Every game at the Little League World Series starts the same way — nine players on the field, another holding a bat, and an umpire behind the plate, as anxious as anyone else, pointing toward the mound and shouting, “Play ball!”
That, the umpire hopes, is the last anyone really notices of the adults on the field.
“If someone says they’re not nervous when they go there, they’re probably fibbing a little bit,” said Joe Smith, part of the 2016 umpiring crew.
As the crew tries to slink into the background of this August slice of Americana carried out in South Williamsport, Pa.