Al Clark was a professional umpire for thirty years, working more than three thousand games, including two All-Star Games, seven playoff series, and two World Series. Called Out But Safe (May 1, 2014) is his autobiography written with former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg. Below, Clark writes about the new “instant reply.” 

One of the great powers baseball holds for all its fans—from the little leaguers to the major leaguers—is continuity and consistency. From year to year and even decade to decade, the fans know not many changes will occur. Sure, some changes come in order to enhance fan interest, like holding more playoff games, or holding night games at Wrigley Field, or even league realignments to create regional rivalries, like the change made by the Houston Astros when they joined the American League to create a natural rivalry with the Texas Rangers of Arlington.

But seldom do the Lords of Baseball—the commissioner and the owners—change the rules of the game and parameters as they have done this year. The last time a baseball rule was changed was in the 1970s, when the American League adopted the Designated Hitter (DH) rule. This year “Instant Replay” has been adopted to ensure against certain plays being decided incorrectly by the umpires, and it has altered how a runner trying to score can “attack” home plate when the catcher has possession of the ball or how a catcher can position himself when waiting to receive a throw from another fielder.

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Orlando Ricardo Menes is an associate professor of English and Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Below he writes about his latest book, Fetish, winner the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry.  I have been … Continue reading From the desk of Orlando Ricardo Menes

Emily Levine is an independent scholar and the editor of Witness: A Húŋkpapȟa Historian’s Strong-Heart Song of the Lakotas.

I am privileged and honored to be the editor of Josephine Waggoner’s monumental life’s work. What historian would say no to editing one of the few new Native manuscripts to come to light in recent decades? What historian would say no to bringing to publication the voluminous work of a Hunkpapa historian long unrecognized? What historian would say no to taking on this work when asked to do so by members of the woman’s family? Looking back, I am chagrined to say, this one. While I was pleased with my work on Waggoner’s collaboration with Susan Bettelyoun, published as With My Own Eyes: A Lakota Woman Tells Her People’s History (University of Nebraska Press, 1998), I was not ready to undertake another long-term project and had work of my own that I was interested in pursuing. I think I actually said no twice before I gave in and agreed to compile and edit this new manuscript material.

Would I have agreed if I’d known it would be a thirteen-year-long labor of love, consuming time and resources I often didn’t have? That it would take over my life and become a single-minded pursuit? I believe there is truth in what members of Josephine’s family have told me: that I was the one meant to do this work and that I cared enough to do it justice. Perhaps it helped that I am not an academic, that I could work without deadlines, that no promotion or tenure considerations were involved, and that I did not suffer the scrutiny of colleagues. My loyalty lay only with Josephine Waggoner, her family, and the Lakota people.

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