If you follow Major League Baseball at all, by now you have likely heard that umpire C.B. Bucknor had a particularly awful showing behind home plate in Cincinnati. It was only the second game of the season, with the Red Sox in town to kick off the new campaign, and the performance was impossible to ignore.

It is important to understand the labor mechanics here: in an MLB umpire’s contract, they cannot be dismissed or face retribution over “judgment calls.” Crucially, this protection has included the strike zone—until now. With the Automated Ball-Strike system (ABS) now showing in real time, there is no more room for “judgment.” Because the system provides objective data, missed calls are now logged as mechanical failures rather than protected opinions. There is only the data.

When I say Bucknor was “particularly awful,” we fortunately now have a way to quantify that measurement. That number is 72%. That was Bucknor’s accuracy behind home plate in his first game of the season. It should be noted that he, like all umpires, got work in Spring Training and many worked the World Baseball Classic; it’s not as if this was his first time seeing live pitches since last fall.

I bring a bit of unique knowledge to this situation, having umpired for more than a decade and reaching the JUCO level. Had football coaching not been my path, I could easily see myself as one of the many who went to pro school and spent a decade touring the Minor Leagues in a Winnebago.

The fact that C.B. had a bad game is nothing new. He is the second-longest tenured umpire in today’s game, yet he is the only one with that much seniority and zero League Championship or World Series appearances. Since those assignments are based strictly on seasonal performance, it is notable that in twenty-five seasons, he has failed to be amongst the top tier even once.

Years before ABS, Statcast, or Hawk-Eye, umpires were already receiving breakdowns and scorecards. It started in the early 2000s, and by 2005, they were getting daily reports. What started as a rough estimate using the best images available has turned into mathematical certainty. The question of balls and strikes is no longer subjective—it is no longer a judgment call. There is a right and a wrong answer, and the truth is visible to the fans on the scoreboard before the umpire even speaks.

I firmly believe that C.B., like most umpires, legitimately wants to get the call right. As pointed out by JomBoy Media, when Bucknor went to ring up strike three for a second time, he didn’t even get all the way into his “spell casting” before the batter was tapping his head. C.B. had to reluctantly turn to the press box and signal that the batter was, once again, challenging the call.

So, why is C.B. Bucknor so bad, particularly with the low strike? It comes down to a technical flaw in his mechanics. Bucknor is one of the last MLB umpires who uses the “scissors” stance. While there is more than one way to stand behind the plate, the data has proven there is an objective “best.” Most modern umpires use “the slot.”

The major problem with the scissors position is that your view of the vertical plane—particularly at and below the knees—is heavily distorted. Because the head is often higher and further back, it creates a parallax error, making low pitches look like strikes. Furthermore, the stance is inherently less stable; if your head moves even an inch as the pitch crosses the zone, your entire frame of reference shifts. It’s a legacy technique that simply cannot compete with the precision required in the high-tech era. Seniority used to be a shield for umpires, but technology has turned it into a spotlight. In the “judgment era,” a veteran could hide behind their years of service.

The data collected over the last decade offers a theory about Major League Baseball umpires and their “prime,” and it might be as surprising to you as it was to me. Since 2015, the umpires posting the best seasonal records for accuracy are almost all on the younger end of the spectrum. When you factor in age, years of service, and accuracy, the “Goldilocks” zone for a scorecard is a 33-year-old with three to five years of MLB experience. By contrast, the worst-performing umpires over that same period all had more than 20 years on the job.

In this first week of the MLB season, the numbers continue to favor the youth. Since the initiation of ABS at the start of the season—35 games deep at the time of this writing—the ten youngest umpires have a challenge overturn rate of 39%. The ten oldest? Their calls are being successfully overturned 69% of the time.

As a fan of the game, I have spent years saying, “It’s time for robot umps.” But I am also honest enough to admit that if I were one of the many dozens of umpires waiting on a call-up—or if I had finally made it to the show—I’d be singing a different tune. The data is undeniable, but it forces a hard question: Is this just progress, or is it the start of AI making the “human element” obsolete?

