Forty years ago, I made plans to attend umpire school in St. Petersburg, Florida, a strange journey that had me calling balls and strikes alongside 104 men, a time that would change my life in more ways than I could imagine. I went to camp because I wanted to become a better baseball umpire so that I could improve my knowledge of the game and ultimately convince some forward-thinking news director to hire me as a sportscaster. While that is what happened, something else occurred on those dusty fields. I met the man I would marry, though that event occurred seven years later.

I mention this now because John Higgins—an irreverent, funny, big-hearted man—has succumbed to Covid-19 at the age of 65. Higgs would insist here that I also point out he could be a royal pain in the ass, still he never failed to help others who needed a hand. He was a lover of animals which always had our home filled with stray dogs and cats that became part of the family and a teller of stories that often had people doubling over in laughter.

Higgs and I married in 1988, despite the fact that his baseball supervisor insisted our union was not a good idea. Higgs, who was a minor league umpire for 12 years and still hoped for a shot at the big leagues, laughed when he was told that baseball didn’t like its people involved with the media. I was a sportscaster in Phoenix at that point. I told him we could put off the wedding, but he refused. Shortly after we married, he received a letter in the mail. He’d been fired. Higgs struggled for a time—baseball was his first love—but then launched himself into a career as a chef, since he loved cooking almost as much as baseball.

It was while working in various restaurants that Higgs found young people to take under his wing. One, a teenager from a home awash in drug addiction, had committed an armed robbery. Still, Higgs brought him home and instead of prison the judge agreed to let him live with us. That boy grew into a chef who is now married to a teacher and is the father of three children. When I later became a foster mom, I realized that Higgs might have started me on that journey.

Higgs and I divorced in 2000. He moved to Mexico, then Florida, so I hadn’t seen him in years, though we communicated regularly through e-mails. We remained friends. And, had he arrived on my doorstep, we would have certainly hugged and celebrated the good times.

While I don’t know what happens when we die, perhaps for Higgs there’s a baseball diamond under a blue sky. Maybe, his old friend John McSherry—the formable Major League umpire who died behind home plate in Cincinnati on opening day in 1996—is there with him. And they’re telling stories. Anyone who had the pleasure of being around the two of them when they were on a roll can attest that they could have been a stand-up comedy team.

Two years ago, I wrote a story about how Higgs and I met. I am posting it again here.

Farewell, my friend.

Play Ball!

UMPIRE SCHOOL: A TWISTED LOVE STORY

I entered a tiny office in St. Petersburg, Florida, signed the legal forms, and was escorted to a single-story cottage across the road that fronted the facility. Unlike all but a handful of the 105 students registered for Bill Kinnamon’s Umpire School Class of 1981, I would have my own room, since putting me in the dorm with the guys was obviously out of the question.

I plumped the thin pillow, leaned back on the cot, and scanned the schedule that would direct my life for the next five weeks. Baseball rules classes, on-field clinics, and scrimmages in which students would participate as both umpires and players. My stomach twisted at the thought of anyone seeing me in the field. I’d never played baseball or softball. I could already hear the “She throws like a girl” jeering and wondered if there was any way I could actually avoid having to throw a baseball.

The next morning, we campers lined up in rows. “He’s out!” I called, straightening to my full height, bringing my left arm horizontally across my chest and my right up and bent at the elbow. Both hands were clenched in tight fists. Out calls from scores of wannabe umpires echoed across the dusty field.

“Jee…sus Christ! That was pathetic!” Senior instructor Joe Brinkman grabbed the bill of his cap and slapped it against his leg. “Sound like you mean it!”

Furtively eyeing one another, we campers bent over again, hands splayed just above our knees. We stared at imaginary bases, pretending the runner and throw were arriving almost simultaneously. “He’s out!” I joined the others; glad I didn’t have a high voice. I might have been able to blend in, had it not been for the long, auburn ponytail. Cutting my hair short might have been prudent.

Major League Umpire John McSherry, 375 pounds, walked unsteadily through the lines of aspiring umpires, saying nothing, looking decidedly uncomfortable: the result, we would learn, of some especially painful dental work and a night of bubbly self-medication.

