Editor's Message

Greetings and salutations, true, blue believers,

A couple of days ago, through the use of the NVBUA Umpire Machine, I received a very unexpected message. Former NVBUA Association President and legend Norm Gordon was in town working some FedBall games over the weekend! Hey, Norm! Welcome back, brother!

I had the fortunate opportunity to work with Norm several times in my early years with the association. In addition to being superb with his mechanics, rules, game management, and judgment, he’s a great mentor. The two biggest lessons I learned from Norm are how to be a good partner and crew member, and how to be a good chief. Norm has a real gift for discussing things with a junior partner that usually begins with some version of, “Hey, in the bottom of the 2nd, you had that steal play into second base, how did you feel about that play? Do you think you could have done anything differently to get a better look at that?” As Paul Porto said, “He is someone I can count on to have my back on the field at all times. Great umpire but more importantly, a great person!” Who knows…maybe the next time Norm blows back into town, one of you out there will be lucky enough to get a slot with him.

On to this month’s edition…Associate President Dave Maher is back from one of his annual sojourns to the beach. I have no doubt his beach trip came right at the right time. For those who don’t know, Dave is very focused from late July into the fall, handling several administrative responsibilities for MAC on the volleyball side of our operations. Check out Dave’s monthly message here.

Earlier this summer, the NFHS announced its proposed rule changes for the 2027 season. One of the items that the Federation is still working on is the rules and interpretations of the double first base. Bob Nasser and his rules group have been discussing this since the NFHS announcement, and Bob has put together a bulletin outlining where things stand. Please read Bob’s update here and stay tuned to this newsletter and other NVBUA sources for continued updates on this developing situation.

Over in Gary Reals’ office, he had the pleasure of sitting down with brother Andrew Mack. I remember the first time I ran into him. Naturally, it was at Patriot Park. He’s working his 8th game of the day and has 2 more to go or some ridiculousness. And the mouth on that guy! There is no stopping that guy once he gets going! Too much…it was just too much for me. The more games he worked, the more I kept hearing, “You have GOT to work with this guy Mack! He’s really good.” Finally, we got a game together. All I can say is…as soon as I walked onto the field with him, had the plate meeting, I knew he was going to be great and he was. That was several years ago and now Andrew is someone whose counsel on and off the field I have come to value and respect very much…an umpire brother, indeed. And Reals left off the best part of Mack in his piece. If you ever want a real treat? Catch Andrew in post-game or at Friday Night Watering Hole and just ask him, “Hey…so, I hear you are a scuba diver. What’s that all about?” Don’t miss this month’s Gary Reals profile.

Finally this month…In our first edition, Mike Chmar famously set the tone for what we do here at The Blue Crew News with our motto, “Enhancing The Umpire Experience”. One of my great pleasures as Editor here is to also celebrate the umpire experience and acknowledge the many individual achievements of our members.

From July 23rd to July 27th of this year, Post 254 in Farmville, Virginia hosted the 2026 American Legion Baseball Department of Virginia State Tournament. Congratulations to our local brothers Andrew Peltola, Tom DeFranco, Justin Singer, Anthony Mayer, Matt Van Parys, and Jim Clayton for being named to the tournament umpire crew!

Meanwhile, closing the books on another year of tournament baseball up at Cooperstown All-Star Village in Oneonta, New York, congratulations also to Shaan Vardan, who was on the crew for one of the Gold semi-final games in week 14, and to Ron Adamczyk, who was on the plate for the Bronze Championship Game in week 13!

That’s it for this edition! Thank you as always for stopping by. The weather is cooling off, and fall baseball is right around the corner, so get your blocks updated in Arbiter and dust off those jackets and plate coats, brothers. As always, if you have pictures of Norm Gordon working games from this past weekend, or you know of a fellow umpire’s accomplishment that you would like highlighted here, please drop us a line anytime at: [email protected].

Excelsior,
~Robert Fobian
Editor, Blue Crew News