Sliders: For MLB umpire Mark Ripperger, a ‘very good' game turned out to be perfect

New York Times

18-04-2025

Welcome to Sliders, a weekly in-season MLB column that focuses on both the timely and timeless elements of baseball.
Mark Ripperger had played two years of high school baseball in Escondido, Calif., when he decided, as most 16-year-olds do, that he'd like to make some money. His parents and friends suggested he find a job in a field he loved, and the field he loved was baseball.
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He thought about umpiring Little League games, but instead hooked up with a high school umpires association, taking assignments far from home to avoid any conflicts of interest. After graduating, when Ripperger was allowed to work games at his alma mater, Escondido High School, objectivity came naturally.
'I'll tell you, that kind of comes out of you immediately,' he said, 'especially if you go into this and you want to do well.'
Last Thursday in Kansas City, Ripperger did the job as well as it can possibly be done: He worked a perfect game behind the plate. The Umpire Scorecards website, which uses MLB data from Baseball Savant to track umpires' accuracy, reported that the Royals and Twins took 136 pitches that day, and Ripperger called all of them correctly.
Umpire: Mark RippergerFinal: Twins 2, Royals 3#MNTwins // #FountainsUp#MINvsKC // #KCvsMIN
More stats for this ump 👇https://t.co/HbaW3zTGox pic.twitter.com/tjY6jRJQ3e
— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) April 11, 2025
Ripperger, a full-time umpire since 2015, did not realize at the time that he'd done a flawless job.
'There are times when I walk off the field and I don't feel like I was very good that day, and I ended up being very good,' he said. 'And there are days when I walk off thinking that I just nailed it, and I wasn't as good as I thought. So, no, not during that Thursday did I feel that way. I was certainly not expecting this sort of outcome when I walked off the field. I felt very good about my performance, very good about my game. But I certainly didn't think it was that.'
The perfect game is an unofficial feat — Umpire Scorecards is not affiliated with MLB — but Ripperger's stands as just the second in the 11 years of Statcast data. The other was by Pat Hoberg in Game 2 of the 2022 World Series in Houston.
Hoberg, who has since been fired for violating MLB's gambling rules, declined an interview request during that World Series. Ripperger, too, was initially reluctant to talk about his achievement. Umpires almost always prefer to stay in the background.
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But they are also proud of their profession and aware of the criticism that comes with it. The perfect game was a chance to commemorate a job well done.
'I kind of like to just fly under the radar — do my job the best I can and not really be in the spotlight,' Ripperger said. 'That's for the players. I know that our successes are not celebrated very much, whatever they are, and our blunders make us look not in a great light, I guess. I'm flattered about all this stuff, but at the same time, I'm just one of 76, and all those guys have great games as well.'
Even so, Umpire Scorecards ranks Ripperger among the best. Of the 75 umpires who had worked the plate at least three times through Wednesday, he ranked third in accuracy at 95.93 percent, trailing only Derek Thomas (97.24) and Will Little (95.96).
Ripperger, 44, felt an instant, indefinable connection with umpiring. His first instructor — while he was still in high school — was Mike Winters, a major-league ump from 1988 to 2019, and he bonded with amateur umpires who took the job seriously.
'We had weekly meetings, and after the meetings I would go to a restaurant and hang out with them,' Ripperger said. 'They'd go have a drink and I'd sit there with them at the restaurant and drink my water — or Pepsi or Coke or whatever — and listen to their stories. And I just fell in love with the job.'
It's a steep climb to the few MLB jobs available, and Ripperger — who started professionally in 2003 — worked for years in the Arizona Rookie League, the Northwest League, the Midwest League, the California League, the Eastern League, the Hawaii Winter League, the Venezuelan Winter League and the Pacific Coast League.
He made his MLB debut in 2010, five years before his full-time promotion. His fraternity strives for perfection while understanding it will (almost) always elude them.
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'We are trying to get everything right, and sometimes we don't — but it's not for lack of effort,' Ripperger said. 'We have an incredibly hard job and we know it's thankless, we really do. We know many people don't care for us.
