Jayton’sStephenReynolds— known to ag producers in these parts as head of the local Farm Service Agency office in Spur and to school-sports followers as the voice of the Texas 1A Fan podcast—had a dream.
One he’d called his first youth baseball game purely by accident a few years back, he found his way gradually from coaching on the sidelines to regularly donning the umpire’s mask behind the plate.
And who, in those circumstances, wouldn’t want to make it to the World Series?
The Junior League World Series in Taylor, Michigan, this week, to be exact.
That’s where Reynolds and his wife, Johnna Richey Reynolds, traveled cross-country from Jayton. Stephen officiated his first game on Sunday—his birthday.
“From all of my friends and family to the WS umpire crew, to many of the players in my first WS game after my wife had the PA announcer announce it at the beginning of the game, thank you so much,” Stephen posted on Facebook. “It was a very special day.”
After the Reynoldses married 35 years ago, Stephen said, an opportunity to opportunity to coach minor-league Little League came his way. Baseball had always ranked up there with his favorite sports, and he grew up playing the game in his hometown of Hamlin, Texas.
Then, before one game, a colleague approached him. “I need a favor from you today,” he’d said—and Stephen called the game. “So that was kind of my dipping my toe in the water.” Several years later, whentheirownkidsstarted playing T-ball in Hamlin, he umpired those games. By the time the Farm Service Agency moved the family to Paducah, Texas, he was serving as league president, the role that’s also assigned to calling games.
In 2003, Johnna said, him, “You seem to enjoy this so much, why don’t you go get paid for it?” And through the Texas Association of Sports Officials chapter in Lubbock, he obtained training and began calling high school ball, on fields between the West Texas cities of Paducah, Lubbock and Floydada—all while still calling youth baseball in Paducah.
You could say he’d found a niche.
When the FSA took the Reynoldses to a new post again, to Jayton in 2010, Stephen took a couple of years’ hiatus. But then he crossed paths with Bobbie Brown, district administrator for District 38 Little League, which includes Spur and Jayton.
He got a call up one June evening. “Do you still have your umpire equipment?”
The league needed help with a championship game in Slaton, and Brown tapped him as a fresh face for the officiating ranks.
up in his side gig, to a point where he was also responsible for training others.
“I learned a lot through the TASO chapter in Lubbock,” he said. Clinics provided him the chance to hone his skills, including the switch from the finger- pointing gesture for a called strike that he’d long perfected, to the “hammer” that Little League International prescribed.
“The very first time, I knocked my own mask off,” he admitted.
In 2015 Stephen was selected to call his first state tournament, and in 2017 was nominated and selected to call the Junior Southwest Regional in Santa Fe. The following year, he filled the same role with the Junior Southwest Regional in Albuquerque, before Covid prompted a hiatus. Returning to action in 2022, he umpired at the Senior Southwest Regional in Seguin, Texas.
Those games were a very exciting arena, Stephen said, “which could translate to a few nerves” given the national broadcast coverage, and his first experience with instant replay.
“You’re going to take some heckling and complaining” when you’re the buy in the umpire’s uniform, he said, “but it’s still the best seat in the house.”
Starting in 2023, Stephen was selected to be an umpire selector/evaluator. This was a different role, he said, not being on the field calling, making sure umps are up to speed, and managing pregame and postgame discussions.
Stephen explained, one of the biggest changes has been not in the game itself but in the public attention available to it. Time was, only the Major League grade 11-12 boys at Williamsport was the only tournament televised. Now, ESPN contracts for every baseball and softball matchup to be broadcast, and with that has come the instant replay, he said.
After a full one-day training in March (half day spent on the manual, half a day on the field) and mastering the rules, Stephen said he would still be working to prepare for Michigan. In the Junior Series, there would be 13 umpires, and an umpire might call 5 or 6 games; the roster would change daily.
Stephen planned to make a road trip of it with the family (daughter Jaylee and son Garrett are both recently engaged, he said), arriving in time for Opening Ceremonies on Saturday, Aug. 3.
What did he expect the atmosphere to be like when they arrived? I asked.
“I’ll find out when I get there,” he replied with his customary droll chuckle.
By now he’s had a chance to test his mettle on one field of dreams, with that first game August 4 and the series wrapping up the weekend of August 10.
We’ll be watching from time to time (switching channels back and forth from the Paris Olympics!) to see if we can spot our hometown guy behind the plate.
We know he’s doing a
task he truly loves.
“You take a lot of criticism being an official from time to time,” he said, “but the joy of working with the kids outweighs it.”
The 2024 Junior League Baseball World Series schedule and scores can be consulted at https:// www.littleleague.org/ world-series/2024/jlbws/ tournaments/world-series
