High school umpire's career spans generations

NORFOLK

If you play high school baseball in Hampton Roads, Bob Barry probably has umpired one of your games.

If your dad played, he might have had some games when Barry was the umpire.

And if your grandfather played, there may even be a chance Barry called some of his games.

The affable Barry has now umpired games in Hampton Roads in six decades... and isn't thinking about quitting any time soon.

"I'd like to make it seven," the 57-year-old said.

A life filled with the avocation of umpiring wasn't his goal when he began. As a 14-year-old, he was an official scorekeeper at Naval Air Station Little League in the Ocean View section of Norfolk, making $2.50 a game and pulling doubleheaders to clear $5.

"After a while, the man in charge of umpires said, 'Why don't you come down out of that press box and get on the field?' " Barry said. "They paid $5 a game for umps. Like that, I doubled my pay."

While money may have initially hooked him, his affinity for the game kept him around. As a labor and employment lawyer at Kaufman & Canoles, the billable hour of an attorney is much greater than the $70 he pulls for umpiring a high school game.

"I get a little behind in the spring on my billable hours," he said. "I spend the other parts of the year making up for it and they are pretty good about letting me do that. Thankfully, they look at what I've done at the end of a year, not what I do in a certain month."

Barry had his first local high school assignment in May of 1969. He was a sophomore at Granby High - a pitcher and first baseman who had aspirations of playing in college - and was booked to call the bases in a game at Norfolk Academy.

"I was a varsity player and it was a junior varsity game, so the director of umpires didn't see any conflict of interest," Barry said. "I was standing behind first base dressed in the uniform of the day - black pants, black jacket, white dress shirt with a skinny black tie - and the batter hits this screaming one-hopper that nails me right below my left kneecap. I'm flat out on the ground and hollering, 'Dead ball! Batter gets first base!'

"It was the only time I've ever been hit by a ball while calling the bases."

The indoctrination didn't scare him off. After making the All-Metro team, Barry headed for the University of Virginia and tried out. A week before the Cavaliers were to take their season-opening southern swing through warmer climates, the roster was posted - he wasn't on it.

He decided to go back to umpiring and joined the Piedmont Baseball Umpires Association, calling games when classes didn't get in the way. He quickly gained a solid reputation, and the following spring he found himself standing at home plate about to call a Cavaliers game.

Back then, James West was the head coach.

"I'd spent four months trying to make his team, so he knew exactly who I was," Barry said. "To his credit, he didn't say a word to me about it."

Barry called games throughout his law school days in Charlottesville. Upon graduation, he took a job in the state attorney general's office in Richmond. And he kept calling games, adding basketball to his repertoire.

He moved back to Hampton Roads in 1985 and picked up where he left off on the ball fields. His resume also has included all types of college baseball games. Only once did work unexpectedly get in the way.

"I had a case in Harrisonburg that was scheduled for 9," Barry said. "The judge took another case first, and then there was a delay. I didn't get out of the courtroom until noon and I was scheduled to call a doubleheader at Catholic University in downtown Washington at 3."

Barry did his best, eventually resorting to changing into his umpiring gear in his car while sitting at red lights.

"It was the early '80s, there were no cell phones," Barry said. "I had no way of letting them know I'd be late. I showed up in the fourth inning of the first game and had to hear about it from both benches for 11 innings that day. And I deserved it."

Barry took a hiatus in the early '90s when daughters Laura and Emily came along and wife Martha implored him to cut back. Instead of calling baseball games, he was umpiring softball games and serving as a swimming official at meets.

Then about five years ago, Jim Smith bent Barry's ear. Hard.

Smith had just been named commissioner of the local umpiring group and was scrambling to fill his roster with qualified umpires when he ran into Barry at an all-sports banquet for officials. Barry was there as a swimming official.

"I told him we needed him back," Smith said. "Our conversation was simple and to the point. I asked, 'Why aren't you umpiring anymore?' And before he could answer, I asked, 'Want to get back into it?'

"The guy's a high-powered attorney for crying out loud. He's certainly not doing it for the money. He does it for the love of the game. And you can't beat that for a reason."

Barry has a baseball sitting on his desk at work with the signatures of almost all of the 1961 New York Yankees, including Mickey Mantle, Bobby Richardson and Yogi Berra. He also has a picture of Mantle, Berra and Roger Maris standing with bats in hand on the top step of the dugout. And on the wall hangs a picture he took of Yankee Stadium at the 2001 World Series, a little over a month after the 9/11 tragedy.

He's a baseball guy, with a sprinkle of the courtroom mixed in.

"I guess the truth of the matter is that I was never selected to be a judge and this will be the closest I get to being one," Barry said. "You have to be a little imbalanced to want to be an umpire. But it's the closest to wearing a black robe I'll ever get."

Rich Radford, (757) 446-2463, rich.radford@pilotonline.com