Do you know this guy? If you don’t you will. He’s our Umpire in Chief, for us simple folks that’s Head Umpire, Nick Mastrella.

Nick was born in Rochester, New York. His family moved to California and he graduated from high school in Burbank. He knocked around for a couple of years trying out various jobs including a stint in the advertising department of the LA Times. When his family moved back to New York he returned with them and enrolled at St. John Fisher College earning a degree in accounting.

Between his junior and senior year he married Carol, his wife of 47 years. His first job after becoming an accountant was with Stromberg-Carlson, an electronics communications company.

An opportunity for a career of a lifetime soon appeared. He was offered a job with Saga Food Services, a small company that was planning to move to California. Since he had fallen in love with California when he lived here as a teenager he jumped at the chance to join the company. It took a few years longer than they planned, but the company eventually moved to Menlo Park and Nick and Carol settled in Sunnyvale with their son and daughter.

While Nick managed the payroll department, the company expanded from college feeding to hospital feeding to restaurant ownership. At the time Marriott bought out the company it owned the Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus, Velvet Turtle and Straw Hat Pizza chains. After about a year of transition, in 1987 Nick turned down a transfer out of state and retired. For the next few years he had various part-time jobs that kept morphing into full time jobs that he didn’t want. He wanted to keep his afternoons free for his true love, officiating high school sports.

He got into officiating innocently enough. He had enjoyed coaching his son’s Little League team and when AYSO asked him to coach his daughter’s soccer team, he agreed. But worried that he didn’t know the sport; he attended every referee clinic he could find. An unexpected result was he learned that he enjoyed reffing as much as coaching.

He began officiating high school and college soccer, eventually expanding into volleyball, football, basketball and fast-pitch softball. He even had a job as controller at Fermar, the company that scheduled all the officials for high school sports in Santa Clara County. In fact, he told his boss that he wanted to do baseball games. His boss insisted that no, he wanted to do softball. Nick said, “Okay, why do I want to do softball?” and the boss replied: “The baseball games and softball games start at the same time and when you finish your game, you can go watch the baseball game. It’ll only be in the third inning.” It turned out the boss was right and softball became Nick’s favorite sport.

In 2003 Nick and Carol decided to leave the crowded Bay area. Being closer to their grandchildren sounded good and since their daughter and her three children live in Port Alexander, Alaska they decided to see what they could find near Grass Valley, the home of their son and other three grandchildren.

While driving through Lincoln Hills Nick saw the softball field and the car just seemed to turn into the park all by itself. Ed Krentz was just arriving in his umpire gear and Nick asked him what was going on. Ed explained about the league and the volunteer umpires and Nick sat down to watch. When Ed’s partner hadn’t shown up by game time he invited Nick to come out and help him umpire.

Nick and Carol continued over to the model homes, where Carol looked around and he headed for the cookies in the design center. Carol joined him and they talked to a man who was very stressed at making all the decisions about his house and Carol said, “This is not for me.” But the realtor they were working with in Auburn said she could find some re-sales.

They put their home up for sale and it sold the first day. They moved here in September of 2003. Shortly thereafter Nick ran into Dixie Wachter at the Wave and drawn by the soccer shirt she was wearing started a conversation about sports in general and reffing in particular. She told him that her husband, Artie also reffed. A few days later Artie called asking Nick to try out for the Coyote 65’s. He made the team and subsequently joined the league and played on Nick Fox’s winter ball team. During one game he offered to try pitching and it’s turned out to be his favorite position.

During the summer season of 2004 Nick met Steve Russo, the head umpire, and told him he had some experience umpiring slo-pitch in Los Gatos and would like to do some games here. When Steve was elected to the board, Nick was encouraged to become head umpire. He has enjoyed this position for the last two years. He instituted the three-man system during the winter league. It was a hit with both the players and umpires and will be used this season. Nick presently supervises some 37 umpires. He schedules three umpires for each of the 286 league games during the season. Also, he finds umpires for all playoff, All Star and championship games; not to mention providing umpires for the Coyote, Sun Eagle and Classic games played on our field. He also participates in rule changes and training the umpires when changes or problems arise. He is busy now organizing the umpires for an umpire clinic, league practice schedule and the beginning of league play.

When he is not down at the field he enjoys a round of golf and bowls and he and Carol enjoy playing pool. You can often find them at the lodge playing Shanghai and Chinese Mahjong. They also enjoy playing Pinochle with friends. They like to keep busy and say that’s the fun of living in Sun City Lincoln Hills.

Nick is on the road to recovery from by-pass surgery, so he is not planning on playing summer ball. However, he is confident that he will be on the field calling balls & strikes.