“He’s out! He’s out! He’s out!” We screamed over and over, working on our posture and intonation. McSherry wiped a hand across his face: the February Florida heat causing spots of perspiration on his red cheeks. As I bent down in preparation for another out call, he passed by without even a glance.

It was not until later that night, when my name was announced during dinner, that McSherry sat up and stared. “Anne? Anne? There’s a girl here? You’re kidding me?” He turned to the Minor League instructor who stood by his side. John Higgins pointed me out. McSherry looked over and waved his hand in the air as if the whole idea was simply too ridiculous to consider.

The days were grueling: long and hot, on the field and in the classroom. One of the tenants of umpire school was that all campers should have an equal opportunity to be treated badly. The logic being that umpires will, by nature, be victims of disdain when working games, and if you can’t handle the abuse in school, you will never survive on the field. With this in mind, campers were sometimes picked to perform certain special tasks. My big moment came one beautiful sunny day.

“Butler!” McSherry called out, making sure my fellow fledgling umpires heard. “Bring the balls up to field two for this afternoon’s drills.”

“Yes, sir!” I said, chin up in my best imitation of an Army recruit.

I’d watched him berate campers, throwing his hat, tramping around the dusty diamond like a bull with hemorrhoids. He’d go nose to nose with these grown men and they would shrivel. In fact, 12 campers would simply grab their gear and quit, walking away rather than endure the punishment.

Fifteen minutes prior to the afternoon drill session, I arrived at the door where the equipment was stored. Higgins, who everyone called Higgs and who seemed to be McSherry’s Sancho Panza, smiled as he leaned up against the wall, arms folded across his chest.

“I’m here to get the balls for field two,” I said. Higgs was cute with bright blue eyes.

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “They’re already on the field.”

“Really? But John insisted that I bring them up.”

“Nope. You’re good.”

I was one of the first people at the field, so I waited and watched as the group assembled, the last few stragglers running full speed up the dirt road, because being late was never, ever acceptable.

“OK, we’ll be doing first base drills,” McSherry said. “It’s about listening to the ball hit the glove and seeing the foot on the bag. Listen and look. That’s what you’re going to do. Got it?”

“Yes, sir!” the group called out as one.

Then McSherry paused rather dramatically. “Who’s got the balls?” Silence.
“Who’s got the balls?” he yelled louder. “Who was supposed to … Butler! Where are the balls?”


“I … I went to get them and Higgs …”

“Where are the fucking balls?”

I stared at Higgs. He avoided my gaze.

McSherry squinted at me. “Get ‘em, Butler! And while you’re gone, your friends here will run laps around the field.”

My eyes grew wide.

“Start now, gentlemen! Run! Run!”

I bolted across the field and down the hill faster than I’d ever moved in my life. But I didn’t get away quickly enough to avoid hearing the curses that were being hurled my way by my fellow campers.

When umpire school finally came to an end after five long weeks, it was strangely hard to leave. It was as if we all suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, where we had learned to love our captors and wished to emulate them.

Like most of the other campers, I flirted with those professional baseball dreams, even though a job would have meant life in the low minors, shuffling from tiny town to tiny town, little pay, low budget motels, and the built-in cruelties umpires endure daily.

When it came to picking the campers who would be recommended for that life, most of the school staff members decided it would not be a good idea to send a woman up the line. It was 1981, after all. It’s interesting, and came as a bit of a surprise, that I had a friend in John McSherry. I would find out years later that he was the only one who rated me in the top 15. But with most of the other staffers positioning me much lower on the list, my eventual ranking was 32. The top 30 candidates were certified for duty in Minor League instructional camps. I was told that McSherry thought I had good officiating instincts.

Did I deserve a job? Probably not. About ten days into camp, I injured a hamstring, which limited my mobility. And, in all honesty, I have always been a horrible runner, which just about anyone who’s ever officiated with me can attest. Apparently, one day my awkward stride caused McSherry to growl. “Jesus Christ, Higgs! She runs worse than I do!”

How do I know this? Five years after I attended umpire school, I ran into John Higgins. Then, I married him and John McSherry was there at our wedding to celebrate.

Those of us on planet Earth are trying to negotiate our way through a world-wide pandemic. The novel corona virus Covid-19 has us all is various states of lockdown with no idea when we might get back to some semblance of normalcy.

