Last night I umpired the Babe Ruth A League Championship at Optimist Park.  It looked like rain all afternoon but the game went off without any showers or lightning.

It ended up being the first place regular season team facing the sixth place team.  It was a well-played game, all in all, one bad inning sort of determined the winner.  The first place Phillies won by 5 runs in a great game.  Good defence, good hitting, and solid pitching.

The AA and AAA leagues draft their teams, mostly from the pool of players who played A ball the prior year and I think next years draft is going to be a strong one.  I did a lot of umpiring at this level this year and it was quite enjoyable.  Most of the games were close and competitive.

It also marks the last league game that I will umpire in Calgary for Babe Ruth.  The end of an era, so to speak.  I will have the Regional Tournament next week in Calgary and that will be fun and then I head to Missouri for 12 days to umpire the Cal Ripken 12u World Series.  Then, I will have some down time.  I don’t plan on umpiring in the Crowsnest Pass area this Fall, I am not even sure if they have a Fall Ball program.  I do hope to get some umpiring in next summer, I will see.  I made a call the other day to the Baseball Alberta office and they are going to get me some contact information.

I’ve enjoyed my 4 years of umpiring Babe Ruth ball.  The umpires we use here are a great group and I’ve learned a lot from my fellow umpires and made some friends (and possibly some enemies) along the way.  I think I’ll miss it, but again, there are umpiring opportunities elsewhere.

This also marks the end of my involvement with the Babe Ruth Board of Directors.  I have enjoyed my time with Babe Ruth and will miss the people that I’ve worked with.  Thank you all for your support and guidance over the last 5 years.

Time to move on and experience new things.  I look forward to the adventure.