Tripp Gibson-Major League Baseball Umpire
Tripp Gibson-Major League Baseball Umpire.
Our program on January 25 was Tripp Gibson of Marysville who is a MLB Umpire.
Tripp graduated from High school when he was 18 and his dad owned an electronics business. When Tripp graduated he worked for his dad in Mayfield, Kentucky. Tripp grew up playing baseball and was on a traveling team.
After graduation Tripp was tired of working for his dad and playing baseball. Tripp’s grandfather gave him $1000 per year to go to Murray State University in Murray , Kentucky. He had some offers to play baseball, but after deciding to go to Murray State he started umpiring for little league baseball and also joined a fraternity. He also met a Rotary member that invited him to go to a Rotary meeting where the program was an umpire.
As a Junior in College he decided to go to umpire school after he graduated from College. While in College he umpired Jr College games and other College games. Went to umpire school after graduating from College and graduated 2nd in his class.
It is a very hard selection process to be selected to umpire Major League Games. Much of the process is like the Baseball Players, umpires start in the Minor Leagues and move into the Major League. He began in the minor league and the first game was with an umpire named Wasaki from Tokyo.
9 years later, Tripp had worked most of the United States and after 9 seasons he was called to be an Umpire for the Major Leagues. After 7 seasons he was asked to go to work Spring Training. After that he was put on call for when other Umpires couldn’t be at their games. His first real major league game was in Arizona and went on record as the longest major league game umpired by a rookie.
There is a lot of sacrifice for the people that choose Umpiring as a profession. Tripp has to travel a lot and that leaves his family without him many times. He lives in Marysville with his wife and children, but they have to deal with him being gone many times during the season. He does have a lot of support from his family.
2014 he worked 149 games in the Major Leagues. At the end of the season they called Tripp and told he that they were sending him to the Dominican Republic for the season. He lived in the capital and had to drive for hours in a minivan with 8 people to get to games. After being in the Dominican Republic he was invited by Joe Torre to be a full-time umpire with the Major Leagues. This is his 4th full season. He was a replay umpire for the World Series.
