found out at a young age that it's easy to throw a person out of the game. You can do that every night. It's hard to keep someone in the game. Look at Roger Clemens the other night. Charlie Reliford, the umpire, got in between Mike Piazza and Clemens and defused the situation. Reliford could have thrown him out. But the players have more respect for you if you go in and try to use some psychology.
Sometimes you have to throw a player out. I remember one exchange a few years back when I called a pitch on Lou Piniella. He said, "Where's that pitch at." I said, "Lou, it's grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition." Piniella said, "I should have said, `Where's that pitch at, butt head.' " Now, I cleaned that up a bit.
I ejected him.
The players listen to me more than my daughters, Darcy, 12, and Jessica, 17, do. When they see players and coaches yelling at me on the field, I think they think it's funny. But I worry about them hearing about the mistakes I make. The mistakes are shown on ESPN, CNN and the local news. If you miss a play in a Yankee World Series game, a million people hear about it. My girls hear things. Their schoolmates hear things, and they tease them about it.
I remember in the World Series in 1996, I called a pitch too quickly. It almost bounced in the dirt. I called it a strike. It was a ball. You make mistakes throughout the game. I have never had a perfect game.
There was a period in my life when I almost gave it up. Money in the minor leagues was atrocious at the time. I was sitting in a hotel room in Omaha. My wife, Joan, and newborn baby were at home, and my wife was working as an X-ray technician. We relied on her salary. I tried to make house payments but she took care of everything else. We had no days off and no money for me to come home. I was thinking: "Do I go home and start some other career."
A year and a half later I got a break. I've been in the big leagues for 18 years.
I started at age 13 umping Little League games in the small town of Oregon, Ill., for $4 a game. I went on to do high school and college games. At 16, I got really serious. I had wheels and a driver's license by then and could go to other towns and umpire more. I looked older. I was passing for someone over 20. The secretary at my high school would take messages from schools for me and I'd pick them up and return calls during my free period. They thought I was a teacher. I didn't tell them otherwise.
When you compare the major leagues and little leagues, some of the worst verbal jousting was in Little League. You are working where you live, and the attacks become personal. I'm talking parents Ñ the kids just wanted to play ball. I remember parents yelling at me as I walked to my bicycle to go home.
In the majors, they're just yelling at this guy in a uniform.
I've been refereeing Special Olympics basketball for almost 30 years in the off season. It's all volunteer. Parents get involved but I never have had a problem with them yelling at the refs. Instead of yelling, I get hugs from players after the game.
Written with Eve Tahmincioglu. 