I originally planned to leave this piece as a critique of his Opening Week performance and leave it at that. But then came his next assignment on April 1st, where in just the top of the second, one of the aforementioned “problems” with where he sets up behind the plate was once again on display. C.B. took a wicked foul ball that (it should be noted, went up and slightly to the pitcher’s left) but still managed to hook C.B. right underneath his left chin.

I seriously doubt at this point in his career that he will be changing, and it would seem likely that a serious shot to the head like what took him out of Wednesday’s game could be reason enough (and has been in the past for other MLB umpires) to retire.

Perhaps there is a middle ground that we have yet to find, but it does seem to be a little funny to me when the announcers talk about the given Plate Umpire’s “Strike Zone” - “Oh he’s got a good zone, tight zone, low zone, bit of width on the corners, likes the high strike…” Two thoughts occur to me. One: are we still doing this? And two: idnit one strike zone now?

There is a specific kind of shattering that occurs when you are finally honest with yourself about something you have long ignored or dismissed as immaterial.

The best example I have is my own sexuality. For years, I had a growing list of reasons why I couldn’t be gay. But when the moment of truth finally arrived—as I sat by my apartment window, smoking a cigarette and finishing off a fifth of Captain Morgan—it was as if I had taken off a set of glasses I hadn’t even realized I was wearing.

Everything in the world shifted just slightly. It was enough to be both interesting and unnerving. The scenery stayed the same, but for the first time, I could see the real color of things.

Strangely, my interactions with women became easier. On one occasion, my mother noticed a barista flirting with me while I remained completely oblivious. She remarked a few moments later that I was “really coming into myself.” It was a curious comment to make after an interaction with the opposite sex, but after some reflection, it made sense. Because I was no longer preoccupied with why I wasn’t having luck dating women, I could let my guard down. I could just be myself. And, as it turned out, that self was actually likable. It was the first of many interactions in a brand-new world.

I have experienced other shattering moments recently. I picked up a book by Jordan Thomas, a hotshot-firefighter-turned-anthropologist titled When It All Burns. It is an apropos title for a post-mortem on the current wildfire crisis in California and across the West.

Going in, I expected a standard indictment of fossil fuel companies—the aggressive climate-change denial operations of the fifties and seventies that led to our current era of fuel-loading and drought. But what I am learning is that while climate change hasn’t helped our efforts to contain “mega-fires,” our fate was actually set in motion much longer ago.

Here is where it gets interesting. What do out-of-control wildfires and the failed War on Drugs have in common? They are both disastrous governmental policies designed to outlaw indigenous ways of life.

To oversimplify Thomas’s thesis: we needed everyone to participate in a specific market economy, so we made the means of living outside that system illegal. One of the most effective tools of this erasure was the banning of “cultural burning”—the practice of setting fire to lands to keep the soil fertilized and the ecosystem balanced.

For most of human history, there is significant evidence that fire was used as a tool to rid the forest of waste and promote the healthy seeding of plants. Native American tribes are now largely credited with the “creation” of the Sequoia National Forest—home to the oldest and largest living organisms on Earth. How did those trees get so massive without being destroyed by a mega-fire?

It’s because the Indigenous people were great tenders of the forest. Their regular, low-intensity burning of forest debris allowed the Sequoias to grow alongside the fire, rather than perishing in its flames.

By trying to “protect” the forest through total suppression, we created a tinderbox. By trying to “protect” society through the War on Drugs, we created a black market catastrophe. If the objective of the War on Drugs was to have Americans using fewer drugs, it has been an abysmal failure on every level.

Since the War on Drugs began in 1970, the United States has spent—conservatively—$1,000,000,000,000.00. That is one trillion dollars attempting to stem the flow of drugs into the country and subsequently reduce consumption. The only thing it has succeeded in doing is creating black markets, empowering the cartels that supply them, and breeding even deadlier derivatives of the same substances.

Now, I am no more supporting San Francisco’s failed open-air drug market experiment than I am recommending you walk outside and throw a match off your balcony, but the irony cannot be lost on me. If you were a member of any number of recovery or spiritual communities during COVID—particularly in California or any of the more restrictive states or counties—you saw a lot of people “go out,” and far fewer return.

If isolation is to disease what fire suppression has been to our current lack of environmental control, I have some bad news. It would appear that we are all gas, no brakes, and careening toward the cliff’s edge.