'But the one thing I hear a lot is that we aren't held accountable. That kind of bothers me sometimes, because we are held accountable, mostly by ourselves. We hold ourselves accountable for the job that we do, but then we also have supervisors and Major League Baseball that tell us how we can be better and (how to) help us, and they hold us accountable as well. We are very dedicated to this job and we love it and we do our best to get everything right, knowing that we always won't.'
Baseball tested the automated ball-strike challenge system in spring training and could implement it in official games next season. That possibility, Ripperger said, does not impact the way he calls a game. The notion that umpires tailor their strike zones to personal preferences, he added, is a myth.
'I don't see that from anybody, and I don't believe anyone has that mindset,' he said. 'I believe everyone is trying to get everything right that they possibly can with the zone that's written in the rulebook.'
Umpires are graded each game for accuracy on ball-strike calls, safe-out calls, and so on. MLB considers those grades for postseason assignments, while also seeking a balance of veteran and less-experienced umpires for each crew. That way, younger umpires can be ready for future leadership roles.
As nice as it is to get a laudatory social media post from an independent grader, it's not what an umpire dreams about. Ripperger worked his first World Series last fall, and had the plate for the final game of the season at Yankee Stadium.
'I relished that opportunity and wanted that opportunity since I started this — kind of like the player that wants to hit the home run like Freddie Freeman did in Game 1, the grand slam to win the game,' he said. 'This was what I envisioned, working the World Series — albeit Game 7 instead of Game 5, but it was still the clinching game, just doing it — and I did it. It was unbelievable, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.'
On Tuesday at Citi Field, Howie Karpin will work his 1,500th game as official scorer. In that role, he keeps a precise accounting of each game, with daily decisions on hits or errors, wild pitches or passed balls and so on. He also announces and documents the many oddities that can arise.
Karpin has had his share of those, including two of the 15 unassisted triple plays in major-league history, by the Athletics' Randy Velarde in 2000 and the Phillies' Eric Bruntlett in 2009. But until a soggy and blustery night this month at Yankee Stadium, Karpin had never gotten to invoke the 11 essential words of rule 9.17 (b) (2): four innings of a game that lasts five innings on defense.
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Those words made starter Robbie Ray the winning pitcher for the Giants on April 11, even though he failed to work the five innings that are almost always required for a starter to qualify for a victory. The Giants took the lead for good in the top of the first that night and beat the Yankees, 9-1, in a rain-shortened game that was called after the Giants batted in the top of the sixth.
The timing of the stoppage was critical. Had San Francisco taken the field for the bottom of the sixth, Karpin could not have awarded the victory to Ray, who was pulled after four innings. But because the Giants played only — and exactly — five innings on defense, Ray's effort was enough for the win.
The rule has been invoked only nine other times in the division play era and just once since 2009, for San Diego's Joe Musgrove in Cincinnati three years ago. (The others to win that way, since you're surely wondering: Wilbur Wood, Bob Forsch, Mike Griffin, Richie Lewis, Larry Luebbers, CC Sabathia, Chris Michalak and Drew Carpenter.)
Official scorers once had more leeway in determining which pitcher gets the victory. The rulebook did not specify a five-inning minimum for starters until 1950; before then, hundreds of starters who did not go five were awarded wins.
Does Karpin like the rule the way it is now? He smiled and said it's not his job to like or dislike the rules he applies.
'I like that I knew it,' he said.
Trea Turner holds the major-league record for most stolen bases in a season without getting caught, with 30 for the Phillies in 2023. But a minor leaguer named Tyler Tolbert had actually doubled that total the year before, with a 60-for-60 season for Class-A Quad Cities. He took the team's name, River Bandits, literally — and insists he beat every tag.
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'There's always close calls,' Tolbert said. 'But as a base runner, I'll always say they made the right call.'
Tolbert reached the majors on March 31 when the Kansas City Royals promoted him as a pinch-running specialist, a role Terrance Gore filled for their World Series teams in the mid-2010s. Through his first six games in the majors, Tolbert was 4-for-4 on stolen base attempts.
A 13th-round pick from the University of Alabama-Birmingham in 2019, Tolbert was born in 1998 — the year of the fabled Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home run chase. There's been only one 75-steal season in his lifetime, by the Mets' Jose Reyes, who stole 78 in 2007.
While Tolbert is encouraged by rule changes to promote base stealing — 'I think the game's going back to the old days, with speed,' he said — he explains below why gaudy individual totals might not be coming back.
