Perseverance is a great skill. It may be the greatest.
That is one of the qualities I like best about baseball. You don’t succeed unless you persevere. That goes for players, coaches, managers, writers, broadcasters and yes, even umpires.
Fans must persevere as well. Your team will make a lot of mistakes.
All this brings us to the inspiring story of veteran MLB umpire Phil Cuzzi, a New Jersey native, who didn’t just follow his dream, he persevered time and again to get the job he wanted to do the rest of his working life, finding a way around so many roadblocks.
“Nothing about this job, which I am blessed to have, and I love my job, nothing came easy,’’ Cuzzi told BallNine. “And it started from Day One when I went to umpire school.’’
Along the way, Cuzzi, 65, founded an impressive fundraising dinner that not only raises money for ALS research and helps ALS patients in their daily struggle, the event also provides scholarships so those chasing their dreams can follow their dreams.
The Robert Luongo ALS Fund dinner is held at Nanina’s in the Park in Belleville, N.J.
It’s all about perseverance.
“When I graduated from college I was a school teacher, and I taught for like four years and I was in a good school system in Union, New Jersey,’’ Cuzzi began. “I said, it’s a great job, a great school, the people are good, the kids are good, I taught graphic arts, so it was an elective, so people chose to come into that class, and it was fun.’’
It wasn’t enough.
“I went into sales and made more money, which is what I wanted to do – and I said, ‘There has to be more to it than closing an order.’ I was at Yankee Stadium one night with my buddies and for some reason I just started watching the umpires and I said, ‘That would be a great job.’ ’’
The flame burned brightly.
“So I went to umpire school,’’ Cuzzi told me. “I packed up my car, I drove down to Daytona Beach, I said I’ve known baseball all my life how hard could this be? Once I got there I realized it was nothing like being a fan or being a player, it was completely different.’’
The former catcher at Belleville High took four years to make it out of umpire school.
“It’s offered once a year,’’ Cuzzi said. “It’s a five-week class and if you don’t make it but you still want to pursue it, you have to wait another full year. You try to work as many games as possible to get the experience. Long story short, it was tough for me to even get started.’’
There is no short to this long story. This is only the beginning of Cuzzi’s umpire journey.
Excellent article on Cuzzi.
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