Our current situation made me think of my mother who at 95 has been mostly stuck in her independent-living apartment in Colorado for nine months, with no access to the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren she moved there to spend time with.

Note here that my mom is different than many women of her generation. She left home at 18 to work for the war effort at Maryland Drydock where, she is quick to point out, she did a man’s job, but never earned the same pay. She has a college degree from Penn State University that she earned in 1948. Just under five percent of women had completed a four-year degree back then, so it was no surprise that my mom was a bit of a freak. Before she married and had three kids, she was a radio reporter in Washington, Pennsylvania, this despite the fact that she was initially told “girls shouldn’t cover the news.” Later, she was a reporter at the Grand Rapids Herald in Michigan and she wrote a series of historical fiction novels. In fact, she was the only woman in our neighborhood who held a job when I was a kid, a situation that had other women staring at her with suspicion.

I first realized my mom was rather atypical the day she marched into our local bank with her paycheck in hand. “I’d like to open a checking account,” she told the teller.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you need your husband’s permission to have a bank account.”

Um…when the dust settled, my mother had her bank account and my father’s signature was nowhere on the application.

While our current situation is difficult, my mother is quick to point out that she’s lived through a lot of tough times, including the Depression and World War II, which made me consider her thoughts on global crises.

“I have to say that people did try,” she said of the civilian populace during World War II. “There were drives for tin for the war effort. Everything was rationed: gas, meat, sugar, flour, tires. You were careful with whatever you had, [because] companies…just switched from making personal products to products for the war effort. We had a victory garden in the back yard. Everybody did it. It was patriotic to do these things.”

While World War II was a terrible time, my mom thinks our current pandemic is more difficult to deal with.

“The virus is everywhere. We can’t see it,” she said. “The virus is indiscriminate. I honestly think this is worse. The psychology is worse, because we’re losing communication with other people.”

My mom is trying to do better about connecting. The grandchildren just bought her an iPad so she can facetime with the great-grandchildren. And while she rarely leaves her apartment and struggles with the sameness of every day, she is managing.

“I have thought through every crisis I’ve had to live to with,” she said. “It all depends on your ability to not fall into depression.”

Which requires finding meaningful things to do.

“Every morning I read the paper and I watch the news,” she said. “I always read books and that’s been a tremendous help. The only thing you can do is get out of yourself. Books help you do that.”

I don’t know when I’ll see my mother again. Plans for her 95^th birthday were scuttled over the summer. Though mom is a pragmatic sort, not the least bit sentimental.

“I’ve lived my life,” she said when I asked if she’s nervous about getting the new vaccine. “What in the hell am I saving myself for?”

Knowing the battles my mother has waged, I think the Covid virus might have quite a fight with her. I doubt the little bug is willing to take the chance.

A WOMAN FLEES AN ABUSIVE HUSBAND

AND FINDS HOPE IN THE WILDS OF THE ARIZONA DESERT.

Published by Liaison – A Next Chapter Imprint

Rebecca Quinn escapes her controlling husband and, with nowhere else to go, hops the red-eye to Arizona. There, Gaby Strand – her aunt’s college roommate – gives her shelter at the Salt River Inn, a 1930’s guesthouse located in the wildly beautiful Tonto National Forest.

Becca struggles with post-traumatic stress, but is enthralled by the splendor and fragility of the Sonoran Desert. The once aspiring artist meets Noah Tanner, a cattle rancher and beekeeper, Oscar Billingsley, a retired psychiatrist and avid birder, and a blacksmith named Walt. Thanks to her new friends and a small band of wild horses, Becca adjusts to life in the desert and rekindles her love of art.

Then, Becca’s husband tracks her down, forcing her to summon all her strength. But can she finally stop running away?

Order your copy here: http://mybook.to/wildhorsespb

I have been a rock collector most of my life. Somewhere there are photographs of me in diapers putting rocks in a cup. My addiction goes back that far.