I write this as we enter the end of the first week of America’s newest war. Now, I have no doubt that the IRGC and the Ayatollah are no friends of mine, but if there is one thing the two failed wars I have just mentioned should have taught us, it’s this: the road to hell is paved with what you thought were good intentions.

California is a fascinating social experiment. The hypothesis seems to be: “If we all ignore the speed limit simultaneously, can they actually ticket us all?” The result is a Bay Area reality where 80mph is the baseline. Even when you’re keeping pace with the pack, there is inevitably someone inches from your bumper, demanding more.

Coming from Nevada, “them’s fightin’ words.” For a long time, I didn’t realize that my exhaustion after a simple grocery run was the mental tax of suppressed road rage at every intersection. It took a conscious effort of “living amends” to change my internal tuning. I eventually realized that no matter my speed, someone would always be riding my ass. I decided to simply ignore them.

It turns out that when you stop staring at the threat in the mirror, you have a lot more energy for the road ahead. As a now “not-so-jelly” Jelly Roll famously shouted during his 2023 CMA acceptance speech: “The windshield is bigger than the rear-view mirror for a reason!”

The Cost of the Rear-View

In the context of addiction, the rear-view mirror is a heavy place to look. Accepting my sobriety meant accepting that my “delayed arrival” into adulthood cost me ten years of prime earning potential. That is a tremendous consequence to carry. I often wish the damage was contained strictly to my own life, but addiction is insidious; it leaks into every relationship

.

While A.A. and my recovery have offered me a code to live by, I still find myself looking for a broader “North Star” in a society that feels increasingly rudderless. This is why I’ve gravitated toward the work of Scott Galloway. As a gay man navigating these cultural shifts, I deeply appreciate his lean into positive masculinity. He argues that true masculinity isn’t about dominance or ego; it is rooted in the responsibility to protect and provide. It’s a grounded moral code in an era of extravagance.

The Training Ground for Impact

Years ago, I spoke at a University “think tank” about masculinity—back before the word carried the inflammatory baggage it does today. I wanted to offer anecdotal evidence on why certain men, specifically football players, struggle to assimilate into everyday society.

My theory, rooted in my experience as both a player and a coach, was simple: That which you train for, you get.

From a young age, football players are conditioned to respond to both emotional and physical pain with overwhelming, authoritative strength. You have to be retrained to override your survival instincts. You are taught to meet impact with greater impact.

The problem back then was that we often left these men with an incomplete toolkit. We trained them meticulously in the art of the strike, but gave them fewer instructions for the “after-impact”—the nuanced skills of de-escalation and emotional regulation. Over the last decade, the NFL recognized this gap and took massive, successful strides to fix it, prioritizing personal conduct and player development. They realized that when you give strong men a complete toolkit, they don’t just become better players; they become better citizens. I am proud to report that of the 32 NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year nominees in 2026, I personally know three of them. That I can even say that makes me proud.

The Anchorless Generation

The irony is that while the NFL worked to solve its “impact” issues, the rest of society went the other way. The “overwhelming authority” of the football field and the lawlessness of the freeway have moved into our digital pockets.

We are witnessing the systematic stripping of the “masculine anchor.” Everything shown to young men today is loud, extravagant, and fleeting—seven-second bursts of wealth and ego that demand immediate attention. There is no “code” of conduct, only a race for status. Scott Galloway famously noted that “young, disenfranchised men are a malevolent force in any society.” History shows us that when men have no positive avenues for their energy and no moral “speed limits” to guide them, they become the tailgater riding the bumper of society, looking for a reason to hit the gas.

I am not blaming parents here; in fact, this is why I started with the example of collective action around the speed limit. We are all more than happy to ignore what is right when enough of us decide that the rules don’t make sense, or simply shouldn’t apply to us. We’ve collectively decided to look away while the “speed limit” of civil, masculine behavior has been abandoned.

The real scary thing isn’t the hits on the field—where the rules are now clearer than ever—it’s the world outside the lines. It’s the fact that we’ve stopped teaching young men that their strength is meant to be a shield for others, not a weapon for themselves.

When it comes to masculinity, we need to put down the rear-view mirror and look forward. The concept has been misaligned with coarseness and cruelty for too long, but that is not what it really stands for. If we are going to be successful in moving past this point in American history, voices like Scott’s—voices that call for responsibility, protection, and purpose—need to be boosted.