Speed is enough, at first: 'As a kid I was just quick. I paid attention to how to run bases, but as I got older in high school I started learning a little bit more and in college I learned a lot more — a foundation of what to look for, how to prepare to steal a base. Because when you're an amateur, you just kind of outrun the ball.'
In the pros, you need more: 'One, just to be fearless. You can't be scared, honestly. If you're scared to get picked off or anything, you're already in trouble. Two is just to know who the pitcher is and who the catcher is, identifying the matchups. And then we have a 'go' key, and we're just trying to get a jump every time. Even when I'm not in a 'go' mode, like I'm not trying to steal right here, in my mind, I'm still trying to get my rep in, so I'm ready at any time.'
Pay attention to the dirt, and protect your fingers: 'I slide headfirst. But the dirt does matter. I've noticed at Yankee Stadium, the dirt holds water, so it's gonna stick a little bit more. So I might slide closer to the bag. I've jammed a few fingers and thumbs, for sure, but that was before the sliding mitt.'
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Don't expect a 100-steal season anytime soon: 'I feel like (it's) because pitchers are getting quicker and the catchers here are elite. You have more scouting reports, you have more data, more accessibility to tendencies. Also it's a long season, and to steal a base, that's exerting a lot of energy. And say the pitcher's really quick, if (the runner) can score from first on a double, why risk getting thrown out? If he can get a ball in the gap, you're going to score. So you've got to know your matchups and know what the situation calls for.'
Listen to the greats: 'I loved Rickey Henderson. That was my dad's favorite player. I used to watch highlights of Rickey, the Man of Steal. And I remember when I was like 11, MLB Network, Diamond Demo. He was talking about stealing bases and he talked about a few things that have always stuck with me. I can't tell you my secrets, but he said something I still use to this day.'
"Who taught you that? I've never heard that!"
Rickey = the 🐐 pic.twitter.com/ibK8QpqgfE
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) December 22, 2024
When you're pursuing an MBA at the Wharton School — while climbing the executive hierarchy of an MLB team — it's best to finish your assignments on time. When you're a volunteer contributor to Sliders, you can take your time.
So we're giving the busy Sam Fuld, the Philadelphia Phillies' future president of business operations, a pass on his recent Immaculate Grid homework. Fuld, the former outfielder for the Cubs, Rays, A's and Twins, missed our deadline to send in a theme from the April Fool's Day grid, which had spaces for any nine players in MLB history. But he came through eventually.
Fuld, who was born in Durham, NH, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy, chose nine players who were born in New Hampshire or attended high school there. They include a Cy Young Award winner from Exeter (Chris Carpenter), an All-Star lefty from North Conway (Jeff Locke) and a lifetime 1.000 hitter from Concord (Matt Tupman, who was 1-for-1).
Not many major leaguers share their last name with a holiday. There's Steve Christmas, a catcher from the mid-1980s, but almost anything else is a stretch. Gary (New Year's) Eave? Coby (Cinco de) Mayo? Not quite.
Then there's the holiday coming up on Sunday … which brings us to Luke Easter, a prodigious 1950s power hitter. Easter had started in the Negro Leagues with Buck Leonard and the celebrated Homestead Grays, and signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1949.
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'Had Luke come up to the big leagues as a young man,' Cleveland slugger Al Rosen told the Smithsonian magazine, decades later, 'there's no telling what numbers he would have had.'
Easter was 35 years old when the 1950 season began and went on to smash 292 homers for the decade. He had three big power seasons for Cleveland before a 10-year stint as a prolific home run hitter in Class AAA.
Easter's biggest years came in Buffalo, where he became one of the city's first sports icons. Easter was 40 and hobbled when he joined the Bisons, but his raw power remained. In three full seasons with Buffalo, he belted 113 homers — 'Easter Eggs,' they called them — and became a charter member of the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.
'Buffalo fans have always worshipped their sport heroes,' his plaque reads, 'but few have ever attained the near-mythical status accorded Bison great Luke Easter.'
The Bisons — now a Toronto Blue Jays affiliate — include Easter's No. 25 among their three retired numbers. Here's a short video they put together about him last year:
(Top photo of Mark Ripperger: Josh Boland / MLB Photos via Getty Images)