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Perry Barber

@umpireplb.bsky.social

990 followers 1K following 620 posts

she/her, dispelling any confusion

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 4d

We can't all be Jane Goodall, but we an all sure as hell be difficult.

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 7d

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

Reposted by Perry Barber

Kerry O’Malley Cerra: author 🤟🏼 @kerryomalleycerra.bsky.social · 2d

For those who can’t afford Taylor Swift’s new album, be sure to check your local library. My county library has The Life of a Showgirl up on the Hoopla app, and it’s free for me to stream with my library card. Libraries for the win! #taylorswift

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 1d

Happy for you, Ruth

Looking to get mine soon

Stay safe! And GO JAYS!!!!!

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 1d

The weird irony of Bondi sitting behind a name plate identifying her as "Hon. Pam Bondi" is almost too bizarre for the human mind to absorb. I think the last time anybody called Pam Bondi "Hon" must have been the day after she was born. How do people like her wind up becoming people like her?

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 1d

A significant and emotional step forward turning the dream of a home for girls and women's baseball into the reality of an actual place right there in Rockford, Illinois at Beyer Stadium, former home of the Rockford Peaches, future home of a museum, activities center, and now, Maybelle Blair Park!!

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 4d

We can't all be Jane Goodall, but we an all sure as hell be difficult.

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 7d

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 6d

Why I love closed captions

Because "gold glove" magically becomes "cold love"

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 6d

Highly recommended!

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 6d

Proud to be difficult!

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 7d

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

What do we do about the ones who already have guns? If we "ban" future sales of guns to White men, the ones who already have them won't just nod along and smile, capisce? It's going to take a multi-pronged approach to reduce gun violence in this country. Depressingly, it may even be too late by now.

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

Me too, stressica. Hang in there.

A good night's sleep and a long soak in a tub full of steamy water and epsom salts are my go-to panaceas for exhaustion, burn-out, depression, and lack of interest in self-care. Lose your mind a little, you'll find it again soon enough. Just don't bite the mailman.

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

Not to mention, there are safety reasons for an umpire to not get this close to a play. The risk of being kicked in the mouth, flattened by a runner and fielder getting tangled up, or of getting in the way of a tag, etc. is very high.

Getting a good angle is more important than getting close.

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

You'd think an umpire this close has an advantage in calling a play accurately, Michael, but the opposite is true. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the farther away from a play an umpire is, the better he or she can see the big picture as well as the small details. ("Farther" within reason.)

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

It's actually NOT "peak form," Grant. Guideline for trained umpires: Don't get too close to a play, and don't be moving when it happens. To do so is to risk having the play "explode" on you, which may be why this umpire's call was overturned. Distance increases range of vision and improves accuracy.

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

Let us not pass by or forget this good woman who devoted her adult life to loving and fighting for vulnerable creatures.

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 7d

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

When will tariffs "kick in to their benefit"?

When will tariffs kick in for MY benefit? Or yours? I don't see any evidence of that happening as I pay my $83.72 cents at the grocery store for two days' worth of food.

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 7d

But but but they're joking, right? Like ha-ha funny joking, not dream-up-some-horrid-thing-like-a-torture-prison-in-the-middle-of-an-alligator-infested-swamp type joking? Right? RIGHT?

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 8d

A bit of good baseball news, and I don't know about you, but I can really use some

International Women's Baseball Center @iwbc4me.bsky.social · 9d

Baseball's big summer in Rockford: Largest girls tourney in the country adds to Women's Baseball World Cup

By Kevin Haas Rock River Current Get our mobile app ROCKFORD — The largest girls baseball tournament in the country

www.rockrivercurrent.com

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 8d

Great, now people with dandruff will be getting arrested en masse for aborting potential babies every time a flake falls

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 9d

I feel calmer already

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 9d

Oh Kevin, forgive my nitpicky response, I'm just a pain in the butt that way. Of course I know your intent was to be sweet, and I'm grateful for your kindness.

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 9d

Well, I hope you weren't sorry to READ this, Kevin, but I get that you're sorry it happened. I hope you've enjoyed reading my narrative about my father's disappearance and its aftermath; such strange tragedies to have befallen all of us. Thank you for reading!

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 9d

My father vanished in a small watercraft off the coast of Atlantic City on this day in 1959, never to be seen alive again. My twin sister and I were six when it happened, and 66 years later, some days I feel like I've never gotten over it, and never will.

Thinking of him today💔

My father's brother Ted planted the story about our father committing suicide so our mother wouldn't get the life insurance money she was owed, which would have caused her enough financial pain that Ted would then swoop in like a savior/vulture and offer her ten cents on the dollar for her Barber Steamship Lines stock so she could keep financing our Upper East Side of Manhattan lifestyle that included three children at two fairly pricey private schools. Our mother basically flipped off Ted and the rest of the Barbers, and hired one of the best lawyers in New York, Herman Goldman, to represent her in her suit against the Barber family trust. She won, and she's the reason I've lived in relative financial comfort all my life. By an accident of birth and a mother with all the moxie of a gun moll, my siblings and I were blessed by never having to worry about keeping a roof over our heads, and that has been a HUGE blessing for me. Umpiring is my passion and my life's work, but it hasn't always paid the bills! Having the freedom to be able to do what I love and not worry about how much it pays has been a huge blessing in my life too.

Decades later my mother finally confessed to me that she'd had an argument with my father the night he disappeared that ended with her flouncing down to the unoccupied maid's quarters to which she had banished him, throwing a bottle of whiskey on his bed and snapping, "Here, sleep with that." Those were the last words she ever spoke to him, and imagining the guilt she must have carried around with her all those decades was a startling revelation to me, who had always felt a similar guilt about his disappearance because of something that had happened the day before of which I was so ashamed and confused I could never speak of it to anyone, not even my twin sister. Hearing my mother's confession was a life-altering experience for me; after decades of feeling it was MY fault he left, I was finally relieved of my guilt by my mother's unwitting absolution when she told me she felt it was HER fault.

Life is so damn complicated.

Cholly Knickerbocker was a nom de plume for a series of gossip columnists for the New York Journal American. The Cholly who wrote this article about my father's disappearance was Igor Cassini, brother of designer Oleg. Igor mentored another famous gossip columnist's career, Liz Smith's. My father's disappearance was front age news for several days, then gradually receded into the background noise of other scandals, other society escapades and deaths.

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Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 12d

Enjoying the Orioles @ Yankees game on a beautiful autumn night in the Bronx with longtime pal, author Lee Lowenfish and about 60,000 other happy fans who’ve seen Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton crush monster blasts outta the park! And it’s only the fifth inning! LOTTA baseball to go

Perry Barber @umpireplb.bsky.social · 14d

You’re killing’ me, Smalls!