The Plate Meeting, a LF Umpire Podcast from Close Call Sports

As we look forward to a hopefully better year ahead, Tim Tschida joins The Plate Meeting to recap his Major League umpiring career, including memorable games and ejections, as well as his journey to the big leagues and development of his distinctive strike call. Tschida also answers your questions in this in-depth interview and conversation.

On this episode, Gil and tmac are joined by Bob Davidson to discuss weekly news around baseball, including Miami's viral situation, notable plays from MLB's opening weekend, and to remember former umpire Rick Reed.

In this Plate Meeting Podcast video episode, we step away from on-field umpiring discussion and turn to the current reality for all umpires: a wholesale loss of all games at all levels (in all sports). In this COVID mental health checkup, Jack Furlong of the OSIP Foundation joins tmac & Gil for a conversation about the current sports landscape and reality for officials who continue to lose income due to a lack of games to work.

After 34 years as an AL and MLB crew chief, veteran umpire Mike Reilly joined The Plate Meeting Podcast ahead of Spring Training to share some stories from his nearly 4500-game career, discuss the origin of his 'Corn Flakes' nickname, and talk about the time he turned down a job as umpire analyst with FOX Sports. Mike also takes your questions and discusses several high profile plays, ejections, and events from several World Series appearances and other memorable moments from his time in professional baseball.

Scott Kennedy provides some background on his umpiring career in Minor League Baseball and transitioning into the NCAA ranks, and discusses his philosophy on dealing with teams through relationships with catchers, whom a plate umpire spends an inordinate amount of time with throughout a game. Scott discusses the importance of a proper mindset and attitude both on and off the field, and how to respond to trouble.

Former AL Umpire Drew Coble joins the show to discuss his 2,303-game big league career and recounts several rousing stories from his time in baseball, including the 1991 World Series Hrbek/Gant play and a handful of MLB ejections. Visit http://www.CloseCallSports.com for more of Drew's conversation and links to relevant videos.

We've heard plenty about the MLB World Series from umpiring greats throughout the show, but not so much about the Little League World Series. In this episode, Rich Fronheiser (RichMSN on CloseCallSports.com) joins the show to discuss his experience officiating the LLWS in Williamsport, PA.

As we celebrate the life of MLB umpire Eric Cooper, who passed away during the 2019 postseason, we speak with longtime major league crew chief Mike Reilly, who after working with Eric during Coop's big league debut, requested Eric for his crew more than any other chief in baseball. Mike explains this bond, which goes far beyond a shared fandom of Notre Dame, and reveals his fondest memories of Coop over the years, including Coop's selection to the 2014 World Series.

We sat down with UMPS CARE Charities Board Member Scott Kennedy to talk about the 100-hole golf marathon in November and Close Call Sports' postseason donation drive wherein we will donate a dollar to UMPS CARE for every new like on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/UmpireEjections through the World Series.

Scott talks about how UmpsCare got connected with Ump-Attire.com, the long history of MLB umpires' charitable ventures, Gary Darling's fundraising ability, and playing on Fieldin Culbreth's team.

We continue our conversation with veteran AL umpire Dave Phillips with the forfeited game known as Disco Demolition Night and continue with the resumption-of-play for George Brett's pine tar game in New York. We also discuss Joe Niekro's emory board ejection and a massive brawl between Oakland and and Milwaukee, alongside Davey's time as a college basketball referee and we ask him your questions about his big league career.