Before Balls and Strikes, Umpires Make a Call to Pray

For more than a decade, a group of Major League Baseball’s umpires has convened by phone to pursue spiritual solace.

CHICAGO — The umpires dialed in at about 3 p.m. on a Friday, calling from places like St. Louis and Oakland, Seattle and Cleveland. It was time to pray. “God is our father,” Ted Barrett, a major league umpire for over two decades and an ordained Southern Baptist minister, told the men. “He loves to hear from us, and so don’t ever feel like he’s too big or too busy to bring your little problem to him.”