Author’s Flashback — Perry Barber: You Gotta Love the Ump!
By Stephen Hanks
Published on August 5, 1986 in The Village Voice, New York City
I first heard the phrase “You gotta love the game” during my college baseball days. It was uttered with a combination of sincere passion and mock self-justification by my coach, Nick Testa, who is still the prototypical baseball lifer — late ’50s, former minor-leaguer, never married, pitches and catches batting practice for the Mets and Yanks, plays third base on weekends with an over-35 league team. One day Nick was so intent on playing that he poured gasoline on and set fire to the dirt part of a rain-soaked infield. When an astonished onlooker suggested a postponement, Nick stopped raking, looked up, smiled, and uttered those words that have endeared him to me for life. I’ve kept an eye out for such on-the-field characters ever since; people for whom the game is not just the thing, but the obsession; who are potential inductees in my “You Gotta Love the Game” Hall of Fame.
Perry Lee Barber has the credentials to merit an entire wing. She’s a walking personals ad for baseball nuts: Attractive SWF, 33, loves movies and the Mets; baseball trivia buff, guitarist who has recorded orig. baseball tunes and sung Anthem in bigs; seeks fulfillment as pro ump after six yrs. in bush leagues.