I wonder sometimes how my predilection with minerals began. It might have been those trips to the Museum of Natural History in New York when my siblings and I were young. I recall being astounded by the dinosaur bones and the massive model of a blue whale that hung from the ceiling in the Hall of Ocean Life. But it was the Hall of Gems and Minerals that always left me with my mouth hanging open, as I gaped at the sparkling stones, their colors astounding in their depth and variety.

My parents noticed my love of rocks. I know this because when I was twelve, Santa brought me the best gift ever. It was a metal box that opened into three sections, a geology kit that held the most wondrous things. There was a rock hammer, a small black rockhounding book with color pages of minerals, a scratch plate to help identify specimens, and various neat-looking glass tubes filled with things I can’t recall. The idea was to help me determine just what types of rocks I’d collected. I’m sure you can imagine that I no longer found my Barbie the least bit interesting.

Since that time, I have gone rocking whenever and where ever I could, so I have amassed hundreds of specimens, and the fact that I used to move around a lot—following reporting jobs that took me to different markets over the years—sometimes proved problematic. Once, when I was headed to Bristol, Connecticut to work for ESPN, there was some concern as to what the network was paying to move. The question was posed to my mother, who was at my new home when the movers arrived, as I was still driving across the country.

“What is all of this?” someone from ESPN asked.

“Rocks,” she said coolly.

“Rocks?” Apparently, they didn’t believe her.

My mother wasn’t always so understanding where my rocks were concerned. There is the often-told, family tale about me returning home from summer camp one year. My mother lifted my suitcase from a line of others by the bus and the handle broke. The many rocks I’d brought home tumbled into the street. While I rushed around collecting my treasures, my mother stood red faced with embarrassment.

When she determined I had too many rocks, she would—often while I was away at camp—toss my rocks into the garden. It would rain and my specimens would sink into the mud. But when I got home I would dig them up, clean them with my mother’s Waterpik—she didn’t know that until decades later—and return them to their proper places in my room.

Generally, one travels to old mine sites or wild places to collect specimens, so the day my sweetie-pie and I were walking the dogs on a city street in Phoenix stands out as the strangest place I’ve ever found a beautiful rock. We live in East Phoenix, an eclectic, mid-century kind of neighborhood. I spied what I thought was an ice cube in the road, which considering it was nearing 100 degrees seems silly when I think about it now. I kicked it and felt the weight. I reached down and picked up a big, brilliant quartz crystal.

“Where the hell did this come from?” I looked around. The stone was as out of place as a polar bear in the desert.

 I went home and placed the specimen in my case, but felt uncomfortable. It must belong to someone. If I had found such a lovely piece and lost it, I’d want it back.

So, I returned to the street where I’d found the crystal. I noticed several nice pieces of petrified wood in the yard nearby, and considered that the specimen might belong to the people who lived there. No one answered when I knocked. I tried again a few weeks later and the homeowners informed me that no they weren’t rock collectors, thanked me for asking, and closed the door.

The crystal returned to its perch in my rock box, the mystery of its origin unsolved. But that’s the thing about being a rocker. It’s not just about collecting specimens, it’s about the stories that go along with them. Those who know me well understand that if I’ve had a glass of wine or two and they ask about my rocks, I will tell them endless stories of my rocking adventures, whether they want to know or not.

So, while you too are welcome to ask, be forewarned. It could be a long night.

A WOMAN FLEES AN ABUSIVE HUSBAND

AND FINDS HOPE IN THE WILDS OF THE ARIZONA DESERT.

Published by Liaison – A Next Chapter Imprint

Rebecca Quinn escapes her controlling husband and, with nowhere else to go, hops the red-eye to Arizona. There, Gaby Strand – her aunt’s college roommate – gives her shelter at the Salt River Inn, a 1930’s guesthouse located in the wildly beautiful Tonto National Forest.

Becca struggles with post-traumatic stress, but is enthralled by the splendor and fragility of the Sonoran Desert. The once aspiring artist meets Noah Tanner, a cattle rancher and beekeeper, Oscar Billingsley, a retired psychiatrist and avid birder, and a blacksmith named Walt. Thanks to her new friends and a small band of wild horses, Becca adjusts to life in the desert and rekindles her love of art.

Then, Becca’s husband tracks her down, forcing her to summon all her strength. But can she finally stop running away?

Order your copy here: http://mybook.to/wildhorsespb