THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994                    TAG: 9406180077 
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS                     PAGE: 21    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Bill Leffler 
DATELINE: 940619                                 LENGTH: Medium 

UMPIRE BOB HOOD HAD MAJOR LEAGUE CLASS

``We want to recognize Bob Hood,'' said the announcer. ``He died yesterday.''

{REST} A listener asked: ``Who was Bob Hood?''

And that's as great a tribute as an umpire could ever receive.

Officials in any sport who do their jobs without attracting attention are the very best.

Hood, 54, umpired baseball across this area for nearly 30 years. He was the president of the Eastern Virginia Officials Association.

Our paths first crossed when I was covering the Norfolk Neptunes football team in the Continental League.

He was a native of Hemphill, W. Va. and came to Portsmouth in 1967 to look after his ailing parents, who had moved here earlier.

That same year Hood started playing softball.

He became acquainted with Herb Ripley, who was in charge of the Olive Branch Umpires Association, and accepted an invitation to join his crew.

For eight years Hood worked games in that association.

At that time I was coaching youth league teams and had many of the games with Hood as an umpire. Sometimes we didn't see eye to eye but never once can I remember questioning a call he made based upon interpretation of rules.

Occasionally he worked games in which his son was a participant. Never did anyone question Hood's objectivity or fairness.

Once he made a controversial decision to call a base runner out for interferring with a throw to first base on a bunt. Not many umpires would have made that call but Hood was never one to back down from what he deemed the proper decision.

There was little doubt that he was a man in charge when he umpired.

Umpiring became virtually a vocation for Hood. He started working high school games. He also began umpiring college baseball.

When the Eastern Virginia Officials Association was formed, Hood was a charter member. The level of umpiring was boosted by this organization as it offered extensive training, clinics and evaluations.

Hood worked many all-star games and tournaments but the highlight was his selection as an umpire for the Great Asian-American Challenge Cup Games in 1990. He was a crew chief for the games.

Funeral services for Hood, who died from a heart attack after an earlier slight stroke, were held Friday at the Chesapeake First Church of the Nazarene.

Somehow I found myself thinking this was the midst of the baseball season.

Each year, for Hood, that season ran from February through August.

``When it's over,'' he once told me, ``I work more games in a year than a major league umpire.''

He was a major league umpire.

by CNB