To check out Scott Galloway or his book, Notes on Being a Man.

I am not done yet.

I often find myself delaying action, sizing up the target for the umpteenth time. Somewhere embedded in my brain is a recurring message: “You’re not quite there; you need a little more ________.” I tell myself it’ll be the next self-help book that finally unlocks it all. But it has been a long time since I felt authentically inspired.

The weight of the world hasn’t helped. I’ve had to make a new rule for myself: no more WWII or Holocaust documentaries for the foreseeable future. I’m fascinated by them, but they don’t help my depression. These days, I do more work on my mental health than my physical—though I’ve been consistent there, too—because it is significantly harder to stay sober when you are actively drowning in PTSD.

The secret to my sobriety has been understanding the old adage: “Alcohol is a symptom.” But a symptom of what, exactly? For me, it was a symptom that I had given up on life and checked into Hotel “Who Gives a Fuck.”

“There is nothing unique or ‘artistic’ about drinking liters of vodka and passing out in your own piss. Not even close.”

For most of my drinking career, I was a blackout drinker. There were a few “normal” years at the start, but even then, I was the one staying up after everyone else had gone to bed to finish a few more Old Fashioneds. It was obvious to any outsider that I was trending in the wrong direction.

Today, I take a strange pride in the fact that the only reason I’ve changed my bedding in the last three years is that I wanted a new color. I cannot tell you how many IKEA bedspreads I burned through in California. I would wake up from a bender, check the sheets, and immediately start drinking again just to kill the anger and frustration of having ruined yet another set

.

To stop that cycle, I had to make my sobriety my absolute priority. I mean that literally. Every situation, job, relationship, or person is subject to immediate removal from my life. It is “employment at will” only; interaction at will.

It sounds harsh. It sounds extreme. Because it is. But it has kept me sober. All I need to do is remind myself that, “everyone aint for me, and I aint for everyone.”

The Cost of Grit

When I sense something is off, I move quickly to make a correction. I have finally learned to listen to my body, a skill that was once entirely foreign to me. As an athlete, you are taught to ignore your body. You push through pain and fatigue to achieve. That grit is an asset in the trenches, but unchecked, it becomes an Achilles’ heel.

When I was a Graduate Assistant at Stanford, the “pushing through” stopped working. Every morning, a level of nausea would hit me that couldn’t be kept down. I would throw up violently before heading into the facility. I wasn’t drunk or hungover; I was experiencing severe PTSD symptoms and had no idea what was happening.

“I treated a medical fire with ‘hustle,’ and all I did was burn the house down.”

I assumed the anxiety would fade with experience—that the vomiting was just “stress and excitement.” In the world of elite sports, pain is an opinion and fatigue is a choice. But PTSD doesn’t care about your scouting report. My body wasn’t asking for more “mental toughness”—it was signaling a biological breach.

It took years to come clean about my “psychosomatic” issues and realize these weren’t signs of weakness, but a medical condition that had a remedy. I truly believed I could just gut through it, but that level of physiological stress cannot be sustained. Eventually, I relapsed into alcohol and years of “forced reflection” (rehab).

The Cup of Coffee

I was frustrated to feel so handicapped. I felt determined to step out from the shadow of what I perceived as my failure at Boise State.

It’s hard to say I “played” for Boise. It’s more accurate to use the NFL phrase: “I had a cup of coffee with the Broncos.” I moved into the dorms in July and was off the team by October. But that short stay left a long shadow. Most people think of football trauma as concussions or blown knees, but for me, the injury was environmental.

The locker room—and the culture within those showers—became a site of profound stress that I didn’t have the tools to name, let alone process. I was a freshman trying to navigate a high-pressure culture while my body was beginning to broadcast a “code red” I kept trying to mute.

I take pride in being the highest-graded freshman offensive lineman in our fall scrimmage, but the success was short-lived. After a knee injury and a miserable rehab experience, I quit.

Looking back, I regret how I left. My playing days were over regardless—the doctors eventually recommended I never play again—but I was so self-conscious that I assumed my teammates hated me. I was wrong. Several senior linemen asked me to reconsider. If I had waited just a few more weeks, the medical staff would have retired me, and I could have left with my dignity intact.

