Ben May (umpire)
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Benjamin Joseph May (born January 23, 1982) is an American
umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French , , and , : (as evidenced in cricke ...
in
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
(MLB). He has worked in MLB since 2014, and wears number 97.


Early life

A native of
Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River (Wisconsin), Root River, south of Milwaukee and north of Chicago. It is the List ...
, May comes from an athletic family and graduated from St. Catherine's High School in 2000 and from
Marquette University Marquette University () is a Private university, private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It was established as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, by John Henni, the first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Ar ...
in 2005. He has a twin brother, Bill, who works and lives in Milwaukee, WI.


Career

May umpired his first MLB games on April 14, 2014, working both games in a doubleheader between the
Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...
and
Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The team is named afte ...
. He worked a total of 187 games during his first three MLB seasons, and issued five ejections. In 2015, according to an investigation by the
Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in the Denver metropolitan area. it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 mil ...
, May had the highest percentage of challenged calls overturned (12 out of 13) in MLB. By the 2018 regular season he was found to be a top-ten performing home plate umpire in terms of accuracy in calling balls and strikes, based on a study conducted at
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
where over 350,000 pitches were culled and analyzed. In 2022, he was again rated as one of MLB's best umpires behind the plate, ranking in the 97th percentile for consistency and 70th percentile for accuracy. May was an umpire for the 2011
All-Star Futures Game The All-Star Futures Game is an annual baseball exhibition game hosted by Major League Baseball (MLB) in conjunction with the mid-summer MLB All-Star Game. A team of American League-affiliated prospects competes against a team of National League- ...
, and qualifying rounds of the
2013 World Baseball Classic The 2013 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, held from March 2 to 19, 2013. This was the third iteration of the WBC, following the two previous tournaments, held in 2006 and 2009. Unlike the tw ...
. In January 2022, May was promoted to be a full-time MLB umpire. He was tabbed to be one of six umpires at the 2024 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, four of whom would be making their MLB All-Star Game debut. May was featured on the cover of the ''Virtual Umpire Camp'' DVD.


See also

*
List of Major League Baseball umpires (disambiguation) Lists of Major League Baseball umpires include: * List of Major League Baseball umpires (A–F) * List of Major League Baseball umpires (G–M) * List of Major League Baseball umpires (N–Z) See also * List of Major League Baseball umpiring ...


References


Further reading

*


External links


Retrosheet
1982 births Living people Sportspeople from Racine, Wisconsin Major League Baseball umpires {{US-baseball-umpire-stub