Get Out of the Way!

As other folks on this blog have said, shooting baseball is tough. One yawn or wayward glance at the kids playing catch behind the bleachers and you've suddenly missed an important play, possibly the one photogenic one of the afternoon, and you to have to go back to the paper in defeat and turn in a pitcher shot for the millionth game in a row. You live for action, something out of the ordinary, and when it comes you zone in on it and stick your camera to your eyeball and fire away.

Yet sometimes the unthinkable happens. An umpire, who when the play began was likely hundreds of yards away also yawning and staring at the kids playing catch behind the bleachers, suddenly hurtles himself across the field at break-neck speed and stops right in front of you. Or gets in the way and moves with the play. Or does something to otherwise mess with your mind.

You miss the action entirely, or worse there are random limbs protruding from the ump's back at impossible angles, hinting at the shot that could've been. You sit around and mope until deadline looms and dusk settles in, but nothing else exciting happens. You can only hope you've got one amazing shot of the pitcher.