But no. Apparently, my preferred style of learning is “the hard way.”

I still default to inaction. When it comes to fight or flight, I freeze. It’s taken years of very intentional practice to recognize this behavior pattern and work on changing it, but now I realize that the only way to keep the sheets clean is to trust my gut the second it speaks up—not three benders too late.

Join the Conversation

When did your greatest strength—your grit, your work ethic, or your “toughness”—actually become your biggest liability? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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To that point, I had been a “high-functioning” alcoholic. But the math was no longer adding up. One week, I was the guest of honor at the University’s banner intellectual event; the next, I was literally falling out of my chair in the computer lab on a Tuesday night in front of my classmates.

How could the “TEDx guy” be face-down while studying for midterms?

I so badly wish I could go back and sit that kid down. I’d tell him he was going to be okay—better than okay—if he would just put down the bottle. But back then, I thought alcohol was the engine of my success. I had navigated my sexuality, my social life, and even that TEDx stage (fueled by a double Jameson) under the influence. I told myself I’d take the truth of my sexuality to the grave—and with the way I was drinking, that grave was fast approaching.

The Projection of Success

It was a brutal experience, living under that constant shroud of fear. I was outwardly projecting “The Success,” but inwardly I was a 22-year-old drowning in a mountain of my own making. While the TEDx Talk was doing much better than I expected, I was doing much, much worse.

Much of this was self-inflicted—a mix of immaturity and being way over my head. At the same time, I was navigating a professional “divorce.” I was leaving my high school alma mater to take a coaching job with our cross-town rival.

I’ll never forget the coaching conference shortly after my TEDx talk. I was doing my absolute best to hide the booze on my breath—my first “professional” appearance since the talk. I was shitting myself. My hands are shaking even now, just typing this.

I ran into Tony Burgarello. Tony is “one of one”—a legendary coach and a bar owner who can sniff out a hangover from a mile away.

“Had a great night, did ya!?” Burg barked with excitement, patting me on the back. I caught the eye of Coach Snelling. His look said it all: Really, Shane? At nine in the morning? I did my “alcoholic best” to play it off as a normal college night. Then, Burg launched into a classic rant about how ridiculous homophobia is. His support was raw and authentic. Then he dropped the bomb: “Coach Howren wants a word with you.”

The Open Door

In Nevada, Ernie Howren is the standard. His teams were the most physical, disciplined groups I’d ever played against. As I walked toward an offensive line clinic, Coach Howren pulled me outside.

“I want to congratulate you,” he said. “I don’t even know if those are the right words, but I think what you did is amazing. I actually think our guys could benefit from hearing from you. Would you be willing to come speak to our guys?”

I was floored. Head coaches don’t do that. But Ernie had the winning record and the community leeway to do what he wanted. He showed up for me exactly how I needed him to—forceful and out front.

I was projecting success to a legend, while privately, my life was disintegrating. My old coaching life was over, and the signal was clear: it was time to move.

The New Signal

That “signal” to move, as painful as it was at twenty-two, saved me. It led me to a new program, deepend my understanding of the game, and eventually to a Graduate Assistant coaching job at Stanford. It was the kind of upward trajectory that most coaches only dream of, and yet, I was carrying a secret that threatened to burn the whole thing down.

It eventually led me to the sobriety I’ve fought for ever since.

Now, ten years later, I’m feeling that familiar itch again. That “it’s time to move” vibration in the back of my skull.

For a decade, I’ve tried to keep the messy parts of that kid tucked away behind the “Success Story” and the elite resumes. But I’ve learned the hard way that a secret is just high-octane fuel for an addiction. You can’t outrun a collapse.

I see that same weight in the people I love—friends, family, and even my fiancé—who are still navigating the suffocating math of what to reveal and what to hide.

So, it’s time to move again. This time, “moving” means trading the curated highlight reel for the actual footage. There are people in my life who I hope one day, if they need it, will find some answers for themselves in my own experience.

Years ago, when I set out for California, my dad—the man who once told me, “Nobody wants to be the first”—looked at me and said, “Go change the world.”

Well Dad, here goes.

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