ESCONDIDO – He's been to every backwoods ballpark from Frisco to Fremont and back again. He's a veteran of seedy hotels, surly crowds and just one of many trying to get his shot in the major leagues.

Mark Ripperger, an Escondido High School alum, isn't an aspiring baseball player but a minor league umpire – a six-year veteran who has climbed the career ladder to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League and now stands one step away from qualifying for a position in the major leagues.

And to think it all started as a high school kid looking for a summer job. That's how Ripperger first put on an umpire's uniform – calling Escondido Little League games at age 16.

Two years later, while many of his senior classmates at Escondido High were playing spring sports, Ripperger was on the field as well, but in the southern parts of the county, umpiring freshman baseball games.

“I fell in love with the job,” said Ripperger, who entered umpiring school after graduating from high school and began his professional career in 2003, calling games on the back fields of various spring training complexes.

“It was an easy transition to get used to, the players and the speed of the games,” Ripperger said of rookie Arizona League games, which typically featured more players than spectators. Five years later, the crowds are bigger, the parks are nicer and perhaps most important, the opportunities for home cooking are more frequent.

“In previous years, I've never been home because I've been (working) too far away,” said Ripperger, who spent the 2006 and 2007 season in the Eastern League where Akron is the westernmost venue. “It wouldn't make sense to fly back if you were only going to be there 12 hours. If anybody wanted to see me, they had to come to where I was.”

All the travel makes the average umpire something of an aficionado when it comes to the necessities of food and lodging on the road. And living out of two suitcases (one for umpiring gear, the other for everything else) for six months at a time will hone anybody's packing skills.

“You pack exactly what you need,” Ripperger said. “I'm a guy who doesn't like to iron much, but you do your best (in hotels).”

Recently engaged, he said the trips home still aren't frequent enough for his fiancee's taste, but things have become easier since his games tend to be toward the West Coast.

“She doesn't like it, but she's getting used to it,” he said. “It's one of those things you have to work on. You have to have a good phone plan. Now I won't have to go more than three weeks without seeing her, and three weeks is a lot easier to do than six weeks.”

You called that a strike?

Ripperger says he's surrounded by umpires at the Triple-A level who have the skills to advance to the major leagues. The edge that helps some go on to 20-and 30-year careers in The Show is an ability to handle the unusual, whether it be the interpretation of an obscure rule or a confrontation with an angry player or coach.

Dust-ups between players and umpires aren't infrequent, but Ripperger said it has less to do with genuine antagonism than one might think.

“We're both trying to get to the major leagues,” he said. “That's where some of the friction comes, because they're trying to go to the majors and they want to do well.”

Neither players nor umpires are getting rich on minor league salaries. The hot days of July and August can make for short tempers as both parties wait for the call that will mean the next step in their careers.

The key for umpires, he said, is to stay flexible.

“The goal is to defuse a situation any way possible,” he said. “You practice it a little bit (in umpiring school). We say certain things to them and see how they respond.”

While certain situations have a particular protocol (“If someone says something negative about you personally, it's an automatic ejection, no warnings”), most arguments call for the umpire to be at least part psychologist.

“One of the hardest parts of the job is dealing with different personalities of players and managers and learning the best way to handle different situations,” he said. “You may give one warning to one guy and three to another guy. And when managers come out, it's not always because they think you missed the call.”

He tells the story of a manager who raced out to argue a call simply to earn a free ticket to the showers.

“It was all for show,” Ripperger said. “He said, 'I'm tired of watching this horrible baseball. You're going to have to run me, even though I think you got it right.'”

Long odds

The baseball landscape is littered with can't-miss prospects who were anything but, but the prospects are even bleaker for umpires aspiring to join the major league ranks.

“You have to be lucky and be in the right place at the right time,” Ripperger said. “There are only 68 major league umpires, and there's not always an opening every year. It could be three years until a job opens up.”

Although he has been on the fast track thus far, receiving a promotion nearly every year of his career, Ripperger said there are still no guarantees.

“There isn't really a timetable,” he said. “The goal is to get to the Arizona Fall League, and after you work the fall league they typically pick guys for major league spring training.”

Those games, played each March in Florida and Arizona, are the key for rising umpires. Once they have worked spring training, umpires are often sent back down to the minor leagues for the regular season but are eligible to work major league games should a midseason replacement be needed due to injury, sickness or vacation. There are 22 such umpires for the 2008 season, including Chris Tiller, a member of Ripperger's three-man crew.

In the event of a retirement, umpires with spring training experience are those from which the newest major league umpire will be chosen.

Waiting in line

Until the day he gets the call to umpire his first spring training contest, Ripperger will keep riding planes back and forth across the country, calling games in each of the PCL's 16 cities. While he never knows when the next opportunity will come, Ripperger's series of promotions and assignments at minor league all-star games are positive indicators.

Two of the four umpires selected to work last year's PCL all-star game made the cut for 2008 major league spring training. Aside from honors like these, he said feedback can be scarce for young umpires.

“Sometimes you don't know,” he said. “You do what (supervisors) tell you to do, and you work hard, and it's worked for me. I've been lucky enough to get promoted almost every year.”

After spending two years at Double-A – a standard progression for most umpires – Ripperger said he'll likely spend at least another season at Triple-A before being considered for a call-up, although history suggests it could be much longer. All four umpires at this year's Triple-A All Star Game have spent at least four years at the Triple-A level and at least nine years total in the minor leagues.

In the meantime, Ripperger has his eye on Sept. 1. That's the last day of the season for Triple-A umpires, after which he will head to the Harry Wendelstedt School for Umpires in Florida, the place where his career began and where he now serves as an instructor throughout January.

After helping graduate the newest class of aspiring umpires, he will prepare for the 2009 season beginning with spring training in mid-March, where the process will begin again under the Arizona sun.

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