Father’s Day, 1986, in Boynton Beach blessed us with a sky so blue it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. It was early; the sun hadn’t burned the dew off the grass and the verdant baseball field glistened with tiny droplets. It was a perfect day for a softball game, and my father, an umpire, had given up his Sunday morning to officiate a men’s league game at a local park.
Normally the season would have been over, but rain had washed out the last games of the season. Because it was Father’s Day, no-shows had left both teams short of players, and one team had just enough men to take the field if the coach also played. My father, Bernard “Bif” Fontaine, loved all sports, but baseball was his true love.
He started umpiring part-time back in the ‘60s as a side hustle. His full-time job was designing parts for steam turbines for General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y., and they let him take quarter-days of vacation and leave work at 2:30 p.m. to umpire high school baseball in the spring and Little League games in upstate New York all summer long.
When he retired at age 55 (after 32 years with a pension and lifetime health care), he and my mom moved to Florida where he could umpire as much as he wanted to. My father loved baseball’s intricate rules; every year he earned a top score on the mandated umpires’ rules exam, and of course he’d argue he was right about the “ambiguous” questions he got wrong.
Baseball might be a game, but my father took his role seriously.
Bif Fontaine was fully committed, fair and impartial — whether on the field with 11- and 12-year-old girls, retired men in the over-60s league, or during the finals of the regional Connie Mack tournaments (an honor he was handpicked for because he got the fewest complaints). Every game was important.
This baseball umpire feared only one thing: human error
Nothing upset him more than making a bad call. His deep regret taught me there are some things you just can’t take back and that it’s tough to have a job where your margin for error is basically zero. From his immaculate uniform (thanks, Mom) and polished gear, his professional decorum, the way he treated the players, and even the way he swept specks of brown dirt from that strangely shaped plate with his tiny broom, respect permeated the baseball diamond — my father’s church.
On the field, he was as serious as a cop on the beat, as reverent as a priest at Mass. But my dad was not religious, per se. Raised Catholic, he went to church only once that I knew of, and that was for his father’s funeral when I was 10. It was the only time I ever saw him cry, and then just a single tear fell from his sky-blue eyes as he knelt beside me. But I never heard him swear until I was an adult.
This no-nonsense baseball umpire faced ugliness with calm
As that Father’s Day 1986 game began, and the teams took the field, it was clear the coach/player on the home team had not been raised in my father’s church. He was loud and rude, even to his own players, and he set an uneasy tone on his bench as the first player got ready to bat.
My father was thick-skinned and good at ignoring people — you have to be as a sports official — so even though the loudmouth was annoying, like a mosquito you can’t slap, he was ignorant but harmless.
Before the first batter had tapped the dirt from his cleats, Loudmouth began calling out the pitcher as a hack.
Before my father had even called “Play ball!” his litany of insults began and continued until suddenly the batter found himself facing a 3-2 count.
When the southpaw pitcher threw a perfect low-inside strike, the batter never even swung. He looked stunned when my father yelled, “Strike three. You’re out!” with the customary lunge and thumb in the air. Loudmouth went crazy. He ran onto the field, shouting, “Jesus Christ, ump! What a lousy call!!” My father turned around slowly, remembering something Loudmouth forgot: the rules. He stared down the man who was stomping toward him. The crowd when silent as my father raised his ump’s mask. “You’re taking the Lord’s name in vain, on a Sunday, on Father’s Day?” he said. “You’re out of the game.” Loudmouth’s team, the other coach quickly pointed out, no longer had enough players to take the field, and they were forced to forfeit the game. Loudmouth stood in angry silence, then tried to argue as my dad packed his gear, got in his car, and left.
One batter. Six pitches. Game over.
This baseball umpire set an example we all should follow
Some people might think my dad was wrong to throw the coach out, especially with the language we hear today.
It seems like a small thing, the words we choose, but decay begins with a tiny crack. If it’s OK to scream profanity at the umpire on the ballfield, where next? School? Court? Church? Bif Fontaine always stood up for the weak. He would come running to fight monsters under the bed. He wanted to bring order to chaos. He quit high school his junior year to join the Navy to fight Nazis. The war ended before he saw action, but he was ready to stand up to Hitler, and over the years he stood up to the Loudmouths of the world.
We all need to speak up. Allowing the Loudmouths to trample our values because silence is easier is complicity. Every time we fail to contradict the Loudmouths, they gain power. What I’m suggesting is that if you see someone who is trampling your values, your sense of fairness, you cry foul. My father didn’t let his values be compromised at an insignificant Sunday morning softball game. It’s at the core of who he was. He died 10 years ago, in the spring.
I’m almost positive there’s baseball in heaven. I don’t know whether they even need umpires, but I think someone has to call balls and strikes, decide if the runner is safe at home, and keep the players from cursing. And Bif Fontaine is just the guy for that job.
Have a good game, Daddy. Happy Father’s Day!
Janis Fontaine is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Accent.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Daughter asks all to call out foul behavior just like her dad did in Father’s Day ballgame
Reporting by Janis Fontaine / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
