Saugus resident Garth Sanders was working from home — busy with some task — and missed the call. His adult son, who was home at the time, told him his cell phone was ringing. The call was from a friend named Shelly who had worked with him as a Little League umpire. Perhaps, Sanders thought, she was calling to say hello, to catch up.
Shelly didn’t give many details in her voicemail. She just asked Sanders to call her back. When Sanders got a hold of Shelly, she immediately told him the purpose of her call: Sanders had been chosen as a West Region umpire for the Junior League Softball World Series this summer in Kirkland, Washington.
“It was a really nice surprise,” Sanders said during a recent telephone interview. “Short of doing a ridiculous happy dance and trying not to embarrass any of the people in my family, yeah, you just kind of sit back and think about the work ahead. I enjoyed the moment but started to make plans about what I needed to do next.”
Sanders, 59, of Saugus, said Little League has been in his life since he was a kid. He said his family is “all Little League people.” Both of his parents helped in administrative levels, he played, and then, at 22 years old, he began umpiring.
“When I got done playing — and needless to say I was not going to be the next Shohei Ohtani — I just seemed to draw toward umpiring,” Sanders said. “My father said to me, ‘If you’re going to umpire, you need to get trained properly.’ And I went with him for a weekend clinic in San Bernardino. That was my first official training. I just loved it.”
He umpired for quite some time but took a hiatus from it when he went away to college. He’d get back to umpiring when his three kids started playing Little League.
In 2017, Sanders umpired his first World Series, which took place in Portland, Oregon. The process, he said, was much different than it is now. Today, that process is quite competitive.
According to a Little League release, nearly 100 dedicated umpires out of thousands are selected to umpire at one of the seven Little League World Series Tournaments.
“Every season, our umpires dedicate their time, energy and efforts to making sure the children in their communities all around the world have a fun, safe and memorable Little League experience,” Stu Hartenstein, Little League Director of Umpire Development and Operations, said in the release. “However, only a selected few earn the honor to represent their communities and fellow umpires on the world’s biggest stage at one of our seven World Series events each summer.”
Additionally, Hartenstein said, Little League expanded its crew chief program out to all seven of the World Series events this year as they look to strengthen the tournament experience with additional support for umpires.
The selection process to become a World Series umpire is lengthy and rigorous and has, according to the Little League release, become “an honor that only a select group have gone on to achieve.”
Sanders will be umpiring junior division games, which is 13- and 14-year-old softball. He was also named one of the three crew chiefs for the series.
“They kind of take the concept of Major League Baseball’s crew chief,” he said. “As a crew chief, I and the other two — one of us will be on the field for every game played.”
The 2025 Junior League Softball World Series is set to take place between July 27 and Aug. 2 at Everest Park in Kirkland, Washington. According to the Little League website, games are scheduled to air on ESPN platforms.
For more information about the Junior Little League Softball World Series, go to https://bit.ly/3DNrsOu.
