Eli Bickel showed up at Isotopes Park on a Saturday morning wearing the uniform of a different kind. Black shirt, gray trousers — the standard-issue kit of a baseball umpire, not the batboy garb the 17-year-old has worn for two seasons with the Albuquerque Isotopes.
He was easy to lose in the crowd. Forest Stulting, the Isotopes’ PR manager, had to shout his name a few times before Bickel emerged from a dispersing pack of mostly older, mostly bearded campers and jogged over. The grin on his face was the kind that takes a while to leave.
Bickel, a rising senior at Volcano Vista High School who also plays football, was one of roughly 140 to 150 participants at an MLB umpire camp — the third stop on a five-city tour that included San Francisco in May and Nashville in June, with Vero Beach, Florida, and Brooklyn still to come. The 16-member staff brought a combined 220-plus big-league seasons and 14 World Series assignments. Ted Barrett, Mike Everitt, Mark Carlson, and Rich Rieker were among the instructors Bickel learned from during three-plus hours of drills covering positioning, play-reading, and balls-and-strikes mechanics.
“Just to be able to learn from World Series umpires like Ted Barrett, Mike Everitt, Mark Carlson, a former crew chief, Rich Rieker — all these guys are such talented umpires and they have so much expertise — and show some of my skill was incredible,” Bickel said.
The pipeline is real. Selected camp participants earn invitations to the MLB Umpire Prospect Development Camp at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach each January — a four-week, all-expenses-paid course. Last year, 53 of 56 invitees graduated, and 41 are currently working in the minor leagues. That’s a 75% placement rate from prospect camp to paid professional work, a conversion any draft pick would envy.
Bickel can’t receive that invitation yet. Prospective umpires need a high school diploma or equivalent, among other requirements. He’s still a year away. But the foundation is already five years deep. Bickel started umpiring at 12, working Little League games around Albuquerque — regular season, district tournaments, state tournaments that feed into the Southwest Regional in Waco, Texas. He’s called club baseball and some high school-level games. He can’t remember the total. It’s “more than a few.”
He’s also already logged two ejections. One was a parent who wouldn’t stop arguing calls from the stands. The other was a coach who cursed — “a strong no-no,” in Bickel’s words. For a 17-year-old, that’s not nothing. Ejecting adults twice your age requires a kind of nerve that plate umpiring demands every night.
“I always played baseball growing up and I just didn’t think I would ever be good enough to go to the MLB,” Bickel said. “But when we would play those wiffleball games, I would always get behind the catcher and be the umpire. I’d come to Isotopes games and I’d watch them do it, and I’m like, ‘This is a really cool thing these guys get to do.’ It made me think when I got old enough I’d buy some gear and go out and chase the dream.”
Rieker, MLB’s senior director of umpire development, outlined what the staff evaluates: “We look for hustle, attitude (and) response to constructive criticism. Do they listen? Do they eliminate mistakes? You can have somebody who’s never worked a game before and they’re a good candidate because they pay attention.”
Bickel signed up after seeing the camp promoted on social media, looking for tips on footwork and a chance to pick the brains of umpires who have worked the sport’s biggest stages. His parents have backed the pursuit from the start — an unusual level of support for a kid who told his family at 12 that he wanted to spend his springs and summers calling games instead of playing them.
“I would love to be able to come back here and call a game one day,” Bickel said. “But what a lot of guys who have been through this process have told me is to enjoy it. You’re traveling. You’re getting paid to be on a baseball field. You’re calling a game. Whether you get called up and they put a number on your sleeve or not, you’re doing something you love.”
The grin was still there when he walked away.
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