Ah, the sounds of spring at the ballpark.

"C'mon, Blue! Get in the game!"

OK, so not every note is music to an umpire's ears. But whether or not college baseball coaches, players and fans realize it, the National Umpire Improvement Program continues its pitch for perfection on the field.

For a decade, the program has attempted to standardize rules interpretations and mechanics across collegiate baseball, specifically in Division I. And for the Division I Baseball Championship, the program has assisted in the placement of umpires for all rounds of the tournament.

"This program has raised the level of awareness of umpiring," said Dave Yeast, the Association's national coordinator of umpires. "We have seen more conferences pay attention to baseball and baseball officiating."

In fact, all 30 Division I automatic-qualifying baseball conferences now have a designated umpire liaison, and those liaisons have taken over the assignments of not only league games but, in many cases, the entire schedule of every conference team.

"Ten or 15 years ago, every Division I coach hired his own officials for home games," Yeast said. "You had horror stories of some coaches hiring their brothers-in-law, that type of thing. The integrity of today's games is at a much higher level."

An umpire for umpires

That integrity also involves selection of the umpires for NCAA tournament play, a process that has evolved during the past decade.

"In the early 1990s, I think the baseball committee realized it had too much authority," said Dennis Poppe, NCAA senior director of baseball and football. "To their credit, they decided maybe they were not the best group to actually pick the umpires."

Longtime collegiate arbiter Jon Bible was the man for the job.

"He put together a number of clinics around the country that laid the foundation," Poppe said. "Now, Dave Yeast has taken the program to a its current level through a lot of hard work. The program today is a credit to him."

For the first time, a subcommittee of the 10-member NCAA Baseball Committee will work with Yeast on the selections. Those serving for 2001 are Charles Carr of Florida State University, Chris Monasch of America East Conference, Robert Steitz of the Atlantic 10 Conference and Mitch Barnhart of Oregon State University.

In previous years, Yeast worked with a four-man team of national advisors.

Conferences more involved

"I don't expect any change in the product we put on the field," Yeast said. "Because the conferences now have coordinators of umpires, there is less of a need for national advisors. I will present the recommendations I have gathered from the conferences to the subcommittee, and the 96 officials will be chosen from there."

The umpire subcommittee and Yeast have been conducting periodic conference calls with representatives of the 30 Division I leagues to gather information and review potential names for the championship.

"This will get the conferences more involved in the umpire selection process," said Wally Groff, director of athletics at Texas A&M University, College Station, and chair of the baseball committee. "The conferences will send in names and our subcommittee, along with Dave, will work directly with the conference umpire coordinators to make the selections."

Upon finalizing the changes last fall, Yeast related how reassuring it was to see conference lists for the first time in 2000 and recognize almost all of the names as umpires who had worked previous NCAA tournaments. A number of those officials gained their first year of tournament experience in 1999, when the Division I field expanded from 48 to 64 teams.

Most deserving and qualified

"We put 42 umpires on the field that year who had never worked an NCAA tournament game," Yeast said. "And the response was, no one said anything at all. If I hadn't told the committee members, they would never have known. That could not have happened without the program."

The umpires share that sentiment as well.

"Those now selected for postseason play are the most deserving and qualified umpires, and that's because of the National Umpire Improvement Program," said Rich Fetchiet, a former College World Series umpire who is in his first year as NCAA baseball secretary-rules editor. "You see a consistency of both mechanics and philosophy, and not just at Division I but at all levels."

Perhaps a surprising benefactor of the program has been umpiring on the Division II and III levels. The program's nationwide training sessions draw officials from all baseball levels, and included are videos for all three mechanical (two-, three- and four-man) systems.

"I have responsibility only for Division I," Yeast said. "Division II and III do their own thing. But most of the guys now working Division I came from II and III. I feel like we're planting seeds there that will pay off down the road."

Yeast has tried to mirror baseball's program to the NCAA basketball model, although with a tighter budget.

"I think just about every umpire we've assigned the past few years was on one conference list or another. That tells me we're pretty much on the same page regarding who the quality officials are. And in the process, we've made interpretations across the country more consistent."

So that whether you are in California or Texas, Maine or Minnesota, college baseball umpires can be counted on for a true call of the game.

"Are you kidding me?! He was safe!"

No word about whether the program plans to add a session on etiquette and manners for those at the ballpark not dressed in blue.