ceja presented members of two local families with a behind-the-scenes look at the work of an umpire while leading a tour of Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.
"There were three kids, Bryan, Matthew and Lucas, and they were about 12, 10 and 8, and their parents," Ceja said. "It was really cool to see the excitement on their faces as we were walking around -- their excitement all around the ballpark, up in the press box, the radio booth, the suites and eventually down on the field and in the umpires' locker room. Everywhere we went, we heard, 'Oh, cool!' That was enriching for us, as well."
The mutual enrichment of members of local communities and the umpires who swing through for select series throughout the season is the main idea behind UMPS CARE Charities, the nonprofit foundation of Major League Baseball umpires that, to meet umpire demand, is bringing its programs to all 30 cities of the International and Pacific Coast Leagues this season.

Ceja's Sunday tour was part of the organization's Blue Crew Tickets program, which UMPS CARE happened to schedule in Oklahoma City during one of the Triple-A affiliate of the Dodgers' Copa de la Diversión weekends. 
For the Dodgers -- or Cielo Azul de Oklahoma City (Oklahoma City Blue Skies) -- Copa weekends are an even bigger deal than they are for most participating Minor League teams. 
"We really love our Cielo Azul series," Oklahoma City partner services coordinator MacKenzie Hickox said. "We were one of five finalists for the Copa last year, so we take it very seriously. When we rebrand, all of our staff rebrands -- everybody wears Cielo Azul polos. We have dancers to celebrate Latino heritage [and] on the PA the announcements are all read in Spanish. Any time we try to coordinate to have anything [reflect the Cielo Azul identity], we try to make the most of that."
Hickox had special reason to be excited for UMPS CARE coming to Oklahoma City. Her father, Ed Hickox, is a Major League umpire (and Florida State League Hall of Famer) who has participated in multiple UMPS CARE programs.
"I've been around umpires a long time," she said.  "My dad instructs at the Wendelstedt Umpire School in Daytona Beach, Florida, and from kind of growing up there, I know a lot of guys who are umpires from [Class] A up the Majors, and I know a lot of guys have always loved this program.
"A lot of fans either see umpires as bad guys or don't see them at all. It's really nice for fans and kids who are part of this program to come and see that umps are people, too, just like them, and they have really cool jobs."
In a conversation with some visiting umps earlier in the season, Hickox heard that a Blue Crew Tickets program was coming to town in late June. With the encouragement of president/general manager Michael Byrnes, Hickox stepped up to coordinate with UMPS CARE.
"I wanted to tie the Cielo Azul game into the UMPS CARE visit. ... I reached out to the Latino Community Development Agency here in Oklahoma City -- they work to improve quality of life through education, leadership and service in the Latino community -- and contacted them to get involved," Hickox said. "They chose the families [who got to take the insiders' tour]."
The LCDA picked the Medranos (with father Mario and sons Bryan and Matthew) and the Rodriguezes (with grandfather Simon, father Ivan and son Lucas), who were ecstatic to meet Ceja and crewmates Alex Mackay and Nick Mahrley. 
"We have a pre-set schedule that they give us at the beginning of the season," Ceja said. "We travel from city to city every three or four days, depending on the series. UMPS CARE set this up on their own. It very well could have been another crew in Oklahoma City that day, but for me, it worked out great, because Spanish is my first language and ... they had Spanish-speaking families, so it was great for me to be able to interact with them in both English and Spanish."

UMPS CARE guest Bryan Medrano threw out the first ball on June 23. (Oklahoma City Dodgers)
Although this was UMPS CARE's first foray into Oklahoma City, it wasn't Ceja's first time being a part of one of the foundation's initiatives. He'd done the Blue Crew Tickets program at an Omaha Storm Chasers game earlier in 2019 as well as at Tacoma Rainiers and Round Rock Express games last year. Since well before Umps Care began officially working with Minor League umps in 2018, Ceja and his colleagues have been participating in a bowling tournament during Spring Training in Arizona. At that event, the Minor League crews have gotten to know big league crews and learned about UMPS CARE. As more umps gained familiarity with the organization, inevitably, more of them wanted to participate in its programs.
"UMPS CARE started in 2006 and since 2006 up until last year, it's only been Major League umpires involved in our programs," explained Amy Rosewater, the organization's marketing manager. "Last year, some umps in Triple-A -- who [had been] callup umps and had that experience of coming up and working with UMPS CARE along with the big league guys -- were saying to us, 'Hey, can we do this in the Minors?'
"We tested it last year in eight Minor League markets to see if we could pull it off with the added workload. All the feedback we got was that everybody loved it. We got really good reviews from everybody -- the teams, the umpires. So, this year we're in all 30 Triple-A markets."
It was the Blue Crew Tickets program that UMPS CARE tested in the eight 2018 markets (Double-A Tulsa and seven Triple-A markets: Tacoma, Round Rock, El Paso, Nashville, Iowa, Indianapolis and Durham), but they also had umpires voluntarily crew games for the Miracle League -- a baseball league for physically and mentally disabled children -- in Nashville, near Allentown, Pennsylvania (home of the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs) and, during Spring Training, in Scottsdale. Over the weekend, Minor League umps also visited a military hospital in San Antonio and the nearby Fisher House, "which is a home for military families [with a family member] undergoing hospital treatment," Rosewater said.

Trying on gear is always a hit with kids on Blue Crew Tickets visits. (Oklahoma City Dodgers)
Each type of UMPS CARE outreach program has something in common: They give umpires, for whom the season is one long series of road trips, meaningful connections to the communities in which they work, and they give members of those communities a special way to connect with the game.
"I was walking the families back to their seats [after Ceja's tour]," Hickox said, "and [Matthew] turned to me and said, 'You know, umpires are really cool!' It was like, 'Yes. This is what this is all about.' They loved everything about it: trying on the mask, putting on the gear, [the umps] showing them their out calls. Now that fan comes to the ballpark and says, 'There's an umpire. I know an umpire. They're nice guys.'
"That's important to me, personally. This is creating new fans for baseball but in different ways. It's another touch-point kids have to the game. That's important to me, too, because I love baseball and know the struggles the sport has in the Majors and the Minors in creating new fans. With Copa, that's about creating fans, and [UMPS CARE] is another way of creating new fans, and this ties those two things together."

But UMPS CARE isn't stopping there. 
"With the Major League umpires, we do [Blue for Kids] hospital programs, where we bring Build-A-Bear Workshops to hospitals," Rosewater said. "That's something we've been talking about doing, but since it's our first full year with the Minors, we haven't been able to implement that yet."
Ceja is looking forward to the program expanding further, and he knows he's not alone.
"The one thing I would say is, I hope it grows [across the Minors]," he said. "For me, it's mostly some of that joy, being able to interact and see excitement on faces -- that's what it's all about for me, and it's awesome."