He’s been yelled at by parents, watched kids break an unwritten Major League rule by drawing a line in the sand and been the focus of anger and insults from coaches and parents.
For 25 years, his role behind the plate or around the diamond has been to call strikes, balls, outs and plays at the plate while teaching young Babe Ruth League players about the game he loves.
Now Teddric Walker’s decades of devotion to baseball has earned him what every baseball player and umpire dreams of — a call up to The Show. In Walker’s case, that’s being recognized as one of the best youth umpires in the nation.
He’s been picked to umpire the 2025 Babe Ruth World Series in August in Ocala, Florida.
Who chose him for the role is a mystery.
“When I got selected, you know, I made calls to people, but they wouldn't tell me who it was,” Walker told Cowboy State Daily. “But it was somebody that grades us from the stands and (they would) be like, ‘Hey, this guy's he's good enough to go.’”
The southern Mississippi native who has called Gillette, Wyoming, home base for the past eight years first picked up a bat competitively at age 5 and played through high school and into college.
“I played everything but catcher because I was scared I was going to get hit with the bat,” he said.
Now he spends much of his time behind the plate calling them as he sees them and dodging foul balls or catching a stray pitch with his mask.
Walker’s selection is a major honor, and he will join elite umpires from around the nation to be part of a crew officiating the series where 16-to-18-year-olds on regional champion teams from across the United States and Canada. The Babe Ruth League now involves more than 1 million players ages 4-18, and 60,000 teams in the U.S. and Canada.
Application Never Sent
Walker said he was in the process of filling out an application to be considered for the series after being encouraged to do it by another umpire in the Pacific Northwest Region of Babe Ruth baseball.
The region includes Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington State, Oregon, Alaska as well as the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.
To qualify for the series, an umpire has to have worked a regional playoff involving the out-of-state teams plus a state tournament. Walker said he was selected anonymously by a commissioner in the league for the Ocala gig.
He said he had just filled out his application but had not sent it in when he learned of his selection.
Walker said interest for working the series may involve 1,000 or more applicants for an officiating role.
“I’m sitting with my family and we’re eating at the dinner table and I’m like, I’ve got an email, and it says Babe Ruth,” he said. “It says, ‘Hey, you’ve been selected to umpire the World Series. … I was one of five of the commissioner picks.”
Walker knows of only one other umpire in the state who has been selected for the World Series in the past.
Along with his umpire uniform, which he started wearing at 13 working games of younger players, for 20 years he wore a military one as amember of the National Guard.
After joining the military, Walker kept his role as an umpire to stay close to the game and help youngsters.
He enjoys helping develop young players and though he rotates through the roles as a base umpire he enjoys being behind the plate.
“I can control the narrative of the game, meaning like if teams are lollygagging getting out of the dugout and things like that,” he said. “You need to teach the rules … I’m like, ‘Hey, you know you all have a minute-30 to get out of the dugout.”
And when he is behind the plate, things get interesting from time to time. He recalls a game in Mississippi when a professional football player in the stands started arguing about a call that his partner made.
“I tossed him from the game,” Walker said. “He was mad about it because I tossed him for questioning the call.”
Line In The Sand
More recently, while working the Babe Ruth regional playoff games in 2024, a Canadian player didn’t like his strike call on the outside corner of the plate.
The player took his bat and drew a line in sand outside the plate indicating where he thought the pitch had been located.
Walker ejected him. His coach came out yelling, and he was ejected as well.
“In my plate meeting (before the game) I tell them, ‘You don’t have to yell,’” he said. “Come up to me and we’ll talk about it. But when a player draws a line in the dirt and tells me that’s where the pitch was, yeah, it’s zero tolerance for that.”
Walker said it is all about respecting and maintaining control of the game. If one player gets away with something disrespectful then other players may follow.
In Gillette, Walker’s umpire commitments keep him busy doing an average of eight games a week for players of all ages.
If there is a tournament that number could double or more. His on-the-field role is juggled with his job at Campbell County Health Department as a mental health counselor. He also serves as a volunteer with the Campbell County Fire Department.
Additionally, Walker said he’s also working on his master’s degree in business administration.
As an umpire, Walker said he has had opportunities to apply for Major League Baseball umpire school, but he wants to stay close to his family. He recently retired from his South Dakota National Guard to be able to do that.
“I would rather stay in my community,” he said. “Like, if my kids graduate and I still have the chance to go, I would go. But my youngest are in sixth and seventh grade.”
At the World Series tournament from Aug. 1 to 9 he will be part of four-man teams officiating the series, likely doing 13 or 14 games.
‘Dream Big’
Walker said the first day will just involve meeting teams and coaches and talking with them to “show them that you are human.” The second day, the games will begin.
“I think it’s like three games a day, and then you get one day off,” he said. “But you rotate through all the games during the day.”
Walker said his selection and opportunity in Florida provides him with another example from his own life to encourage young people to “dream big.”
“If you dream big, then you can be anything you want. I came from a single parent home, and it was definitely different for me not having my dad,” he said. Walker credits the coaches and mentors in his life who encouraged him, and he tries to do that for youngsters on the field.
When he started in Gillette, people encouraged him to umpire high school and older age games — which he does. But he also continues to love working with younger players.
“My interest in the game is to help little kids,” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
