The biggest difference between officiating in Northeast Michigan compared to the Saginaw area is the travel.

If I had a drive of more than 30 minutes to a game in the Saginaw area, it was a long trip.

My shortest drive from my Hubbard Lake home was more 20 minutes, and most trips took more than 45 minutes.

Below is a travel story from my Saginaw days.

My partner, Don, and I are headed from Saginaw to Millington for a baseball doubleheader.

It had to be back in the mid-70s, and I was driving in my old Volkswagen Beetle.

We are on M-46 heading east.

Don was commenting on my VW.

I said, “I really like it. It runs just great.”

Within five minutes of my comment, there is a noise, the engine stops, and a puff of smoke comes out of the vents. I coast to the side of the road and there we are.

As I said, this was the mid-70s. We couldn’t get out a cell phone and call an Uber.

We got our bags of gear out of the trunk. We both had big bags, as we had to have our own shin guards, mask, chest protector, plate shoes with steel toes and insteps, base shoes, plus all of the little things (ball strike indicator, plate brush, lineup folder, pencils, etc.).

We put the bags on the side of the road and stood with our thumbs out.

Would you believe that, within five minutes, we had a driver stop to give us a ride?

As luck would have it, he was also going to Millington and drove us right to the baseball diamond and got us there well before game time.

Now, we still had to get home.

I gave the Millington athletic director my home phone number and he went into the school and called my wife and told her she had to come and pick us up.

Then I had to get a tow bar and go back to where the VW was sitting by the side of the road and tow it home.

I was fortunate that I worked in the summer for a rental agency that rented hitches and tow bars … and that I had a key to the business.

Time to confess another bad mistake I made.

My major fault as an umpire was in making ball/strike calls a bit too quickly.

I remember many times starting to call “strike” when the batter swung at the pitch and hit the ball.

I had to remind myself game after game to wait a second after a pitch before making a call.

In one instance, it wasn’t a pitch that I called too quickly but a bunt.

We had a runner on first and the batter popped a bunt toward the pitcher. The ball landed in the pitcher’s glove and I too quickly called “OUT.”

The ball then bounced out of the pitcher’s glove and landed on the grass.

Now I made the second mistake: I yelled no catch.

Of course, when I called “out,” the runner on first retreated to first. Now, when I yell “no catch,” the runner is completely confused and heads for second, where they throw the ball for a force out.

Also, when I called “out,” the batter did not run, so, after the base runner was thrown out at second, the throw to first resulted in a double play.

I called time out and summoned both coaches. Here is the gist of my explanation: “Coaches, you know I messed up. I’m sorry. Now I have to try to fix the situation, and neither of you is going to be happy. Allowing the double play is not fair to the offense. If I put the runner on second and the batter on first, it is not fair to the defense. So my original out call stands on the batter and the runner remains on first base.”

Thankfully, both coaches who were veteran coaches accepted the decision.

Les Miller, of Hubbard Lake, has retired after 53 years officiating multiple sports around Michigan. He can be reached at theoldref@yahoo.com.